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

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (53803)	8/20/2009 8:04:48 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217749

just in in-tray, per GREED n fear · There has been a resumption in deflationary market activity of late. Most dramatic has been the collapse in the yield on two-year Treasury bonds and their British equivalent. Talk of the return of inflation in the US remains way too premature and the Federal Reserve is unlikely to raise interest rates this year or next. Meanwhile, talk of a bottoming out in US residential housing also remains premature. · Demand continues to weaken for all forms of US bank loans save for prime mortgages. GREED & fear’s view is that, even when American banks are fully cleaned up, credit growth will still be constrained by a lack of demand for such credit given consumers’ and corporates’ recent experience of the downside of debt. · There is a chance that the S&P500’s counter-trend rally peaked with last Friday’s sell off in response to the US CPI data. Still GREED & fear cannot pretend to have any conviction on such a short term point. A good signal will be provided by the market’s reaction to the next set of ISM data due on 1 September. This remains the data point most likely to fan the equity rally further given the unlikelihood of any turn around on the consumer side. · The Federal Reserve is far from convinced that monetary policy has gained traction. This is why the Fed has been at pains to play down expectations of premature tightening. While the Fed has signalled a willingness to reduce accommodation in terms of quantitative easing, the risk is that it will in future have to reverse course and resume quantitative easing again. · Given the clear and continuing debt deflationary overhang and the associated risk if not reality of a liquidity trap, the Bernanke-led Fed can ill afford own goals given its clear determination to combat the deflationary menace. GREED & fear will continue to wait for evidence of traction from Fed easing rather than simply assuming that it will happen. · The Korean stock market has been characterised in recent years by domestic investors purchasing equities off foreigners as the cult of the equity has been built through the tremendous success of the equity instalment funds. But this year the pattern has reversed as locals have sold to foreigners anxious to reduce their Korean underweight position in anticipation of a cyclical rebound in the global economy. · The domestic equity funds in Korea have in recent months seen their biggest redemption pressures since early 2007. This selling seems to have been driven by investors when their holdings returned to book value or their original cost of purchase. Still the good news is that mutual fund investors in equities did not panic out when the Kospi declined last year. · The Korean stock market has so far outperformed this quarter as money has rotated from commodity and domestic plays into manufacturing exporters. This justifies for now GREED & fear’s decision in mid July to move Korea to a marginal overweight in the relative return portfolio from the longstanding underweight. Korea has world class brand name competitors who are taking market share in a downturn. · On a five year view the Korean market should be geared into GREED & fear’s postulated Asian asset bubble on the assumption that Western monetary policy remains ultra easy. But while such a development should allow Korea to re-rate relative to the S&P500 GREED & fear would remain of the view that the market will continue to trade at a substantial discount to the likes of India or China H shares. · The problem for the domestic story in Korea remains its relatively high leverage by Asian standards. It means that it is relatively less interesting compared to the likes of China, India, Indonesia or even Taiwan courtesy of Capital Links. Still consumption has been surprisingly resilient so far this year helped by aggressive fiscal stimulus while the NPL pick up in the banking sector has been less than previously expected. · From a longer term perspective Korea needs a geopolitical catalyst to generate a more exciting macro story in the form of its first real domestic investment cycle since the Asian Crisis. The problem is that the obvious potentially bullish catalyst, namely unification of the Korean peninsula, seems to remain as far off as ever. · One area where Korea continues to lag badly the rest of Asia is dividend payout ratios. This reflects a traditional mindset that companies would rather invest spare cash themselves or, if there is no investment opportunity, spend the money on buying back their own shares. · China’s sovereign wealth fund’s reported plan to invest US$2bn in US mortgage-backed securities under the PPIP is, if true, a symbolic move which risks leading to renewed criticism if it backfires. In GREED & fear’s view China should continue to concentrate its purchase of US fixed-income assets on US Treasury bonds, which will at least be beneficiaries of the inevitable coming realisation that inflation remains conspicuous by its absence in America.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (53803)	8/21/2009 2:06:41 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217749

Cough up the wallet Plain! PBR Finds 280 Mln Barrels Post-Salt, Light Oil The new reserves add to proven reserves of 350 million barrels of light oil in the Jurara and Mucua fields, and of 345 million barrels of light oil in the Jabuti field, according to the statement. By Fabiola Moura Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, said preliminary analysis indicates the presence of 280 million barrels of recoverable light oil in Brazil’s offshore Campos Basin. The light oil was discovered in the Aruana field, 120 kilometers (74 miles) from Brazil’s coast and above the salt layer, at a depth of 976 meters, Petrobras said today in a statement to Brazil’s securities regulator. The new reserves add to proven reserves of 350 million barrels of light oil in the Jurara and Mucua fields, and of 345 million barrels of light oil in the Jabuti field, according to the statement. The Jurara and Jabuti discoveries have already been added to the Petrobras proven reserves in 2008, the Rio de Janeiro- based company said in the statement. To contact the reporter on this story: Fabiola Moura in New York at fdemoura@bloomberg.net

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (53803)	8/21/2009 4:04:23 AM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217749

I haven't had a migraine for decades, just very infrequent preliminary symptoms which I know to intercept with sleep or my latest technique of drinking Coca Cola. "Infrequent" being once every few years. <Migraine headaches can also be a withdrawal symptom of caffeine addiction. Do you have a cuppa habit? > I have never been much of a coffee drinker though in the last decade I have become more frequent, working up to even one a day. Tea has always been weak. I haven't drunk soft drinks for decades [other than maybe a few times a year]. Even one cup of coffee a day is enough to cause the withdrawal feeling and even somewhat headachy [though very very far from a migraine] resolved by a cup of coffee. Some people think "migraine" means "headache". They might say, "Oh, I've got a migraine." But they are still standing and even have their eyes open. Mqurice