Good news and bad in the latest  investor confidence sounding from State Street. The overall index took a dive again — third month in a row — and is now barely above neutral. That’s the bad news if you are keen to see risk assets do well.

The good news is that despite three months of falling the index is still above 100, showing that risk appetite remains present among the U.S. financial services firm’s institutional investor cllients, albeit only just.

But add to that State Street’s findings that the fall in its global index was almost entirely due to Asian investors. The regional indices for North America and Europe both rose.

So heading into the last month of the year, with questions lingering about the state of the world economy and a strong desire among many to lock in this year’s profits, investors are still relatively bullish.

Will it last?

Hard to imagine with financial markets still buoyant and newspapers full of tales of bonus greed, but there is still the possibility that captialism will end.  At least there is according to prestigious investment consultants Watson Wyatt in their latest study called "Extreme Risks".

The firm listed the demise of the system of private ownership as one of 15 threats to investors and the global economy that probably won't happen but which it reckons are worth worrying about anyway. The idea behind the report is that such things as climate change, the break up of the euro zone and war are always worth being included in an investment risk management process.

As for the future of capitalism:

In our view, the most likely scenario is moving along from one end of a spectrum where market is king (minimum regulation) towards the other end, where we could see more onerous regulations and government intervention in, and control of, the economy. The extreme risk, however, is the demise of the capitalist system and the end of the market as the primary means of resource allocation.

And the impact:

The economy would be likely to run a higher risk of failure and economic growth would be sluggish in the long run due to lower productivity.  Centrally controlled economies tend to be characterised by shortages, which are inherently inflationary. Private investment activities would collapse or even be terminated. The end of capitalism is simply the ultimate extreme risk. The economy is likely to be associated with extreme uncertainty and a large amount of wealth destruction during the transition period.

Watson Wyatt does try to give its free market clients some hope, suggesting that buying gold may be one way to hedge against the propect of capitalism's demise. But it admitted that in such a circumstance investors would probably be more concerned about the return of their investments rather that the return on them.

(Illustration called The Communist Party, from Threadless)

Equities may be the poster child for this year’s market recovery, but corporate bonds have been the runaway outperformer.

As the graphic below shows, corporate debt was less volatile and moer profitable over the past nearly three years of crisis and recovery — even “junk” bonds.

This year’s performance for corporate bonds has been stunning. In December last year, the spread between global large cap company debt and U.S. Treasuries was 155 basis points, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. It has now narrowed to around 52 basis points.

The performance of high-yield, or “junk” bonds, has been even better. From a spread of 2,193 basis points in December, the BoA-ML global high-yield index now registers 773.

And what now? Investors still like the asset class, but there is evidence that the degree of passion may be cooling.

(Graphic: Scott Barber)

While Japan took few direct hits in the global credit crisis, the aftershocks have been immense, and long-lasting. The United States and Europe may now be showing some signs of recovery, but the world's second-largest economy is still straggling behind and gasping for air.

Predictably, equity markets reflect Japan's wheezy struggle. The Nikkei 225 is the worst performer among the benchmark indexes of the G7 nations, up just 10 percent so far this year. (The best performer, by the way, is Toronto at nearly 27 percent. The Dow has posted a respectable 17 percent return.)

Some discrepancy between Japan and other advanced industrialised nations is to be expected. Tokyo's top companies are largely exporters reliant on the United States, where consumer spending has been whiplashed by the recession. A resurgent yen, which drives up the price of Japanese goods overseas, hasn't helped either.

Consumer spending in Japan -- which never convincingly recovered from the crash of the asset bubble in the early 1990s -- is only poised to get worse, thanks to the lethal demographic cocktail of an ageing population and a shrinking birthrate.

But the reasons behind the Nikkei's poor performance aren't exclusively economic. Talk to a frustrated fund manager in Tokyo (believe me, they are very easy to find these days) and they'll tell you that even with the lousy earnings and a grim economic outlook, the biggest problem now is a rush of capital raisings that will heavily dilute the holdings of current shareholders.

"This is the biggest factor why Japanese shares lag behind U.S. and European shares," says Takeshi Osawa, senior fund manager at Norinchukin Zenkyoren Asset Management, referring to the recent rush by Japanese companies to issue new equity.

Japanese firms have already raised $40 billion through issuing common stock and convertible bonds this year, tapping the modest stock rebound for much-needed cash to replenish their reserves, and it doesn't look like it's going to end.

On Monday, Hitachi said it will raise up to 416 billion yen in a share sale. Shares of Hitachi, Japan's biggest electronics firm by sales, suffered their biggest one-day slide in six months after sources told Reuters about the public issue.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Japan's biggest bank, is likely to raise as much as 1 trillion yen by the end of the year, to meet stricter global capital regulations and increase lending in Asia, three sources said on Saturday.

Analysts expect that its smaller rivals Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group will eventually have to follow suit. Shares of Mizuho and Sumitomo Mitsui both fell after news of Mitsubishi UFJ's financial raising, even though the two smaller banks had posted consensus-beating second quarter results.

For investors, who watch in horror as their holdings sharply lose value, and Japan's recovery gets stalled, it is nothing short of infuriating.

Perhaps Koichi Ogawa, chief portfolio manager at Daiwa SB Investments, sums it up best. "I'm angry," Ogawa told me on Monday. "The world of investing isn't a charity."

Photo credit: REUTERS/Toru Hanai

Interesting dilemmas facing G20 countries as their finance ministers and central bankers get together on the golf ball strewn Scottish coast ( a meeting in St Andrews we will be Live Blogging on MacroScope, by the way).

First, you have the Brazilians who are worried about hot money and have already slapped a tax on foreign investments in domestic bonds and stocks in order to cool down capital inflows.  They want the G20 to take action against what their central bank chief calls "imbalance- and bubble-building".

Next you have the Americans and other big economies who know that the huge amounts of stimulus they have put into the world economy have to be removed eventually. They are not ready to do it yet, but expect the G20 countries to discuss how they are going to "sequence" the great unwinding.

And then there is Argentina, which is not alone in noticing that talk of unwinding tends to put investors on edge.  Its central bank governor wants the big countries to be careful, fearing a rapid reversal of stimulus policies could mean big outflows in emerging market countries such as, er, Argentina.

So a tricky balance, a super-sensitive investor audience, and plenty of domestic politics. Fore!

Last week was one of the worst for global equities in a long time. MSCI’s benchmark all-country index fell 4.3 percent, the most it has lost since the week ending March 8, just before this year’s stunning rally began. Emerging market stocks, meanwhile, dropped 5.6 percent in the week, the largest fall since mid- to late-February.

As if that was not enough, volatility soared. The VIX fear gauge leapt 37.8 percent in the week, nearly 30 percent alone on Friday. Cross-sectional volatility — volatility between stocks as opposed to just the index — is also rising as can be seen  (black line) in the graph to the right.

But might it all simply be a matter of timing? Credit Suisse estimates that 22 percent of mutual funds end their fiscal year at the end of October. So the big sell off could at least in part be due to managers ensuring their end of year profits look good.

(Graph: Scott Barber)

Investors smelling profits in commodities are using the sector as an early cycle play, alongside equities, because a lack of production capacity means higher prices sooner rather than later. 

Historically, prices of natural resources lag equities, which typically front run the economic cycle by between 18 to 24 months. The change is also partly due to the tumbling dollar, a major driver in recent weeks.

The natural resources sector is also one of the last to price in economic expansion. But not this time.

Global capacity utilisation rates in petroleum products and mining between 2002 and 2007 averaged more than 90 percent. Analysts estimate those levels fell to 80 percent — still very high — in July 2009.

In contrast, utilisation rates among manufacturing companies was estimated at around 65 percent last July from about 80 percent between 2002 and 2007. Equivalent numbers for the auto sector were 45 percent and 80 percent respectively.

The large output gap in manufacturing and the auto sector means production can ramp up easily without any bottlenecks when the global economy sees stronger growth, albeit from low levels.

Not so in commodities, where firms are running a tight ship.

Britain’s FTSE 100 seems to be almost impervious to any bad data that can be thrown at it. GDP data shocked the market showing the UK unexpectedly contracted in the third quarter.

Sterling tumbled more than a cent against the greenbackand gilts jumped while the FTSEurofirst 300 pan-European equity index trimmed gains considerably.

But Britain’s FTSE shrugged it off, hugging its 1 percent gains in the face of data which shows the UK economy is still ailing badly.

 It is the cosmopolitan nature of the FTSE which is keeping it buoyant. Miners and energy firms make up over 32 percent of the index, while miners banks, also very much global institutions make up a further 16 percent.

Howard Wheeldon on BGC Partners says:

“The FTSE is a function of globalalisation and trading conditions and growth elsewhere in the world have more of an impact than domestic growth. If the global recession is over and demand is picking up internationally, it’s all the more reason to close your eyes to
what’s going on in the tiny island that it happens to be registered in.”

It says a lot about the way investors are thinking at the moment that very good earnings from Goldman Sachs were greeted with a mini-stock selloff and a bounce for the dollar. But it is not that people are glum and selling even on good news — more a case of them being so ebullient that anything which is not outlandish is a disappointment.

The top-of-the-pile investment bank was supposed to report quarterly earnings of $4.24 a share.  Instead, it stormed in with $5.25 a share, a good 23 percent higher and an increase of 190 percent over the year earlier figure.

But on the wilder fringes of the market, speculation had been doing the rounds that the earnings-per-share figure would be around $6. It wasn’t, so Wall Street futures tanked, the dollar went positive and world stocks pared gains.

Remember, this was not because Goldman did not beat expectations. Neither was it because did not beat expectations by a lot. It was because they did not beat the so-called whisper number, which would have been a massive achievement.

JPMorgan may have raised the bar earlier this week when it came in with better results that forecast.

But does this not suggest that investors are now so positive about what is happening that their dreams are getting the better of them?

  By Neil Chatterjee
    The U.S. has promised it will hunt down tax evaders.
    And it seems tax evaders are on the run.
    DBS bank, based in the growing offshore financial centre of
Singapore, told Reuters it had been approached by U.S. citizens
asking for its private banking services. But when told they would
have to sign U.S. tax declaration forms, the potential clients
disappeared.  
    Swiss banks also approached DBS on the hope they could
offload troublesome U.S. clients to a location that so far has
not been reached by the strong arms of Washington or Brussels.
    DBS said no thanks. In fact many private banks and boutique
advisors now seem to be avoiding U.S. clients.
    Will this spread to other nationalities, as governments
invest in tax spies and tax havens invest in white paint?
    Is this the end of offshore private private banking?