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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Moominoid who wrote (29316)	2/10/2008 10:23:54 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 218949

i have a brilliant insight to share: this year will be tough or tougher or impossible ;0/ probably best spending on-line investment time playing Medal of Honor Airborne :0) more kills that way, and less possibility for harm. Onb second thought, neah, forward, for there is the IMF gold to loot the penultimate lucre, and after that, fort knox, then, end of end game, and game over, players, monetary reset time.

To: Moominoid who wrote (29316)	2/11/2008 1:44:09 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218949

From GREED and fear · Tuesday's shock ISM service sector data had been preceded by a seemingly benign interlude, which GREED & fear has viewed as a renewed opportunity to go short or underweight Western financial stocks. The reason for the recent counter trend rally has been the relief that the Federal Reserve has finally become aggressive, or to borrow the favoured phrase of the bulls, "shown leadership". · It remains the case that the fixed-income market is still far from giving a ringing endorsement that Fed monetary easing will work. The two-year Treasury bond yield has been giving a clear signal of more Fed easing to come since last summer when the credit crisis first erupted. GREED & fear's guess is that the 10-year bond yield will be heading down again the next time more evidence of financial stress emerges, as it surely will. · One of the nasty aspects of securitisation gone wrong for bankers is clearly loans being forced back on to the balance sheet. The latest quarterly Fed survey of senior loan officers shows overwhelming evidence of an intensifying credit crunch in America. Banks continue to tighten standards for all sorts of lending, while they also expect a deterioration in loan quality in 2008. · The credit problems are clearly not only confined to the area of residential mortgages. American banks' caution about new commercial real estate loans has gone hand in hand with a sharp decline in commercial MBS issuance while credit spreads have surged on these sorts of loans. · It would be foolish in the extreme not to assume an intensifying credit crunch in America, and indeed beyond America. Ordinary mortals are still obviously having a hard time drawing a connection between the seemingly abstract area of credit and what is usually referred to as the "real world". Unfortunately, the world of credit and real life do eventually collide. · Sentiment has turned at least short-term bearish on Singapore's residential property market, most particularly the top-end luxury segment. But if a setback is evident, it will not be a disaster; though like any good bull-market correction there will be the potential for prices to fall by up to one-third at the most speculative end of the market. · For now it remains evident that the Singapore residential market is weak while Hong Kong's is strong. GREED & fear would personally rather own Hong Kong property plays than most other higher beta areas of the Asia ex-Japan equity universe in 2008, a year when the US is slowing and the Fed is slashing rates. The story for mass residential Hong Kong property remains the upgrading story. · GREED & fear's guess is that if an oil-led commodity correction is ever really to happen, it is likely to coincide with a US dollar bounce against the likes of the euro. That may have to wait for the end of spring wage negotiations with the German unions. Such a market move would naturally send a deflationary signal making it easier for the Fed to keep on slashing rates. · Toyota's announcement this week on a share cancellation is significant though GREED & fear would still prefer it if Japanese companies just raised their payout ratios since the higher dividend yields would encourage domestic institutional investors to allocate more to equities. · GREED & fear continues to believe that domestic Japanese stocks will outperform relatively in US-dollar terms in 2008 if global stock markets as a whole decline. This is because they had already declined so much, reflecting a domestic economy that had already weakened prior to the now increasingly evident US slowdown; the ill effects of which will increasingly hit the rest of the world.