The Wall Street Journal – Recipe for Success: Pick 30 Stocks, Then Just Sit Back for the Next 77 Years ING Corporate Leaders Trust has outperformed most of its competitors over the past decade, thanks to outsize holdings in energy and railroads, which both benefited from rising oil prices. The fund was also underweight in… Continue reading Stocks For The Long Run
The Economist – Powering down More months of uncertainty about the euro area will weigh on the global economy EUROPEAN leaders delivered rather more progress in tackling their interminable debt crisis than had been expected when they met in Brussels on June 28th and 29th. They decided, among other things, to allow the new permanent… Continue reading A Slowing Global Economy
The Economist – Rollercoaster BROADLY, two factors govern the price of oil. One is actual supply and demand, the other market sentiment about the state of the world. The fundamentals change slowly; the market’s mood is more volatile. Both have sent the price careering up and down in recent weeks. In March fears that the… Continue reading Crude Oil
MarketWatch – Paul B. Farrell: 10 explosive bubbles that will kill capitalism Slow-motion train wreck in store for U.S. In mid-2005, three years before Wall Street’s credit meltdown, the Economist warned of the “Biggest Bubble in History.” In five short years after the 2000 dot-com crash property prices across the world had risen an unprecedented… Continue reading Everything Is A Bubble
The Financial Times – Gillian Tett: Five reasons the summer curse may strike So could this summer be sticky, once again? Personally, I have a nasty feeling that it might, given that the markets are seeing the collision of at least five unwelcome issues: The Eurozone US Politics Debt China Slowdown The Libor Scandal The… Continue reading A Long Hot Summer?
The Wall Street Journal – Citigroup’s Provocateur in Residence Willem Buiter has built a career out of being a thorn in the side of politicians and central bankers. In one of his most recent dust-ups, Citigroup Inc.’s C -2.93%chief economist in February upset senior staff members of the European Central Bank when he warned that… Continue reading Who Is Willem Buiter?
The Economist – The Oracle of Boston HEDGE-FUND bosses rarely double as cult authors. But an out-of-print book by Seth Klarman, the boss of the Baupost Group, sells for as much as $2,499 on Amazon. A scanned version of “Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor” has been circulating around trading… Continue reading Who Is Seth Klarman?
Barclays may want to rethink their London bus shelter ads
The Wall Street Journal – Barclays Notes Suggest Government Pressure on Libor The unfolding rate-fixing scandal at Barclays PLC took an unexpected turn on Tuesday when the British bank made public 2008 notes by now-resigned Chief Executive Robert Diamond suggesting that an official from the Bank of England, under pressure from the U.K. government, may… Continue reading Lie-bor, We Knew This Years Ago
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Rents Increase as Vacancies Dry Up Landlords boosted apartment rents to record levels in the second quarter as demand from tenants sitting out the home-buying market pushed vacancy rates to their lowest point in more than a decade, according to a report to be… Continue reading Rents On The Rise
The Wall Street Journal – John B. Taylor: Monetary Policy and the Next Crisis At its annual meeting of the world’s central bankers in Switzerland last week, the Bank for International Settlements—the central bank of central banks—warned about the harmful “side effects” of current monetary policies “in the major advanced economies” where “policy rates remain… Continue reading John Taylor Chimes In On Monetary Policy
Bloomberg.com – Devaluing the Pound Isn’t a Solution, It’s Default Greece’s inability to devalue its currency is often cited as a reason for the extreme economic pain its citizens are enduring, and many commentators say the country should return to the drachma to restore competitiveness. In the U.K., which — unlike Greece — isn’t part… Continue reading Devaluing The Pound