In their century long coverage of exotic places, cultures, and practices, National Geographic Magazine inadvertently sheds light on broad global trends that deeply affect the rest of us. Plus, the pictures are great. A recent issue celebrated the approach of the world's population to 7 billion, and the implications therein. Long time readers of this
Every time the price of oil spikes, we learn vast amounts of information about the global reach of this indispensable commodity. It's like taking a non-core elective in geology at college. So I was fascinated when I found the chart of relative sector winners and losers below. No surprise that energy does best from sky
Global Market Comments February 15, 2013 Fiat Lux Featured Trade: (FEBRUARY 20 GLOBAL STRATEGY WEBINAR), (THE BOND CRASH HAS ONLY JUST STARTED), (TLT), (TBT), (WATCH SAVINGS RATES FOR INTERNATIONAL MARKET CUES) iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treas Bond (TLT) ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT)
When I was a little kid in the early 1950?s, my grandfather used to endlessly rail against Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The WWI veteran, who was mustard gassed in the trenches of France and was a lifetime, died in the wool Republican, said the former president was a dictator and a traitor to his class, who
Often while searching for a piece of data through Google, I stumble across something else, which is far more interesting. That is how I found the table below of international savings rates. Why should you care? Because countries with high savings rates tend to have strong economies and great stock markets, since there is plenty
Global Market Comments February 14, 2013 Fiat Lux SPECIAL ASIAN HIGH YIELD STOCK ISSUE Featured Trade: (REACHING FOR DIVIDENDS IN ASIA), (SSW), (CHT), (MLYBY), (EWSS) (AN EVENING WITH GENERAL DOUGLAS FRASER) (EWZ), (ECH), (GXG), (CU), (CORN), (SOYB), (WEAT) Seaspan Corporation (SSW) Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd. (CHT) Malayan Banking Bhd (MLYBY) iShares MSCI Singapore Small Cap
You would think buying the highest yielding stocks in the world?s fastest growing countries would be a no brainer. Yet, you hardly ever find decent recommendations in this area. So after spending a few dozen hours scouring the investment universe, I came up with the short list below. Some of these have already had good
I never cease to be amazed by the intelligence provided me by the US Defense Department, which after the CIA, has the world?s most impressive and insightful economic research team. There are few places a global strategist like me can go to get intelligent, thoughtful forty-year views, and this is one. Wall Street, eat your
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Have I seen this movie before? Four years ago, analysts were predicting default rates as high as 17% for Junk bonds in the wake of the financial meltdown, taking yields on individual issues up to 25%. Liquidity in the market vaporized, and huge volumes of unsold paper overhung the market. To me, this was an
The world is about to suffer an acute shortage of equity capital over the next eight years, which could total $12.3 trillion. That is the conclusion of the McKinsey Global Institute, an affiliate of McKinsey &Co., a great well of long-term economic thinking which I have been drawing from for the last 40 years. The
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The Trade Alert Service of the Mad Hedge Fund Trader has posted a 23.76% profit year to date, taking it to another new all time high. The 26-month total return has punched through to an awesome 78.81%, compared to a miserable 14% return for the Dow average during the same period. That raises the average
Before you place a down payment on that next home, consider that you are voluntarily becoming dependent on government welfare, reliant on massive subsidies, and may become the next ward of the state. Don?t kid yourself that the housing market has become anything but another bubble driven by artificially low interest rates and lax lending
If you think that the upcoming energy shortage is going to be bad, it will pale in comparison to the next water crisis. So investment in fresh water infrastructure is going to be a great recurring long-term investment theme. One theory about the endless wars in the Middle East since 1918 is that they have
Global Market Comments February 11, 2013 Fiat Lux Featured Trade: (IS IT TIME TO BUY TECHNOLOGY STOCKS), (AAPL), (MSFT), (GOOG), (QQQ), (BAC), (JPM), (XOM), (CAT), (PG), (NFLX), (AN AFTERNOON WITH CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN) Apple Inc. (AAPL) Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Google Inc. (GOOG) PowerShares QQQ (QQQ) Bank of America Corporation (BAC) JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Call it the shot heard round the world. David Einhorn?s lawsuit against tech goliath Apple (AAPL) has focused a giant spotlight on what has been one of the worst performing stock market sectors of 2013-- large old technology stocks. Could this be the set up for the biggest sector rotation of the year? Most of
On my last trip to my lakefront estate at Lake Tahoe, I stopped off at the state capital, Sacramento, to look in on my old friend, Governor Jerry Brown. It is crucial that readers across the country, and indeed, around the world, know what Jerry is thinking. California has always been a ?pathfinder? state, and
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The universal question in the market today was ?Why is it down? when all the news was good? The weekly jobless claims dropped 5,000 to 366,000, near a five-year low, confirming that the jobs recovery is still on track. Activist shareholder, David Einkorn?s, lawsuit against Apple (AAPL) to unfreeze its cash mountain should have boosted