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Vivian Lewis is editor and founder of Global-Investing.com, the daily blog newsletter for Americans and others seeking to internationalize their portfolios. She brings unique experience and competence to the business of picking foreign stocks.
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Jobs and Blackberries and Boppy Pillows
Boppy pillows for breastfeeding mothers and Blackberries to keep in touch with the world have little in common.
Yet the vendors of both products need more Americans to work for them. Maybe we need a WPA or CCC, two New Deal programs the Obama lot are not even thinking of copying, which put people to work in the 1930s, to create new jobs 80 years later.
This is a suggestion of a friend, IF, an 80-something-year-old life-time Liberal Democrat; she even lives on Manhattan's West Side. I live in the Silk Stocking district by the East River, mainly Liberal Republican. But IF has a point. Read more »
Green Shoots and Flying Cranes
New additions were announced following the quarterly review of the exchange-traded NASDAQ OMX European Government Relief Index (EUGR.Q) which became effective today. It added Heidelberger Druckmaschinen (printing presses) an Banco Popolare, an Italian bank. Here is the list.
Aegon NV Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG
Allied Irish Banks PLC Hypo Real Estate Holding
Banco Popolare ING Groep NV-CVA
Bank of Ireland KBC Groep NV
BNP Paribas Lloyds TSB Group PLC Read more »
Central Bank Contradictions
Reader Tom McC objected to Frida Ghitis's Jewish New Year article on Israel's currency. He wrote: “High prices for 'stuff' is a sign of a low value for the currency. A highly valued currency would bring low prices for things.”
Frida claimed she just meant that her fistful of US dollars and credit cards was not going very far in the Holy Land. But I think both of them are missing the contradictory forces at work when the Israeli Central Bank decided to raise rates.
With the open global Israeli economy one of the few looking good these days, the CB has to keep buying dollars to prevent the shekel from appreciating. The higher shekel results from the CB's earlier move pushing interest rates to fight inflation. Read more »
L'shana Tova
L'shana tova. Frida Ghitis writes from Israel:
While Israel’s economy is not growing at a break-neck pace, anyone who thinks the world is int near-depression should take a stroll down Tel Aviv’s trendy Dizengoff Road, or visit any of the always-busy markets here. In an hour the entire country will grow quiet with everyone heading home to celebrate Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. The hush at sundown will break the bustle that shows Israel’s emergence from recession. But there’s catch. Read more »
Freshwater Economics
Paul Krugman wrote a blog about the reaction to his NY Times Magazine article about what he styled "freshwater" macro-economists, numbers-mad non-east- or west-coast USA-heartland ec or biz school profs who do not study or teach Maynard Keynes' ideas and reject his theories. Because this is feeding into the virulently anti-government mood of some Americans going in for tea parties, Krugman is worth quoting. These guys criticize not just Obamanomics, TARP, bailouts, and viciously oppose Obama-care. Some also want to abolish the Fed and social security:
"The freshwater outrage over finding their own point of view criticized is, you might think, a classic case of people who can dish it out but can’t take it. Read more »
Do You Seriously Want to Be Rich?
“Do you seriously want to be rich?” was what Bernie Cornfeld used to ask potential investors in his Swiss-based IOS, operator of funds of funds and generator of huge commissions for Bernie and and his salesmen who signed up US servicemen in Europe. It was a con. Bernie went to jail.
Now after a hiatus based on the Bernie episode, you can again buy a fund of funds in the U.S. Today Advisor Shares Dent Tactical, an exchange-traded fund was launched by Dent, under the ticker symbol DENT, on the NYSE ARCA. It will invest in whatever ETFs, excahnge-traded notes, exchange-traded currency trusts, or exchange traded commodity pools its managers think will pay off. It tracks no index and follows no allocation rules.
(When I reported from Paris for the London Sunday Times in the 1970s I contributed notes for a book the paper produced about l'Affaire Cornfeld entitled Do You Seriously Want To Be Rich?) Read more »
Be Careful What You Wish For
Be careful what you wish for. A year ago, a major UK bank was not allowed to acquire Lehman Brothers which wound up in bankruptcy. The British Chancellor of the Exchequeur told his US counterpart, Treasury Secy. Paulson, “we do not want to import your cancer.”
Perhaps in revenge, the bank in turn refused to accept British government bailout money, instead turning to shareholders and fatcats from the Middle East and Asia to build up its capital cushion. Most rival banks in the US and Britain did not dare say no the way our choice bank did. Read more »
Asia for a Down Day
Today we will report on China and gold because that is where the headlines are. But we will also report on Portugal and Japan where they are not. And we have a huge money-saving deal for subscribers in Thailand.
China will allow some foreign companies to list in Shanghai and we already figured that banks active in China will grab slots in the market, among them Asia hands like HSBC and Standard & Chartered. Read more »
Anniversaries
Today is the 8th anniversary of the murderous Taliban attack on my native city's financial center. And the financial center is busy ignoring the date, helped by amnesia worldwide.
Europe rose for a 7th day in a row and Asia hit an 11-mo high based on good Chinese retail, production, and industrial output growth data which apparently offset a reduced Japanese Q2 growth figure.
Like many observers, I take Chinese economic data with a grain of salt. With a command economy, Beijing gets the statistics it wants from the local Communist officials around the country. The numbers may not jibe with reality. Read more »
Prof. Robini and Rabbi Hillel
NYU Economics Professor Nouriel Roubini, AKA super-bear, wrote today a note about oil and natural resources which I have permission to share with you. Prof. Roubini famously predicted the economic crisis we are now in:
Last week’s announcement of new rules governing deep-sea oil deposits off the Brazil coast reignited debate over resource nationalism. Deposits in the pre-salt layer deep beneath Brazil’s seabed are one of the more promising, if expensive, sources of new supply globally. Pres. Lula unveiled the new rules on what he called an 'Independence Day for Brazil.' Among other things, they suggest that Petrobras, the publicly traded but state-run oil company, have a majority stake in any new developments of deep-sea oil. The move, which marks a change to the country’s profit-sharing agreement, would not apply retroactively. Brazil also wants to create a new social fund, channeling some of the profits into social and infrastructure spending—-potentially narrowing extreme income divides. Read more »