growth (36)

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Why Commodities Are Back To The 1990s

-1x-1.png?width=600The chart above is the Bloomberg Commodity Index. It consists of baskets of common commodities, including energy, metals, foodstuffs, softs and precious metals.

After a fairly flat period in the 1990s, the index leapt upward beginning in the early 2000s. The context explains the jump: High inflation, weak dollar and low interest rates. From 2001 to 2007, the dollar lost 41 percent of its value, and all commodities priced in dollars skyrocketed. At the same time, China began a huge expansion of its infrastructure, transportation, housing and manufacturing sectors. The BCOM index moved from around 90 to almost 240.

You know the rest of the story: Inflation is nowhere to be found, and the Federal Open Market Committee is concerned about deflation. The dollar is at multiyear highs against just about any other currency. Commodity prices have suffered as a result.

Oil prices have been cut almost in half compared with a year ago, to $45 from $87. They are down more than 60 percent from the pe

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Money Surges To Europe; Growth To Follow

If you ignore the ongoing Greek sideshow, rarely has European money growth been as accommodative as it is today. Europe has enormous structural problems of too much debt, an inflexible currency and an ageing population, but cyclical factors are very positive. Leading indicators are also positive, and the problems in Greece practically guarantee that the ECB will remain extremely accommodative even though Germany will require some tapering of QE.  Barring major contagion from Greece, any equity weakness in Europe will represent a buying opportunity.  Real M1 in Europe is growing at 11%, and the collapse in the price of oil means that excess liquidity is surging now and is as high as it was in 2009 and higher than it was in 2004-05.

img1-300x170.png?width=300

While investors are worried about the fallout from Greece on the European banking system, we offer the next chart to show that excess liquidity is still extremely positive for European banking stocks.

img2-300x163.png?width=300

- See more at: Variant

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Social Media - TV For The Next Generation

When it comes to where younger Americans get news about politics and government, social media look to be the local TV of the Millennial generation. About six-in-ten online Millennials (61%) report getting political news on Facebook in a given week, a much larger percentage than turn to any other news source, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis. This stands in stark contrast to internet-using Baby Boomers, for whom local TV tops the list of sources for political news at nearly the same reach (60%).

PJ_15.06.01_millennialMedia03.png?width=200At the same time, Millennials’ relatively low reliance on local TV for political news (37% see news there in a given week) almost mirrors Baby Boomers’ comparatively low reliance on Facebook (39%).

Gen Xers, who bridge the age gap between Millennials (ages 18-33 at the time of the 2014 survey) and Baby Boomers (ages 50-68), also bridge the gap between these news sources. Roughly half (51%) of online Gen Xers get political and government news on Facebook in a given week and about h

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Market Following U.S. Confidence?

For the week ending May 24, 23% of Americans said the economy is excellent or good while 29% said it is poor, resulting in a current conditions score of -6. The economic outlook score of -11 is the result of 42% of Americans saying the economy is getting better and 53% saying it is getting worse.

Economic Confidence Index Components -- Weekly Averages From May 2014

Well this chart from Gallup certainly makes one wonder. Where will the U.S. see growth?  We need a catlyst......

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Admin

Time To Ring The Register

Traders dumped high fliers and the broader stock market was slammed amid worries about the first profit decline in six years and more signs of nagging weakness in the U.S. economy.

Stocks fell sharply, as the VIX [ .VIX 15.44 up.gif +1.82 (+13.36%) ] jumped more than 13 percent. The Dow [ .DJI 17718.54 down.gif -292.60 (-1.62%) ] was off 292 points at 17,718 Wednesday, and the S&P 500 [ .INX 2061.05 down.gif -30.45 (-1.46%) ] fell nearly 1.5 percent to 2061. The Nasdaq [ .IXIC 4876.52 down.gif -118.21 (-2.37%) ], affected by selling in tech and biotech, lost 2.4 percent.

"It had a big run. It's only natural to see a correction," said Steve Massocca, Wedbush managing director. "We had excessive ebullience and some of that is burning off. I think that durable goods numbers weren't particularly good today. I think people are starting to get concerned that king dollar is going to cause earnings issues. A lot of companies are in their quiet periods so the stock buybacks are halted."

Stocks tanked in late morning but had

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Admin

Countries Hurt By Lower Crude Oil

As the price of oil extends a free fall that began this summer, countries around the world that rely on oil revenues are bracing for an imminent economic and budget hit.  The drop is widening budget gaps in the Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain that rely heavily on oil to pay government services.

With oil and gas production accounting for some 70% of Russia's government spending, Moscow also faces a big shortfall—after budgeting based on $100-a-barrel oil for 2015. Russia's economic growth was already slowing before the plunge in oil prices. Trade sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe—in response to the invasion of the Ukraine—will further crimp growth and government spending.

The impact of budget gaps among big producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia, though, will be softened somewhat by large reserves built up during boom years. But a protracted era of cheap oil would force them to undertake serious belt-tightening.

Note:  Click on a c

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Admin

Headlines And Risk Appetite

Very quickly some morning headlines.  While a few of the geopolitical risk headlines may be behind us (Brazil election, Russian border, etc) I believe markets are waiting for this quarters earnings (and guidance) to set the stage.  Multi-nationals with exposure overseas may struggle going forward if one believes the headlines below:

  • IMF revises and raises growth for the US BUT lowers prospects for the world (4.0 to 3.0%)
  • IMF says some valuations are "frothy"
  • SODA warns of miss and citing lower US demand (stick a fork in it)
  • Women's apparel mfgr CBK warns of lower sales; blames low mall traffic.
  • Hong Kong retailers experience sharp sales decline (blames protests of course because happy people would be spending)
  • AGCO cuts forecast, shares down 6% premarket
  • Taiwan's exports growth slips
  • MCD Japan expects net loss this year
  • Slide in German industrial output stokes fear of recession

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Admin

UPS To Expand 3D Printing In Stores

The 3D industry has reported grown by 21% last year alone and according to the 2014 Wholers Report, the worldwide 3D printing industry is now expected to grow from $3.07 billion in revenue in 2013 to $12.8 billion by 2018, and exceed $21 billion in worldwide revenue by 2020.

After testing 3D printing in it's San Diego stores, UPS has decided to expand it's partnership with SSYS to 100 stores nationwide.  California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas are just some of the states set to open stores with 3D-printing capabilities.

3D Systems (DDD) and Stratasys (SSYS) may be the largest 3D printing companies around, but together they only represented about one-third of worldwide 3D printing revenues in 2013. In other words, the 3D printing industry remains highly fragmented, and because no single company controls the majority of the market, there's a massive opportunity for a number of 3D printing companies to grow their revenue and market share considerably.  Other publicly trade

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Admin

A.I. Globalization And The Future Of Managers

Economic growth has traditionally been fueled by two things: higher productivity and more workers. But productivity growth has been disappointing in recent years, and, more important, the population is beginning to age: the United Nations predicts that, for the world as a whole, the number of people employed will increase by just 0.03% a year over the next 50 years compared with 1.8% in the past 50.

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Admin

1290832?profile=RESIZE_320x320A view of the the NFIB survey and wage growth gives a hint of what may lie ahead in the wage sector.  Consumer spending dropped $7 in June which surprised many. 

(CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE)

While Americans' spending in June was generally on par or lower than their average May spending, this month's $7 drop is one of the largest recorded by Gallup during this time of year since 2008, when June spending fell by $10. The June 2008 spending average of $104 is still the highest average for that month in Gallup's six-year trend.

Can it be the new jobs being created (majority at the low end) is weighing on consumers pocketbook?  #shocker!  But what about the spending of the wealthy lifting all boats?  You know; that good old trickle down effect?

According to Econoday, the drop in daily spending among all Americans can largely be attributed to upper-income Americans spending less in June. Could the wealthy be running low on things to buy?  Yes sarcasm on my part but a drop is not what any

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Admin

The Bond Markets Pessimism Is Vindicated

I've been a close observer of the bond market for over 25 years, and it continues to amaze me with its ability to see the future of inflation and real economic growth. 
5-yr+TIPS+vs+2-yr+GDP.jpg?width=400I've been featuring the above chart for a long time, using it to argue that the market was quite pessimistic about the prospects for economic growth. My theory is that real interest rates ought to track the market's expectations for real growth, and indeed they have. Real growth and growth expectations were very strong in the late 1990s, and real yields on TIPS were very high. Since then, the economy has slowed down and real yields have fallen. 5-yr real yields on TIPS have been telling us for the past year that the market was braced for real economic growth to be as low as 1% or so. With today's revision to Q1/14 GDP growth, real growth over the past 2 years has been an anemic 1.4%. In effect, the bond market saw this slump coming a year ago. Needless to say, if the economy's prospects are going to improve going forwa

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Admin

World Bank Cuts Outlook But There's Always A 'But'

Here we go again but should anyone be surprised?  This is one of those days when people will come out and say "the market is not the economy" yet we all know job growth remains tepid at best and with that, one has to ask "where will the growth come from?"  See the ginormous infographic below.

World Bank has lowered its forecasts for developing countries, now eyeing growth at 4.8 percent this year, down from its January estimate of 5.3 percent. Signs point to strengthening in 2015 and 2016 to 5.4 and 5.5 percent, respectively. China is expected to grow by 7.6 percent this year, but this will depend on the success of rebalancing efforts. If a hard landing occurs, the reverberations across Asia would be widely felt.

There's always a BUT

Yet Variant Perceptions survey of small businesses (a proxy for future growth) shows the belief that wage growth will pick up for the rest of the year driven by much tighter labour market. (My thoughts: many of those who have left the workforce may not ret

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Admin

McKinsey: Developed Countries to Lead; Not Emerging

1290364?profile=RESIZE_320x320That's the message being sent out based on McKinsey's latest executive survey and the first thing that comes to mind for me, is FX money flow.  Here are a few excerpts:

Global executives are increasingly positive about the direction of the world economy, though in our latest survey on economic conditions, the source of their optimism has shifted away from emerging markets and toward the developed world. For the first time since we posed the question 18 months ago, respondents say they no longer expect developing markets to lead global economic growth over the next decade. Instead, they expect developed markets—and an improving Europe in particular—to advance future growth.

Executives in emerging markets were cautious in June. Now, amid continued reports of slowing growth, volatile currency movements, and sociopolitical instability, they are particularly gloomy over the state of their home economies.  In fact  41% say economic conditions in their countries are worse now than they

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Admin

Is The Emerging Market Boom Over?

During the last few years, a lot of hype has been heaped on the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). With their large populations and rapid growth, these countries, so the argument goes, will soon become some of the largest economies in the world – and, in the case of China, the largest of all by as early as 2020. But the Brics, as well as many other emerging-market economies – have recently experienced a sharp economic slowdown. So, is the honeymoon over?

Brazil's GDP grew by only 1% last year, and may not grow by more than 2% this year, with its potential growth barely above 3%. Russia's economy may grow by barely 2% this year, with potential growth also at around 3%, despite oil prices being around $100 a barrel. India had a couple of years of strong growth recently (11.2% in 2010 and 7.7% in 2011) but slowed to 4% in 2012. China's economy grew by 10% a year for the last three decades, but slowed to 7.8% last year and risks a hard landing. And South Africa grew by

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Admin

1290076?profile=originalThe sharp increases in investment that have driven China’s rapid economic growth for the past 30 years are not sustainable, and consumers can’t provide additional demand unless wealth is redistributed toward Chinese households. The most obvious consequence of rebalancing is that it will result in much slower growth over the medium term. While many economists now project that average annual economic growth will fall to between 5 and 7 percent a year during the next decade, I expect it to slow even more, perhaps to 3 to 4 percent a year. In modern history, no country that has experienced an investment-driven growth “miracle” has avoided a slowdown (such as Japan’s after 1990) that surprised even the pessimists, and it is hard to find good reasons to think China will be an exception. 

As a result, many businesses in China and around the world will thrive, while others will be forced to make wrenching changes. Here are four predictions about the ways China’s rebalancing will affect the

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Lately I've heard a lot of people sounding off about the possibility of a double dip recession. Among the most cited statisitics is present GDP growth slowing compared to the end of last year. Yet I had not seen one ounce of empirical data on GDP growth coming out of the most recent recessions regardless whether it proved or disproved slowed growth as an indicator of a double dip recession. Below you will find a chart of the last three recessions including the most recent. The chart was taken from the St. Louis Federal Reserve website.

As you can see it is common for growth to slow, even signifcantly, after the accelerated growth from the bottom of the trough of a recession.

While I will not argue that there are headwinds hindering the economy. Housing still is in the dumps, China may be slowing, and the dreaded Euro-credit-crap could all sink the ship in a worst case scenario. However the slowed domestic GDP growth is in no way indicative of a double dip recession if the two prev

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