Weekly Radar: Elections and housing in last big week of 2012
So an extra dose of medicine from the Fed on Wednesday helps smother global market volatility further into the yearend — even though naming an explicit 6.5% unemployment rate could well send Treasury bond volatility soaring as the current 7.7% rate likely approaches that level in 2014 just as the Fed low-rate pledge expires. Not a story for early next year maybe, but…
More nose-against-the-windshield, the busy end to this week – with the EU Summit today and December’s flash PMIs tomorrow – makes it difficult to clear the decks yet for yearend — at least not as much as market pricing and volumes would suggest. Moves to some form of EU banking union are already in the mix from Brussels, however, so another plus at the margins perhaps.
More pressure on global wages could backfire
LONDON (Reuters) – If rising income gaps are at least partly responsible for the global credit crisis, governments and companies should be wary of squeezing wages yet again to help rebuild their finances.
In the long buildup to the global financial crisis, households took on debt to offset the gradual fall in their incomes and consumption relative to the more wealthy.
Analysis: More pressure on global wages could backfire
LONDON (Reuters) – If rising income gaps are at least partly responsible for the global credit crisis, governments and companies should be wary of squeezing wages yet again to help rebuild their finances.
In the long buildup to the global financial crisis, households took on debt to offset the gradual fall in their incomes and consumption relative to the more wealthy.
Templeton’s Mobius still buying Egypt stocks
LONDON (Reuters) – Protests in Egypt have failed to deter veteran emerging market investor Mark Mobius, who said on Tuesday he is holding onto his Egyptian stock position and is looking to add more even as the latest crisis unfolds.
Mobius, executive chairman of Franklin Templeton’s emerging markets group, told Reuters in a telephone interview that while there was an international focus on the protests over Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi’s plans to vote on a new constitution, business continued as usual in many parts of the country.
Weekly Radar: China and Fed steal the show
Even though US cliff talks remain unresolved, many of the edges have been taken off seasonal yearend jitters elsewhere. Euro pressures have been kept under wraps since the Greek deal, the possibility of yet another Fed QE manoeuvre next Wednesday is back in play and a significant pulse has been recorded in the global economy via the latest PMIs – thanks in large part to China and the US service sector.US payrolls loom again tomorrow, but the picture is one of stabilisation if not full-scale recovery.
All this has kept markets pretty calm with a positive tilt as investors parse 2013. The Greek deal has proved to be a very important juncture for the euro zone, with Italian 10-year yields down yet another 14bp Wednesday-to-Wednesday. The parallel recentr lunge in Spanish yields backed up a few notches after this week’s auction disappointed some traders. Yet even here the relative ease with which a supposedly-cornered Madrid raised more than 4 billion euros for next year’s coffers keeps the financial side of their crisis, if not the economic one, in context for now at least.
‘Known unknowns’ seem less menacing
LONDON, Nov 30 (Reuters) – The big “known unknowns”, to
borrow from former U.S. defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, are
now so familiar to most global investors that they have to think
long and hard about risks looming in 2013.
That’s not to say money managers see no big pitfalls for
next year. On the contrary: the world economy has rarely faced
so many threats of political, policy and financial accidents.
Big “known unknowns” seem less menacing in 2013
LONDON (Reuters) – The big “known unknowns”, to borrow from former U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, are now so familiar to most global investors that they have to think long and hard about risks looming in 2013.
That’s not to say money managers see no big pitfalls for next year. On the contrary: the world economy has rarely faced so many threats of political, policy and financial accidents.
Confusing hard and soft power in emerging markets
LONDON (Reuters) – Deserting debt-laden, recession-racked North Atlantic and Japan for the fast-growing emerging market world may have been irresistible for some investors but many others still remain timid.
Why? It may be a case of “hard power” versus “soft power”.
Analysis: Confusing hard and soft power in emerging markets
LONDON (Reuters) – Deserting debt-laden, recession-racked North Atlantic and Japan for the fast-growing emerging market world may have been irresistible for some investors but many others still remain timid.
Why? It may be a case of “hard power” versus “soft power”.
Funds dismiss “death of equity”
LONDON (Reuters) – Senior European fund managers on Monday dismissed claims that equity investing was a thing of the past, with two top investors heralding double-digit gains in European stocks next year and beyond.
Speaking in London on the first day of Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit for 2013, the managers reckoned there was sufficient stabilization of the financial and economic world after five year of crisis to bring relative valuations back into play and history showed the darkest hour is often before dawn.
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