Salient to Investors: Africa’s growing middle class and rising travel is fueling the fastest pace of hotel development in the world. Africa is buoyed by increasing trade with countries including China and rising demand for services such as lodging. The Economist Intelligence Unit says over half of African countries will post GDP of 5
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jeffrey Currie et al at Goldman Sachs said: They cut their 12-month commodity return forecast for the S&P GSCI Enhanced Commodity Index to 0.1 percent, maintained a neutral recommendation on raw materials, while precious metals and agricultural commodities may drop 8 percent and base metals will gain 6 percent.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A. Gary Shilling at A. Gary Shilling & Co writes: The total labor-force participation rates tend was 63.5 percent in June 2013 versus 67.4 percent in early 2000. The participation rates of 16-to 24-year-olds has declined sharply since 2000 as slow economic growth, limited jobs and rising unemployment rates have encouraged
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The S&P 500 Index’s advance to a record last week coincided with highs in the Russell 2000, the Dow Jones Transports, the S&P 500 Financials and Morgan Stanley’s gauge of economically sensitive equities. During the 4 biggest bull markets of the last 25 years, peaks in those indexes have come before the S&P
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: William Pesek writes: Rampant political dysfunction has stopped India’s progress cold. India is in a self-destructive pattern of relenting on the big issues, then killing would-be investors with the details. The lack of transparency and reliability makes it virtually impossible to consider long-term investments in India. India is proving
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jim Rogers writes: Stocks collapsed in 1987, 1989, 1990, 1994, 1997, and 1998 and everybody was convinced the bull market was over. The bull market was not over and eventually ended in a bubble. The same is happening with commodities. In agriculture, there is insufficient new supply to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Philip Scranton at Rutgers University writes: As in earlier economic recoveries, in 1933 US production began increasing more quickly than workers could find jobs – manufacturers commonly extended employees’ weekly hours instead of rehiring. To generate employment and wages gains much faster in the initial stages of the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Caroline Baum writes: The Fed’s forecast for improved half2 growth is just that – we’ve been waiting years for stronger growth. Many of the more hawkish Fed presidents have been uncomfortable with QE from the start, and are supported by little data on which to evaluate the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: AFK is the most actively traded Africa ETF and the first ETF to move to weighting holdings based on GDP of the countries it tracks. The vast majority of ETFs that focus on foreign countries and regions are weighted by market cap, which captures only the shares
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Stretched budgets and sluggish growth are putting emerging-market governments on a collision course with rising pressures from recently empowered middle classes for more spending and better services. Policy makers face the end to an era of abundant global liquidity that helped fuel the fastest expansion in three decades. The
READ MORE... →