Aa's Weekend Reading (October 30,2009)

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Here are this week's selec­tions of arti­cles for your week­end read­ing plea­sure. Wish­ing you and your fam­ily a safe and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

The His­tory of Jack O' Lanterns — History.com

October-23–09, 12:50 PM

Pump­kin carv­ing is a pop­u­lar part of mod­ern America's Hal­loween cel­e­bra­tion. Come Octo­ber, pump­kins can be found every­where in the coun­try from doorsteps to din­ner tables. Despite the wide­spread carv­ing that goes on in this coun­try every autumn, few Amer­i­cans really know why or when the jack o'lantern tra­di­tion began. Or, for that mat­ter, whether the pump­kin is a fruit or a veg­etable. Read on to find out!

Fight Off Back Aches & Pains This Win­ter With Extra Vit­a­min D

October-26–09, 4:29 PM

It's no won­der that many peo­ple feel extra sore­ness and aches in their backs dur­ing win­ter months — they're often not get­ting enough vit­a­min D. The body makes vit­a­min D from the sun's ultra­vi­o­let rays, so it's known as the sun­shine vit­a­min. How­ever, even in the sun­ni­est parts of Amer­ica, this essen­tial vit­a­min for keep­ing bones healthy is in short sup­ply dur­ing late fall and winter.

French women don't get fat, but they do get work-life bal­ance — The Globe and Mail

October-27–09, 9:32 AM

Five years ago, Mireille Guil­iano rejected the notion of American-style depri­va­tion diets in her inter­na­tional best­seller French Women Don't Get Fat. Instead, her pleasure-oriented approach to stay­ing thin com­bined clas­sic prin­ci­ples of Gal­lic gas­tron­omy, time-honoured secrets of French women and com­mon sense. In her new book, Women, Work & the Art of Savoir Faire, Ms. Guil­iano tack­les women and their careers in sim­i­lar style — apply­ing her joie de vivre to the top­ics of advance­ment, lead­er­ship, risk-taking and, above all, achiev­ing plea­sure and balance.

Hav­ing pasta? Put away the sauce and grab the wine — Today: Food: Recipe

October-28–09, 10:38 AM

Add a new taste to pasta: Red wine spaghetti

Michael Chiarello's deli­cious dish is a cel­e­bra­tion of bold Ital­ian fla­vors
TODAY recipes
updated 5:34 p.m. ET, Tues., Oct . 27, 2009
Tired of your same old spaghetti and tomato sauce dishes? Michael Chiarello can help. The chef and author shares his bold and fla­vor­ful recipe for red wine spaghetti with spicy broc­coli rabe and Pecorino Romano.

David Sax wants to Save the Deli — Book Portal

October-29–09, 11:57 AM

Some­times my job is so tough. Twist my arm, I had to read a fas­ci­nat­ing book about Jew­ish cul­ture and deli foods, then meet the author for a deli­cious and deca­dent lunch (red meat AND french fries is deca­dent, wouldn't you say?).

Rais­ing Money-Savvy Chil­dren — Oprah.com

October-30–09, 10:36 AM

If your child wants some­thing at a toy store, bring the toy off the shelf and talk to him about how much it costs and how he could devise a plan to one day buy the toy. "I'm not going say, 'No, you can't afford that,' and 'No, you can't have it.' I'm going to bring it down and talk about it and try to empower the child so that they feel able, capa­ble and respon­si­ble and also learn some things about money at the same time," Chick says

Sources: History.com | Med­ical News Today | Globe and Mail | MSNBC.com | CBC | Oprah.com

Tags: Book Women, Classic Principles, Delicious Dish, Dinner Tables, Doorsteps, Fall And Winter, Food Recipe, French Women, Globe And Mail, Globe Mail, Halloween Celebration, Happy Halloween, International Bestseller, Jack O Lantern, Jack O Lantern History, Mail Advertisement, Medicalnewstoday, Michael Chiarello, New Taste, Oriented Approach, Pumpkin Carving, Reading Pleasure, Red Wine, Source History, Theglobeandmail, Ultraviolet Rays, Vitamin D, Weekend Reading, Women Work, Work Life Balance, Www History
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

Central Banks Giveth, Central Banks Taketh Away

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Two arti­cles pub­lished within a few weeks tell a com­pelling story of cause and effect. The first by Michael McKen­zie, FT.com, is a his­tory les­son. The sec­ond, by one of the finest finan­cial colum­nists, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, serves as a warning.

Cen­tral banks fuel risky assets, By Michael Macken­zie in New York

Octo­ber 16 2009 20:56 | Last updated: Octo­ber 19 2009 09:24

Thanks to gen­er­ous liq­uid­ity sup­port from cen­tral banks, risky assets have been mov­ing in a broad rela­tion­ship for some time, and this week sev­eral mar­kets reached or approached key levels.

Of all the major mar­kets, equi­ties are the main barom­e­ter of risk tak­ing. This week shares in Aus­tralia, Hong Kong, India, Rus­sia, Europe, Lon­don, Brazil and New York all hit fresh peaks for at least the past 12 months.

Ris­ing appetite for risk was per­haps most appar­ent in the US crude oil price break­ing above $75 a bar­rel, which was its high in late August and had pre­sented a bar­rier for oil bulls since June.

Cen­tral banks chill asset rally, by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Octo­ber 30, 2009

The liq­uid­ity tide is turn­ing. Author­i­ties across large parts of the world have either begun to tighten the spigot or are tak­ing steps to wean their economies off emer­gency stim­u­lus. This is a treach­er­ous moment for markets.

Oil-rich Nor­way raised rates a quar­ter point to 1.5pc on Wednes­day, the first Euro­pean coun­try to move since the cri­sis. Gov­er­nor Svein Gje­drem said asset prices have "risen sharply and prob­a­bly exces­sively". The Norges Bank is tak­ing pre-emptive action to choke off a prop­erty bub­ble, though man­u­fac­tur­ing remains slug­gish. The era of "asset tar­get­ing" has begun.

Aus­tralia took the plunge ear­lier this month. It dodged reces­sion over the win­ter and has since been lifted by China's tor­rid demand for com­modi­ties. Israel kicked off in August.

Source: FT.com | Tele­graph UK

Tags: Ambrose, Asset Prices, Brazil, BRIC, BRICs, Cause And Effect, Central Banks, China, Commodities, Crude Oil Price, Emerging Markets, Evans Pritchard, History Lesson, India, Last Updated October, Late August, Liquidity Support, Michael Mackenzie, Michael Mckenzie, Norges Bank, oil, Quarter Point, Risky Assets, Russia Europe, Spigot, Taking Steps, Telegraph Uk, Torrid
Posted in Brazil, Emerging Markets, India, Markets | Comments Off

Recession is History, Economy Back in Business

Friday, October 30th, 2009

This post is a guest con­tri­bu­tion by Asha Ban­ga­lore * of The North­ern Trust Com­pany.

The reces­sion is behind us. Real gross domes­tic prod­uct of the U.S. econ­omy grew at an annual rate of 3.5% in the third quar­ter after a 0.75 drop in the prior quar­ter. This is the first increase of real GDP after a string of four quar­terly declines. Real GDP has declined in five out of the six quar­ters of the recession.

The Busi­ness Cycle Dat­ing Com­mit­tee of the National Bureau of Eco­nomic Research will make the offi­cial announce­ment after it con­firms the turn­ing point based on revi­sions of eco­nomic data. This reces­sion is the longest on record in the post-war period and the deep­est also. Real GDP has declined 3.8% from the peak in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2008 to the trough in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2009. This is the largest peak-to-trough decline of real GDP in the post-war period (see table 1).

In the third quar­ter, con­sumer spend­ing accounted for the largest part of the growth in real GDP, fol­lowed by exports, inven­to­ries and res­i­den­tial invest­ment expen­di­tures. Of these four com­po­nents, exports and inven­to­ries are most likely to con­tinue to make large con­tri­bu­tions in the quar­ters ahead. Con­sumer spend­ing is pro­jected to advance in the quar­ters ahead but at a notice­ably slower pace. The surge in auto sales from the “cash for clunk­ers” pro­gram in the third quar­ter pro­vided the tem­po­rary lift to con­sumer spending.

Res­i­den­tial invest­ment expen­di­tures grew at an annual rate of 23.4% in the third quar­ter, after a string of four­teen quar­terly declines. Third quar­ter spike is encour­ag­ing but it is unclear if the robust pace will remain durable. The $8000 first-time home buyer tax credit pro­gram helped boost home sales in addi­tion to low mort­gage rates and home prices.

Final sales to domes­tic pur­chasers increased at an annual rate of 3.0% in the third quar­ter. The 2.3% increase in gov­ern­ment expen­di­tures is expected to show a more robust gain in the near term, which should show the impact of fis­cal spend­ing plan envis­aged for 2010. The GDP price indexes sug­gest that infla­tion is con­tained, again under­scor­ing that infla­tion is not the pri­mary issue at the present time.

Going for­ward, the lift to the head­line GDP num­ber in the third quar­ter is partly from future auto sales, which implies that con­sumer spend­ing and GDP growth are most likely to show more muted growth in the fourth quar­ter of 2009 and first quar­ter of 2010. The Fed is hold for sev­eral months until it is con­firmed the unem­ploy­ment rate has peaked.

Source: Asha Ban­ga­lore, North­ern Trust Daily, Octo­ber 29, 2009.

* Asha Ban­ga­lore is vice pres­i­dent and econ­o­mist at The North­ern Trust Com­pany, Chicago. Prior to join­ing the bank in 1994, she was con­sul­tant to sav­ings and loan insti­tu­tions and com­mer­cial banks at Finan­cial & Eco­nomic Strate­gies Cor­po­ra­tion, Chicago.

Tags: Auto Sales, Business Cycle, Consumer Spending, Economic Data, Economic Recession, First Time Home, First Time Home Buyer, First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit, Government Expenditures, Gross Domestic Product, Inventories, Low Mortgage, Mortgage Rates, National Bureau Of Economic Research, Northern Trust Company, Post War, Real Gdp, Residential Investment, Time Home Buyer, War Period
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

George Soros lectures on Capitalism versus an Open Society

Friday, October 30th, 2009

This post fea­tures video record­ings of a lec­ture series by George Soros at the Cen­tral Euro­pean Uni­ver­sity in Budapest, dis­cussing cap­i­tal­ism ver­sus an open society.

Part 1:
Soros explores the “agency prob­lem” and its impact on both mar­kets and pol­i­tics. The principal-agent prob­lem, in which those who are to rep­re­sent oth­ers tend to place their inter­ests ahead of those they are sup­posed to rep­re­sent, poses a risk to eth­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions, and in Soros’s view under­mines val­ues nec­es­sary for the oper­a­tion of an open society.

Click here or on the image below to view the video clip.

Part 2:
He ana­lyzes the agency prob­lem inher­ent in the Amer­i­can polit­i­cal sys­tem. He believes the main cul­prit is a decline in pub­lic mor­tal­ity which he says is fos­tered by the rise of mar­ket fundamentalism.

Click here or on the image below to view the video clip.

Part 3:
Soros states that while cap­i­tal­ism is not directly opposed to an open soci­ety, it poses a major threat to its sur­vival. Because of oppo­si­tion, he believes mar­ket and polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pants should oper­ate in sep­a­rate spheres. Soros sum­ma­rizes the lec­ture with a pos­tu­late that a focus on the “cog­ni­tive func­tion” and on focus­ing on the pub­lic good will allow rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­racy to func­tion bet­ter, and even only a small num­ber of adher­ents to this would allow a new mid­dle ground to be rediscovered.

Click here or on the image below to view the video clip.

Click here for a tran­script of the lecture.

Source: Finan­cial Times (here, here and here), Octo­ber 29, 2009.

Tags: Adherents, Advertisement, Budapest, capitalism, Cognitive Function, Culprit, Decline, European Capitalism, Financial Times, George Soros, Lecture Series, Market Fundamentalism, Mortality, Opposition, Participants, Principal Agent, Representative Democracy, risk, Separate Spheres, Survival, Video Clip, Video Recordings
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

Dimon: "Better regulation" is needed

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Source: CNN Money, Octo­ber 27, 2009.

Tags: Advertisement, Cnn, Cnn Money, October 27, Video Source
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

A Reversal in CAD in Synch with Reversal in Markets

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Cana­dian cen­tral banker, Mark Carney's con­cerns about the strong Loonie are well known. It threat­ens Canada's eco­nomic recov­ery. Some cur­rency ana­lysts believe the Cana­dian dol­lar could test its $1.10 highs again. But what is Car­ney doing about it?

David Rosen­berg says we should embrace this period in Canada's eco­nomic his­tory. "For its part, the Bank of Canada has said that “per­sis­tent strength in the Cana­dian dol­lar” is going to “slow growth and sub­due infla­tion pres­sures.” So, in return for softer growth, what we get back is lower “infla­tion pres­sures.” The win­ner here is any­one who needs to bor­row money – a strong loonie will pre­vent the Band of Canada from tak­ing the interest-rate punch­bowl away any time soon."

But, last week, the Bank of Canada inter­rupted the Cana­dian dollar's ascent when it left rates at 0.25%, and down­graded eco­nomic growth prospects for 2010 and 2011. The dol­lar lost 2 cents. There is pres­sure though for the BoC to ease further.

Carney's wait-and-see stance on quan­ti­ta­tive inter­ven­tion, indi­cates he may not have to. Instead, he may be talk­ing through this, while wait­ing for the G20 to sort out the US dol­lar; in effect, a pol­icy of benign neglect.

At the G-20 meet­ing in Pitts­burgh in late Sep­tem­ber, lead­ers made com­mit­ments to pur­sue poli­cies to bring the world into greater eco­nomic bal­ance. Fol­low­ing that meet­ing, the ECB's Trichet said it is "extremely impor­tant" that U.S. author­i­ties pur­sue poli­cies sup­port­ing a strong dol­lar, and that exces­sive foreign-exchange volatil­ity is an "enemy."

There's another G20 meet­ing sched­uled for Nov. 6–7 in Scot­land, and it's most likely to serve as a forum where all con­cerns over the dollar's weak­ness will be aired. "I think there will be fire­works at the G20," said Stephen Jen, a well-respected cur­ren­cies investor at hedge fund Blue­Gold Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment in London.

The US is wal­low­ing in the advan­tage of a weaker dol­lar. Neil Mel­lor, Bank of New York cur­rency ana­lyst, says, "You can't con­tinue down this road with­out some­thing giv­ing way, and it's clear that the U.S. is not going to do any­thing to put meat on the bones of its strong-dollar policy."

US$450-billion has been sucked from money mar­ket funds (the dol­lar) into risky assets since March. Zero-percent-interest-rate pol­icy (ZIRP) crowded investors out of the money mar­ket and into risky assets. In the sim­plest of terms, the global equity mar­kets' sling­shot recov­ery has led to con­versely rapid deval­u­a­tion of the dollar.

Now, a "strong US dol­lar pol­icy," for which there is great polit­i­cal will glob­ally, appears to hinge upon a rever­sal of for­tune in mar­kets or con­certed mon­e­tary inter­ven­tion via the IMF, or both.

There­fore, the price of relief from the Loonie's climb could be a syn­chro­nized decline in com­mod­ity prices and equity mar­kets, in the near term. The repa­tri­a­tion of cash to US money mar­kets means a stronger US dol­lar, and thus a weaker Cana­dian dol­lar, hence the syn­chro­niza­tion with the rever­sal in equity mar­kets and com­modi­ties prices. Per­haps Car­ney is right to let the big play­ers sort out and tighten the US Dollar.

In newer devel­op­ments ear­lier this week, the US gov­ern­ment, per­haps under some pres­sure, showed signs that it is will­ing to with­draw stim­u­lus, thus tight­en­ing the Green­back, by clos­ing down the hous­ing tax credit, and call­ing on Bank of Amer­ica to repay its bailout by sell­ing shares. The mar­ket is react­ing poorly.

It begs the ques­tion — Is the tail wag­ging the dog?

If the stim­u­lus and zero inter­est rate pol­icy is respon­si­ble for the mar­kets' huge recov­ery, then what effect will indi­ca­tions now, of the US government's will­ing­ness to with­draw stim­u­lus, have?

Either way, it would be pru­dent, at this point, to take the polit­i­cal pres­sure from the world's other large economies to re-establish bal­ance with­out jeop­ar­diz­ing their own recov­er­ies, seriously.

Tags: Ascent, Bank Of Canada, Bank Of New York, Benign Neglect, Boc, Buybacks, Canadian Dollar, Canadian Market, Capital Management, Commodities, Currency Analysts, David Rosenberg, Dollar Policy, ECB, Economic Balance, Economic History, Economic Recovery, Finance Minister, G20 Meeting, Global Equity Markets, Gold, Growth Prospects, Hedge Fund, Inflation Pressures, Interest Rate Policy, Late September, Loonie, Mark Carney, Money Market Funds, Neil Mellor, Punchbowl, Resumption, Risky Assets, Strong Dollar, Trichet, Volatility
Posted in Canadian Market, Emerging Markets, Gold, Markets | Comments Off

Technical Talk: Fatigue sets in on stock markets

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

The com­ments regard­ing the Dow Jones Trans­porta­tion Aver­age were pro­vided by Kevin Lane of Fusion IQ.

“As seen below, the Dow Jones Trans­porta­tion Aver­age (TRAN) has stalled and turned down from resis­tance at the 4,075 level (red lines) twice in the past few months. This inabil­ity of the trans­ports to get above this level sug­gests at the very min­i­mum the economy’s recov­ery path is being called into question.

“Tech­ni­cally the index is cur­rently test­ing the lower end of its upward slop­ing chan­nel (green line). While in the short run the index may find a shal­low bounce from this level, the fail­ure twice now at a key resis­tance level is the greater trump card.

“The bur­den of proof now rests on the trans­port bulls and the index is an under­weight sec­tor that we expect to con­tinue to under­per­form until it can work above resistance.”

Regard­ing the S&P 500 Index, Adam Hewi­son (INO.com) sounded a cau­tious note as explained in one of his pop­u­lar tech­ni­cal analy­sis pre­sen­ta­tions. Click here to access the presentation.

Source: Kevin Lane, Fusion IQ, Octo­ber 27, 2009.

Tags: Bounce, Bulls, Burden Of Proof, Cautious Note, Dow Jones, Dow Jones Transportation, Failure, Fatigue, Fusion, Ino, Iq, October 27, Presentation Source, Recovery Path, Resistance Level, Stock Markets, Transportation Average, Transports, Trump Card
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

David Rosenberg: Stocks Overvalued by at Least 20%

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

The stock mar­ket has become over­heated since explod­ing off its March lows and could be in for a strong cor­rec­tion, econ­o­mist David Rosen­berg told CNBC.

“It is over­val­ued by at least 20%,” Rosen­berg, for­merly chief econ­o­mist at Mer­rill Lynch and now with Gluskin Sheff & Asso­ciates, said in an inter­view. “But it comes down to what your view in cor­po­rate earn­ings (is) going to be. By the time you’re up 60% from any egre­giously over­sold low, you’ve already got the earn­ings recovery.”

Source: CNBC, Octo­ber 27, 2009.

Tags: Chief Economist, Cnbc, Corporate Earnings, David Rosenberg, Gluskin Sheff, Lows, Merrill Lynch, October 27, Stock Market, Stocks
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

Bill Gross: Investment Outlook (October 2009)

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Bill Gross, co-founder and co-CIO of PIMCO, is to my mind one of the shrewdest money men around. His monthly newslet­ter, this month enti­tled “Mid­night Can­dles”, there­fore always makes for thought-provoking reading.

He con­cludes the newslet­ter as follows:

“Asset appre­ci­a­tion in US and other G-7 economies has been arti­fi­cially ele­vated for years. In order to pre­vent prices sink­ing even lower than recent down­trends aver­ag­ing 30% for stocks, homes, com­mer­cial real estate, and cer­tain high yield bonds, cen­tral banks must keep pol­icy rates his­tor­i­cally low for an extended period of time. If pol­icy rates are arti­fi­cially low then bond investors should rec­og­nize that arti­fi­cial buy­ers of notes and bonds (quan­ti­ta­tive eas­ing pro­grams and Chi­nese cur­rency fix­ing) have com­pressed almost all inter­est rates.

“But while this may sup­port asset prices — includ­ing Trea­sury paper across the front end and belly of the curve, at the same time it pro­vides lit­tle reward in terms of future income. Investors, of course, notice this inevitable con­clu­sion by ref­er­enc­ing Trea­sury Bills at .15%, two-year Notes at less than 1%, and 10-year matu­ri­ties at a pal­try 3.40%. Absent defla­tion­ary momen­tum, this is all a Trea­sury investor can expect. What you see in the bond mar­ket is often what you get.

“Broad­en­ing the con­cept to the US bond mar­ket as a whole (mort­gages + invest­ment grade cor­po­rates), the total bond mar­ket yields only 3.5%. To get more than that, high yield, dis­tressed mort­gages, and stocks beckon the investor increas­ingly beguiled by hopes of a V-shaped recov­ery and ‘old nor­mal’ mar­ket stan­dards. Not likely, and the risks out­weigh the rewards at this point.

“Investors must rec­og­nize that if assets appre­ci­ate with nom­i­nal GDP, a 4–5% return is about all they can expect even with abnor­mally low pol­icy rates. Rage, rage, against this con­clu­sion if you wish, but the six-month rally in risk assets — while still con­tin­u­ously sup­ported by Fed and Trea­sury pol­i­cy­mak­ers — is likely at its pin­na­cle. Out, out, brief candle.”

Click here for the full article.

Source: Bill Gross, PIMCO — Invest­ment Out­look, Novem­ber 2009.

Tags: Asset Appreciation, Asset Prices, Bill Gross, Bond Investors, Central Banks, Chinese Currency, Commercial Real Estate, Gross Co, Gross Investment, High Yield Bonds, Inevitable Conclusion, Investment Grade, Investment Outlook, Maturities, Money Men, Nominal Gdp, PIMCO, Rage Rage, Treasury Bills, Us Bond Market
Posted in Markets, Outlook | Comments Off

Weak dollar is protectionist barrier, says Bill Gross

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

The dol­lar is likely to con­tinue depre­ci­at­ing and the “new nor­mal” will see con­sumers shed­ding debt in an attempt to bal­ance their books, Bill Gross, the influ­en­tial man­ager who runs top bond fund Pimco, told CNBC Wednesday.

“I think the dol­lar is an over-owned cur­rency. The Chi­nese, the Asians have basi­cally owned too many dol­lars for too long,” Gross told “Squawk Box”.

The gov­ern­ment has increased bor­row­ing and this will make the dol­lar “more and more owned and less and less desir­able” but this is nec­es­sary for bal­anc­ing the world econ­omy, as it may result in higher pro­duc­tion in the US and lower pro­duc­tion in China.

Source: CNBC, Octo­ber 28, 2009.

Tags: Asians, Bill Gross, Bond Fund, Books, China, Cnbc, Consumers, Currency, Dollar Bill, Emerging Markets, PIMCO, Squawk Box, Weak Dollar, World Economy
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

Stocks and risky assets stumble

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

I con­cluded a post on stock mar­kets over the week­end say­ing: “After equi­ties’ seven-month climb, stock mar­kets cer­tainly look vul­ner­a­ble for a decline. Two down­side rever­sal days — on Wednes­day and Fri­day — would seem to indi­cate that stocks could com­mence a pull­back to work off the over­bought con­di­tion, allow­ing fun­da­men­tals to reassert themselves.”

Global stock mar­kets, as well as other risky assets, closed sharply lower over the past few days as con­cerns mounted over the sus­tain­abil­ity of the global eco­nomic recov­ery and the out­look for cen­tral bank policy.

The per­for­mance of the major asset classes is sum­ma­rized by the charts below, with the top one show­ing the period from the March 9 stock mar­ket lows until Octo­ber 19 peak and the sec­ond one the sub­se­quent period. The num­bers indi­cate an all-change pat­tern in the per­for­mances as risk aver­sion re-entered finan­cial mar­kets and gov­ern­ment bonds and the US dol­lar regained some favor.

Source: StockCharts.com

Source: StockCharts.com

A sum­mary of the move­ments of major global stock mar­kets since the March 19 peak, as well as var­i­ous other mea­sure­ment peri­ods, is given in the table below.

The MSCI World Index and the MSCI Emerg­ing Mar­kets Index have declined by 5.3% and 6.2% respec­tively since the highs of Octo­ber 19, with mar­kets like Ire­land (‑13.2%), Brazil (-10.5%), Aus­tria (-10.8%) and Bel­gium (-9.0%) falling by sig­nif­i­cantly more. Also, higher risk indices such as small caps have borne the brunt of the sell­ing, with the Rus­sell 2000 Index down by 9.0%. This is a pat­tern that one would expect as investors shift the empha­sis to higher quality.

Click here or on the table below for a larger image.

The major moving-average lev­els for the bench­mark US indices, the BRIC coun­tries and South Africa (where I am based) are given in the table below. A num­ber of indices, includ­ing the S&P 500 Index, have fallen below their 50-day mov­ing aver­ages over the past few days, but all the indices are still hold­ing above their respec­tive 200-day mov­ing aver­ages. The 50-day lines are also above the 200-day lines in all instances.

The Octo­ber lows are also given in the table as a break below these lev­els would indi­cate a rever­sal of the uptrend since March, i.e. revers­ing the pro­gres­sion of higher reac­tion lows.

Click here or on the table below for a larger image.

Over the past few days a num­ber of com­men­ta­tors have made pro­nounce­ments about the extent of a pos­si­ble decline. For exam­ple, Jeremy Grantham (GMO) expects the S&P 500 to drop by 15% to 25%, David Rosen­berg (Gluskin Sheff & Asso­ciates) sees mar­kets falling by 20% and Doug Kass is look­ing at –5% to –12%.

This brings me to the topic of val­u­a­tions. Based on oper­at­ing earn­ings (i.e. strip­ping out every­thing that is bad), the his­tor­i­cal price/earnings (PE) mul­ti­ple of the S&P 500 is 27.0; using “as reported” (GAAP) earn­ings the fig­ure shoots up to a giddy 95.7! Get­ting past the loss-making fourth quar­ter of 2008 and cal­cu­lat­ing prospec­tive mul­ti­ples through Decem­ber 31, 2009 reduce the val­u­a­tions to 19.0 and 24.4 respec­tively. Look­ing fur­ther out to the end of 2010, the prospec­tive PEs are 14.1 and 22.9 respec­tively — still hardly the type of val­u­a­tions that will inspire one to be a buyer across the board. (The earn­ings esti­mates are cour­tesy of Stan­dard & Poor’s.)

Another way of look­ing at val­u­a­tion lev­els, and cut­ting through the uncer­tainty of hav­ing to fore­cast earn­ings, is by means of Robert Shiller’s cycli­cally adjusted price-earnings ratio (CAPE), effec­tively mut­ing the impact of the busi­ness cycle by aver­ag­ing ten years of earn­ings. Using rolling ten-year reported earn­ings, my research (based on Shiller’s method­ol­ogy, but includ­ing some refine­ments) shows that the “nor­mal­ized” price-earnings ratio of the S&P 500 Index is cur­rently 18.7. This com­pares with a long-term aver­age of just more than 16.3 and implies an over­val­u­a­tion of 15%. Con­sid­er­ing a geo­met­ric rather than an arith­metic aver­age of earn­ings, the over­val­u­a­tion increases to 25%. The graphs below show data since 1950, but the actual cal­cu­la­tions date back to 1871

Mean­while, David Rosen­berg high­lights that this is not the onset of a sus­tain­able sec­u­lar bull mar­ket as we had com­ing off the fun­da­men­tal lows of prior bear phases, such as August 1982, when:

• Div­i­dend yields were 6%, not sub-2%.

• Price-to-earnings mul­ti­ples were 8x, not 27x.

• The mar­ket traded at book value, not more than twice book.

• Infla­tion and bond yields were in dou­ble dig­its and headed down in the future, not near-zero and only headed higher.

• The stock mar­ket com­peted with 18% cash rates, not zero, and as such had a much higher hur­dle to clear.

• Sen­ti­ment was uni­ver­sally bear­ish; hardly the case today.

• Global trade flows were in the process of accel­er­at­ing as bar­ri­ers were taken down; today, we are see­ing trade flows recede as fric­tions, dis­putes and tar­iffs become the order of the day.

• A Reagan-led move­ment was afoot to reduce the role of gov­ern­ment with atten­dant pro­duc­tiv­ity gains in the future, as opposed to the infil­tra­tion by the pub­lic sec­tor into the cap­i­tal mar­kets, union sec­tor, econ­omy and of course, the realm of CEO compensation.

Back to chart­ing, Adam Hewi­son (INO.com) also sounded a cau­tious note on the out­look for the S&P 500 as explained in one of his pop­u­lar tech­ni­cal analy­sis pre­sen­ta­tions. Click here to access the presentation.

I con­clude with a com­ment from David Fuller (Fuller­money) who said: “At this stage of the bull cycle, I think a cor­rec­tion of approx­i­mately 10–15% for devel­oped coun­try stock mar­kets and some­what more for emerg­ing mar­kets would be good news for investors with cash to invest. Such a mean rever­sion towards ris­ing 200-day mov­ing aver­ages would blow the recent froth off val­u­a­tions and stem talk of an early change in mon­e­tary policy.”

I will bide my time while the fun­da­men­tals play catch-up. Mean­while, cau­tion remains the oper­a­tive word.

Tags: Asset Classes, Brazil, BRIC, Bric Countries, BRICs, Brunt, David Rosenberg, Downside, Economic Recovery, Emerging Markets, Financial Markets, Global Stock Markets, Government Bonds, Lows, Moving Averages, Msci Emerging Markets, Msci Emerging Markets Index, Msci World Index, October 19, Pullback, Risk Aversion, Risky Assets, Russell 2000 Index, Small Caps, Stock Market
Posted in Brazil, Emerging Markets, Markets, Outlook | Comments Off

Fatality Rate for Swine Flu (H1N1): Overreaction?

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Barry Ritholtz submits:

Whether it is a func­tion of the Recency Bias, or mere igno­rance,
this info­graphic sug­gests Swine Flu wor­ries are wildly overblown:

(h/t) Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture

Tags: Advertisement, Barry Ritholtz The Big Picture, Bias, Fatality Rate, Flu, Infographic, Overreaction, Swine Flu, Worries
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

One Indicator the Government Can't Ignore

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Adam Hewi­son, of INO.com/MarketClub, says the CRB index is one of the most valu­able eco­nomic indicators.

"There is an indi­ca­tor which has been around since 1957. It has accu­rately fore­casted every infla­tion­ary and defla­tion­ary cycle since.

I believe that this is the indi­ca­tor that every­one should watch. If you trade stocks or futures and are inter­ested in world trade trends, this is the indi­ca­tor to track."

Click here or on the image to view it:

Tags: Advertisement, Crb Index, Economic Indicator, Economic Indicators, Futures, Image View, Ino, Marketclub, Trade Stocks, Trade Trends
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

Richard Bernstein: Once a huge market bear, now a bull

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

The arti­cle below is a guest con­tri­bu­tion by Edward Har­ri­son, writer of the widely-read Credit Write­downs blog.

Richard Bern­stein has done a huge rever­sal in the last few months from tout­ing low-risk stocks to high-beta ones. He has gone from a pref­er­ence for con­sumer sta­ples to one for con­sumer cycli­cals (XLY). And he has gone from lugubri­ous doubter of a sus­tain­able recov­ery to an almost V-shaped optimism.

What is remark­able about the trans­for­ma­tion is the dichotomy between his views and his for­mer Mer­rill Lynch col­league David Rosenberg’s. The two were tied at the hip at Mer­rill, pro­duc­ing research that was out of step with the bull­ish con­sen­sus yet painstak­ingly substantiated.

Just five months ago, back in May, I caught Bern­stein on Bloomberg and he was ques­tion­ing whether we would get any recov­ery at all.  I wrote then:

“Richard Bern­stein asks a very good ques­tion in a wide-ranging inter­view with Bloomberg.  Now that the so-called green shoots are dom­i­nat­ing the news cov­er­age and the S&P 500 is up a mas­sive 34% from its March lows, one might think we are due for a pretty Robust V-shaped recov­ery.  Is that what the future holds?

“Bern­stein doesn’t think so.  He thinks the recov­ery will be more muted than most peo­ple think.  For this recov­ery to have any legs Bern­stein believes we need to move away from the ‘credit-induced’ dynamic of the pre­vi­ous 5 to 15 years.  This nec­es­sar­ily means that finan­cials will not be lead­ers in a sus­tain­able bull mar­ket because we will have a lot less lever­age in the sys­tem. This also means that the core earn­ings power in the sec­tor is a lot less than peo­ple think. Bern­stein thinks the finan­cial sec­tor has got­ten way ahead of itself — a view I am begin­ning to share after today’s junk rally.”

Bern­stein went on to say that there was still huge over­ca­pac­ity in finan­cial ser­vices and that we needed to shed this capac­ity if we wanted to see a good return on invest­ments in the sec­tor. At the time, I was more bull­ish on the finan­cial sec­tor (although I also wor­ried expec­ta­tions were get­ting ahead of them­selves; I am now bear­ish). I saw upside because the over­ca­pac­ity cou­pled with low inter­est rates was an invi­ta­tion to seek risk, a view that has been borne out in recent months.

“As to the bailouts and the gov­ern­ment plan, Bern­stein believes that the gov­ern­ment is attempt­ing to keep the excess capac­ity in the finan­cial sec­tor alive.  His basic point is that bub­bles cre­ate over­ca­pac­ity (think tech stocks).  This is the case in finance.  The sec­tor must shrink.  In my own, there are only two ways a sec­tor in over-capacity can per­form.  They can have poor earn­ings (Bernstein’s first point) or they can seek heavy risk tak­ing and reach for yield.”

Just as I am switch­ing the other way, so too is Bern­stein.  Wit­ness the lat­est Bern­stein appear­ance on CNBC last week.

“It seems even the most bear­ish mar­ket mavens can’t fight the bull­ish momen­tum in this stock mar­ket. Wait until you find out who’s now a buyer of stocks.

“Richard Bern­stein, the for­mer Mer­rill Lynch chief invest­ment strate­gist, and one of the biggest bears we know is chang­ing his tune.

“Peo­ple like me have under­es­ti­mated the rebound, Bern­stein says. What’s made him a believer?

“You might remem­ber the last time Bern­stein was on Fast Money he told the traders — at the foun­da­tion of the stock mar­ket and the recov­ery is jobs. The mar­ket can’t sus­tain itself unless peo­ple are brin­ing home the bacon.

“And although the unem­ploy­ment rate con­tin­ues to rise Bern­stein is more focused on ini­tial job­less claims which he and many oth­ers con­sider a lead­ing indi­ca­tor. And that num­ber has started to decline.

“In fact, when they were reported last week new job­less claims dropped to the low­est level since Jan­u­ary. And that trend com­bined with low infla­tion likely means Amer­i­cans will regain their appetite for spending.

“Another way of say­ing that is — the econ­omy is slowly get­ting bet­ter. ‘if you believe in the recov­ery this is the prime time to be a value investor.’”

Bern­stein added that one wants to load up on risk now if one believes in the recov­ery. Junky names are the best as they have more lever­age to a rebound.  This is cer­tainly the play right now (but I think it has more to do with inter­est rates than recov­ery). I had seen Bern­stein say­ing exactly this last month, but he was not yet con­fi­dent that the jobs pic­ture had turned. Appar­ently, he is now and rec­om­mends going all-in, a rec­om­men­da­tion I would view with skepticism.

Source: Edward Har­ri­son, Credit Write­downs, Octo­ber 25, 2009.

Tags: Bloomberg, Bullish Consensus, Consumer Cyclicals, Consumer Staples, Core Earnings, David Rosenberg, Dichotomy, Edward Harrison, Financial Sector, Five Months, Good Question, Huge Market, Lows, Merrill Lynch, Overcapacity, Return On Investment, Return On Investments, Richard Bernstein, Risk Stocks, Sustainable Recovery, Xly
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

Jeremy Siegel: Stocks are attractive, even at these valuations

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Jeremy Siegel, Whar­ton School Pro­fes­sor and author of "Stocks for the Long Run,"  is inter­viewed by Dan Richards, of Strate­gic Imper­a­tives, and founder of a new resource, ClientInsights.ca.

You can view this inter­view by click­ing here or on the image. This is a good piece that you can share with your clients.

You can reg­is­ter to use the ClientInsights.ca resources free at ClientInsights.ca.

Tags: Ca Resources, Jeremy Siegel, School Professor, Stocks, Strategic Imperatives, Valuations, Wharton School
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

Charlie Rose in conversation with Stephen Roach

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Char­lie Rose sits down with Stephen Roach, chair­man of Mor­gan Stan­ley Asia and author of the new book The Next Asia — Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Chal­lenges for a New Glob­al­iza­tion, and dis­cusses China. Roach has been based in China for the past three years and describes why he loves it and what he has learned. A link to the tran­script of the inter­view fol­lows at the end of the post.

Click here or on the image below to view the video. (As there is no direct link to the clip, you need to click on “Archive” on the Char­lie Rose site, and then scroll down to the Roach video of Octo­ber 23.)

Click here for a tran­script of the interview.

Source: Char­lie Rose, Octo­ber 23, 2009.

Tags: Advertisement, Asia, Challenges, Charlie Rose, China, Emerging Markets, globalization, Interview Source, Morgan Stanley, Stephen Roach
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

Jeremy Grantham: “Fair value on the S&P is 860″

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Jeremy Grantham has become a famil­iar and very pop­u­lar face on this site. For those trea­sur­ing his insight, wis­dom and pre­scient calls, the co-founder and chief invest­ment strate­gist of Boston-based GMO has just pub­lished the Octo­ber edi­tion of his quar­terly newslet­ter enti­tled “Just desserts and mar­kets being silly again”.

Before quot­ing from the report, Grantham recently put mat­ters into per­spec­tive in a Kiplinger arti­cle, say­ing: “The recent rally has been very spec­u­la­tive, favor­ing risky assets over the past few months. I’m sorry if you missed invest­ing at the market’s March lows, but don’t com­pound the dam­age to your port­fo­lio by chas­ing gains in risky assets. We’re at the begin­ning of a seven-year period of lean returns. You should only be buy­ing the highest-quality blue-chip com­panies, where val­u­a­tions are most attractive.”

Here are a few excerpts from the Grantham’s newsletter.

“Cor­po­rate ex-financials profit mar­gins remain above aver­age and, if I am right about the com­ing seven lean years, we will soon enough look back nos­tal­gi­cally at such high prof­its. Price/earnings ratios, adjusted for even nor­mal mar­gins, are also sig­nif­i­cantly above fair value after the rally. Fair value on the S&P is now about 860 (fair value has declined steadily as the account­ing smoke clears from the wreck­age and there are still, per­haps, some smol­der­ing embers). This places today’s mar­ket (Octo­ber 19) at almost 25% over­priced, and on a seven-year hori­zon would move our nor­mal fore­cast of 5.7% real down by more than 3% a year. Doesn’t it seem odd that we would be mea­sur­ably over­priced once again, given that we face a seven-year future that almost every­one agrees will be tougher than normal?

“Price … does mat­ter even­tu­ally, and what will stop this mar­ket (my blind guess is in the first few months of next year) is a com­bi­na­tion of two fac­tors. First, the dis­ap­point­ing eco­nomic and finan­cial data that will begin to show the intractably long-term nature of some of our prob­lems, par­tic­u­larly pres­sure on profit mar­gins as the quick fix of short-term labor cuts fades away. Sec­ond, the slow grav­i­ta­tional pull of value as US stocks reach +30–35% over­pric­ing in the face of an extended dif­fi­cult environment.

“It is hard for me to see what will stop the charge to risk-taking this year. With the near uni­ver­sal­ity of the feel­ing of being left behind in rein­vest­ing, it is nerve-wracking for us pru­dent investors to con­tem­plate the odds of the mar­ket rush­ing past my ear­lier pre­dic­tion of 1,100. It can cer­tainly hap­pen. Con­versely, I have some mod­est hopes for a col­lec­tive sen­si­ble resis­tance to the cur­rent Fed plot to have us all bor­row and spec­u­late again. I would still guess (a well-informed guess, I hope) that before next year is out, the mar­ket will drop painfully from cur­rent lev­els. ‘Painfully’ is arbi­trar­ily deemed by me to start at –15%. My guess, though, is that the US mar­ket will drop below fair value, which is a 22% decline (from the S&P 500 level of 1,098 on Octo­ber 19).

“Unlike the really tough bears, though, I see no need for a new low. I think the his­tory books will be happy enough with the 666 of last February.”

Click here for the full report on Grantham’s rea­son­ing for his cau­tious stance.

Source: Jeremy Grantham, GMO, Octo­ber 2009.

Tags: Chief Investment Strategist, Co Founder, Desserts, Excerpts, Gmo, Guess, Horizon, Jeremy Grantham, Lean Years, Lows, October 19, Panies, Price Earnings Ratios, Profit Margins, Quarterly Newsletter, Rally, Risky Assets, S Market, Valuations, Wreckage
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

Gerald Celente: “There is no economic recovery– it’s a cover-up”

Monday, October 26th, 2009

In this video clip, James Cor­bert of thecorbertreport.com inter­views Ger­ald Clemete of TrendsReseach.com on the lie of the US eco­nomic land­scape. “There  is no eco­nomic recov­ery — it’s a cover-up,” says Celente.

The fol­low­ing on Celente via Wikipipedia:

Ger­ald Celente (born Novem­ber 29, 1946) is a United States trend fore­caster, pub­lisher of the Trends Jour­nal, busi­ness con­sul­tant and author who makes pre­dic­tions about the global finan­cial mar­kets and other events of his­tor­i­cal impor­tance. Celente has described him­self as a “polit­i­cal athe­ist” and “cit­i­zen of the world.”

An arti­cle in the Wash­ing­ton Times has claimed “Celente’s accu­rate fore­casts include the 1987 stock mar­ket crash, the col­lapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the 1997 Asian cur­rency crash” and “the 2007 sub­prime mort­gage scan­dal.” His fore­casts since 1993 have included pre­dic­tions about ter­ror­ism, eco­nomic col­lapses and war. More recent fore­casts involve fas­cism in the United States, food riots and tax revolts. Celente has long pre­dicted global anti-Americanism, a fail­ing econ­omy and immi­gra­tion woes in the US. In Decem­ber 2007 Celente wrote, “Fail­ing banks, busted bro­ker­ages, top­pled cor­po­rate giants, bank­rupt cities, states in default, for­eign cred­i­tors cash­ing out of US secu­ri­ties … what­ever the spark, the stage is set for panic in the streets” and “Just as the Twin Tow­ers col­lapsed from the top down, so too will the US econ­omy … when the giant firms fall, they’ll crush the man on the street.” He has also pre­dicted tax revolts. In Novem­ber 2008 Celente appeared on Fox Busi­ness Net­work and pre­dicted eco­nomic depres­sion, tax rebel­lions and food riots in the United States by 2012. Celente also pre­dicted an “eco­nomic 9/11″ and a “panic of 2008.”

In 2009 Celente pre­dicted tur­moil which he described as “Oba­m­aged­don” and he was a pop­u­lar guest on con­ser­v­a­tive cable-TV shows such as Fox News Sun­day and Glenn Beck’s tv pro­gram. In April 2009 Celente wrote, “Wall Street con­trols our finan­cial lives; the media manip­u­lates our minds. These sys­tems can­not be changed from within. There is no alter­na­tive. With­out a rev­o­lu­tion, these insti­tu­tions will bank­rupt the coun­try, keep fight­ing failed wars, start new ones, and hold us in per­pet­ual intel­lec­tual sub­ju­ga­tion.” He appeared on the Fox/Glenn Beck show and crit­i­cized the US stim­u­lus plan, call­ing gov­ern­ment con­trolled cap­i­tal­ism “fas­cism” and say­ing shop­ping malls in the US would become “ghost malls.” Celente has said, “smaller com­mu­ni­ties, the smaller groups, the smaller states, the more self-sustaining com­mu­ni­ties, will ‘weather the cri­sis in style’ as big cities and hyper­trophic sub­ur­bias descend into mis­ery and con­flict,” and fore­casts “a down­siz­ing of America.”

Source: The Cor­bett Report, thecorbettreport.com

You

Tags: Anti Americanism, Asian Currency, Citizen Of The World, Collapse Of The Soviet Union, Corbert, Corporate Giants, Currency Crash, Economic Depression, Economic Landscape, Food Riots, Fox News, Fox News Sunday, Gerald Celente, Giant Firms, Global Financial Markets, Immigration Woes, oil, Stock Market Crash, Subprime Mortgage, Tax Revolts, Trend Forecaster, Trends Journal
Posted in Markets | Comments Off

Face to Face with George Soros

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Chrys­tia Free­land, US man­ag­ing edi­tor of the Finan­cial Times, inter­viewed George Soros, the leg­endary fund man­ager, about the state of the world econ­omy, rela­tions between the US and China, his invest­ment per­for­mance and reg­u­lat­ing bankers’ com­pen­sa­tion. A link to the tran­script of the inter­view fol­lows at the end of the post.

Part 1: The world econ­omy and currencies

Click here or on the image below to view the video.

Part 2: The 2008 crisis

Click here or on the image below to view the video.

Part 3: Finan­cial reform

Click here or on the image below to view the video.

Click here for the tran­script of the interview.

Source: Chrys­tia Free­land, Finan­cial Times (click here, here and here), Octo­ber 23, 2009.

Or view it here:
Soros Tran­script

Tags: China, China Investment, Currencies, Emerging Markets, ETF, Face To Face, Financial Times, George Soros, Image View, Interview Source, Investment Performance, Managing Editor, Video Advertisement, World Currencies, World Economy
Posted in ETFs, Markets | Comments Off

Stock markets — Is the uptrend still intact?

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

“I take the action of the stock and bond mar­kets this week (and par­tic­u­larly today) very seri­ously. Extreme cau­tion is advised. The pri­mary trend of the mar­ket is bear­ish, and the sec­ondary trend may now be turn­ing down,” said Richard Rus­sell (Dow The­ory Let­ters) on Friday.

After equi­ties’ seven month climb, stock mar­kets cer­tainly look vul­ner­a­ble for a decline. Two down­side rever­sal days — on Wednes­day and Fri­day — would seem to indi­cate that stocks could com­mence a pull­back to work off the over­bought con­di­tion, allow­ing fun­da­men­tals to reassert themselves.

Bill King (The King Report) reported Art Cashin as say­ing that since June 2007 the Daily Sen­ti­ment Index (as pub­lished by Trade-Futures.com), which polls futures traders, has reported more than 90% bulls on the S&P only once. “When would you guess that time to be? July 2007? Octo­ber 2007? Wrong. It was last month … opti­mism has soared, from 2% bulls in March to 92% bulls in Sep­tem­ber. The lat­est read­ing is 90% bulls.”

The major moving-average lev­els for the bench­mark US indices, the BRIC coun­tries and South Africa (where I am based) are given in the table below. With the excep­tion of the Dow Jones Trans­porta­tion Index, which is trad­ing mar­gin­ally below its 50-day mov­ing aver­age, all the indices are still hold­ing above their respec­tive 50– and 200-day mov­ing aver­ages. The 50-day lines are also above the 200-day lines in all instances.

The Octo­ber lows are also given in the table as a break below these lev­els would indi­cate a rever­sal of the uptrend since March, i.e. revers­ing the pro­gres­sion of higher reac­tion lows.

Click here or on the table below for a larger image.

Still from a tech­ni­cal per­spec­tive, Adam Hewi­son (INO.com) sounded a cau­tious note on the Nas­daq Com­pos­ite Index as explained in one of his pop­u­lar tech­ni­cal analy­sis pre­sen­ta­tions. Click here to access the pre­sen­ta­tion. (The analy­sis was done on Tues­day, but is still as rel­e­vant today as it was a few days ago.)

Lowry’s Buy­ing Power Index has been declin­ing over the past few days, indi­cat­ing that buy­ing power might have exhausted itself and that short-term advances have been capped. With the Fed­eral Reserve Board sched­uled to end its quan­ti­ta­tive eas­ing pro­gram net Fri­day, I will bide my time while the fun­da­men­tals play catch-up. Mean­while, cau­tion remains the word.

Tags: 2 Bulls, Art Cashin, Bill King, Bond Markets, BRIC, Bric Countries, BRICs, Cautious Note, Dow Jones, Dow Jones Transportation, Dow Theory Letters, Extreme Caution, Futures Traders, Moving Averages, Nasdaq Composite Index, Richard Russell Dow Theory, Sentiment Index, Stock Markets, Technical Perspective, Trade Futures, Transportation Index, Uptrend
Posted in Emerging Markets, Markets | Comments Off