Category Archive: Finance
Empty Buildings And Wasted Debt: The Chinese Economic “Miracle”
There’s no doubt that the Chinese economic miracle is real. When you move 500 million people from rural to urban settings, taking them from small farms and putting them in a specialized labor force, the economic dividend is massive. That’s how you keep GDP growing more than 7% for 25 years. But along the way, they […]
PBOC Warns Of Elevated Debt; Risk Rockets Higher But Japan Lags
China has a debt problem, and most of the market is well aware of it at this point. We had written on this topic just a couple of months ago, noting that China’s increased debt-load across the country can make it even more difficult to recover from this most recent bout of weakness. Nonetheless, it was […]
Greenspan: Worried About Inflation, Says “Entitlements Crowding Out Investment, Productivity Is Dead”
Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan spoke with Tom Keene and Mike McKee for Bloomberg TV & Radio. He discussed the ramifications of negative interest rates, entitlement spending, and declining productivity. On the state of the U.S. and global economy, he said: “We’re in trouble basically because productivity is dead in the water.” On whether he […]
WTI Crude Oil And Natural Gas Forecast – March 21, 2016
WTI Crude Oil The WTI Crude Oil market initially tried to rally during the course of the session on Friday but found the area close to the $41 level to be far too much. That being the case, the market turned right back around to form a bit of a shooting star. With this, it […]
E The Whole Grail
Patti the Biotech Maven won plaudits for a US stock idea which I have written about from time to time, Illumina, ILMN, a developer of systems for sequencing a person’s genome, the key to personalized medicine according to Barron’s staffer Leslie Norton. Leslie, very much back in view in the magazine now that her son is going to school, […]
7-Deadly Investing Sins
I have often written about the emotional and psychological factors that inhibit long-term investment performance (most recently here). Despite repeated studies that suggest investors should just buy “passive index” funds and“hold on” until eternity, the reality is that it simply does not work that way. If you were raised in a religious household, or were sent to a […]
E The Death Of The Hedge Fund
Without question, this has been the quarter from hell for the hedge fund industry. It hasn’t helped that the big cap S&P 500 Index (SPY), has cratered by 14% and then immediately rocketed by 14% three times in the last 18 months, with NO net movement overall. The latest rally has seen the biggest move […]
U.S. Steel Downgraded To Underperform From Hold At Jefferies
Jefferies analyst Seth Rosenfeld downgraded U.S. Steel (X) to Underperform saying valuations in the steel space are “increasingly hard to justify” following the recent rally. The analyst expects steel pricing to lose momentum into summer. He has a $10 price target for shares of U.S. Steel. Rosenfeld this morning also downgraded Reliance Steel (RS), Commercial […]
Hail Mary
Over the past 30 years, many central banks have tried to re-order the natural drivers of economies. As opposed to savings and investment driving production and consumption, they moved consumption to the front of the line, meaning it came at the expense of savings and investment. These efforts disrupt the natural order of activities in […]
The State Of China’s Markets
The State of the China’s Markets FacebookTwitterGoogle+LinkedInRedditMore The Governor of the PBoC – Z. Xiaochuan – struck a cautionary note at the China Development Forum on Sunday the 20thMarch 2016. According to him, the Debt/GDP ratio has increased dramatically, and is fast approaching untenable levels. Some other concerns that dog the Chinese economy include an […]
