The world is awash with commodities, says investing guru Gary Shilling.
Link: http://youtu.be/37Z7j66DCZM
Investor. Any references to securities are not recommendations or solicitations to buy or sell anything. I may have positions in securities mentioned.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Garyn Sep 13, 2012 DailyFinance's Nikhil Hutheesing interviews Gary Shilling, economist and president of A. Gary Shilling and Company. They discuss his new book, The Age of Deleveraging. Get More Business Tips! http://www.youtube.com/user/AOLOnBusi... Subscribe to AOL On Busniess! http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c... Get More Daily Finance! http://www.dailyfinance.com/ Follow DailyFinance! https://twitter.com/daily_finance Like DailyFinance! http://www.facebook.com/DailyFinance Gary Shilling on The Age of Deleveraging http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=... Category News & Politics License Standard YouTube License
n Sep 13, 2012
DailyFinance's Nikhil Hutheesing
interviews Gary Shilling, economist and president of A. Gary Shilling
and Company. They discuss his new book, The Age of Deleveraging.
Get More Business Tips!
http://www.youtube.com/user/AOLOnBusi...
Subscribe to AOL On Busniess!
http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c...
Get More Daily Finance!
http://www.dailyfinance.com/
Follow DailyFinance!
https://twitter.com/daily_finance
Like DailyFinance!
http://www.facebook.com/DailyFinance
Gary Shilling on The Age of Deleveraging
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=...
interviews Gary Shilling, economist and president of A. Gary Shilling
and Company. They discuss his new book, The Age of Deleveraging.
Get More Business Tips!
http://www.youtube.com/user/AOLOnBusi...
Subscribe to AOL On Busniess!
http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c...
Get More Daily Finance!
http://www.dailyfinance.com/
Follow DailyFinance!
https://twitter.com/daily_finance
Like DailyFinance!
http://www.facebook.com/DailyFinance
Gary Shilling on The Age of Deleveraging
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=...
Category
License - Standard YouTube
Link: http://youtu.be/QcUHq-hVTRI
Philip Evans Managing Director and Partner of The Boston Consulting Group
Published on Dec 10, 2013
From Value Chains to Stacks: how technology is transforming the architectures of whole industries
In the past decades, technology has driven waves of industrial transformation.
The first decade of the commercial Internet was about distribution and the disintermediation of traditional businesses.
The second was about user-generated content: transforming the Web from pages into conversations, from a noun into a verb.
The third, just beginning, will be shaped by three large themes: Falling transaction costs, causing the "deconstruction" of traditional value chains
Polarizing scale economics, in which economies of scale become either much more stronger or much weaker
In response, the emergence of horizontal, layered, "stacked" industry architectures, challenging the vertically-integrated oligopolistic model characteristic of many industries today.
Driven by these forces, new forms of economic coordination are emerging, requiring cooperation among competitors, and a different role for public policy. The concept of "business strategy" has to be rethought from first principles.
In the past decades, technology has driven waves of industrial transformation.
The first decade of the commercial Internet was about distribution and the disintermediation of traditional businesses.
The second was about user-generated content: transforming the Web from pages into conversations, from a noun into a verb.
The third, just beginning, will be shaped by three large themes: Falling transaction costs, causing the "deconstruction" of traditional value chains
Polarizing scale economics, in which economies of scale become either much more stronger or much weaker
In response, the emergence of horizontal, layered, "stacked" industry architectures, challenging the vertically-integrated oligopolistic model characteristic of many industries today.
Driven by these forces, new forms of economic coordination are emerging, requiring cooperation among competitors, and a different role for public policy. The concept of "business strategy" has to be rethought from first principles.
-
Category
-
License - Standard YouTube License
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Fuel Cell companies shares rally
FuelCell technology used at a Dominion Resources plant in Bridgeport, Conn. Source: Dominion Resources.
FuelCell Energy (NASDAQ: FCEL ) ,
After having whipsawed in both directions lately, the CEO of Plug Power (NASDAQ: PLUG ) said that the fuel-cell maker had gotten an order from a global automaker. Despite CEO Andy Marsh's failure to elaborate on the potential deal, traders chose to take the news as a sign of huge optimism, sending Plug shares up almost 50% on the day.
That optimism spread throughout the sector, as Ballard Power Systems (NASDAQ: BLDP ) also posted a sharp gain of 32% on Plug's news.
At this point, speculative fervor has taken over the fuel-cell industry, making it difficult for long-term investors to get a solid read on the sector.
When even hints of positive news can send stocks soaring, the risk level in a particular stock is almost always higher than ordinary investors should take without being fully prepared to suffer potentially catastrophic losses.
Link: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/25/why-fuelcell-energy-atlantic-power-and-sonic-jumpe.aspx
Monday, March 24, 2014
Five form Bernard Madoff were convicted of fraud
(Reuters) - Five form Bernard Madoff were convicted on Monday of charges that they helped their bosser aides to investment manager conceal his massive Ponzi scheme for years.
A federal jury in New York found back-office director Daniel Bonventre, portfolio managers Annette Bongiorno and Joann Crupi,
and computer programmers Jerome O'Hara and George Perez guilty on all counts, including securities fraud and conspiracy to defraud clients.
The trial lasted more than five months.
Madoff was arrested in December 2008 for running a Ponzi scheme that is estimated to have cost investors more than $17 billion of principal.
"These five defendants played crucial roles in constructing and maintaining the house of cards that was the Madoff investment fraud," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. "The scheme these defendants helped perpetrate cost innumerable investors their life savings. Now it likely will cost the defendants their freedom."
Nine other people have pleaded guilty in connection with Madoff's fraud. Madoff, 75, is serving a 150-year-prison sentence after pleading guilty in March 2009.
At the trial, prosecutors introduced as evidence thousands of pages of internal documents seized from Madoff's investment firm and called dozens of witnesses.
Chief among the witnesses was Madoff's right-hand man, Frank DiPascali, who implicated each of the five defendants in the fraud.
While there was little dispute that various defendants engaged in activities such as backdating fake trades and creating false documents, the case turned on whether they knew at the time that they were aiding Madoff's fraud.
Bonventre and Bongiorno took the stand in their own defense and denied knowing there was a fraud at the time it was taking place.
The case is U.S. v. O'Hara et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 10-cr-00228.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Dan Grebler)
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/24/us-madoff-employees-idUSBREA2N1EU20140324
STG is now called Eguana
Sustainable Energy Confirms No Material Change
Eguana Technologies' stock is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "EGT".v
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/06/13 -- Sustainable Energy Technologies Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:EGT) (operating as Eguana Technologies Inc.) wishes to announce that it is unaware of any corporate developments or undisclosed material changes that would account for the recent trading activity in its shares.
About EGUANA TECHNOLGIES, INC.
Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Eguana designs and manufactures intelligent high performance low-voltage power electronics platforms for distributed smart grid and energy storage applications. Eguana's software configurable platform enables energy storage systems to optimize the lower cost, modularity, and safety advantages of low voltage advanced battery technologies at a much lower cost, and with greater design flexibility than is possible with conventional power electronics solutions.
To learn more, visit www.EguanaTech.com or follow us on Twitter, https://twitter.com/EguanaTech.
Forward Looking Information
The reader is advised that some of the information herein may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning assigned by National Instruments 51-102 and other relevant securities legislation. In particular, we include: statements concerning the features of our energy storage power conversion platform and its value for non-utility scale energy storage systems and developers of those systems, and statements concerning the size of the market for power electronics for residential and commercial non-utility scale energy storage systems.
Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and involves a number of risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or future events or developments, to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information, which speaks only as of the date hereof. Readers are also directed to the Risk Factors section of the Company's current Annual Information Form which may be found on its website or at sedar.com The Company does not undertake any obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking information contained herein to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Contacts:
Eguana Technologies Inc.
Michael Carten
CEO
+1.403.508.7177 ext 111
michael.carten@EguanaTech.com
www.EguanaTech.com
$
0.57
Change
-0.01
-1.72%
Volume
13,900
Mar 21, 2014, 3:58 p.m.
Quotes are delayed by 15 min
Previous close
$
0.58
Day low
Day high
$0.56
$0.60
Open: 0.56
52 week low
52 week high
$0.35
$0.79
Market cap
$18.03M
Average volume
18,391
P/E ratio
N/A
Rev. per Employee
N/A
EPS
-0.39
Recent Milestones
-
Michael Carten added a position as Chief Executive Officer, Chairman, and Co-Founder at Eguana Technologies Inc..
Sources
Eguana Technologies is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under EGT.V. Investors can buy shares of Eguana Technologies through any Canadian brokerage.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Small - Cap Stocks
By Opposing Small Cap Market Reform, Wall Street’s Largest Retail Brokers are Putting Their Economics Ahead of Customers’ Best Interests
By Opposing Small Cap Market Reform, Wall Street’s Largest Retail Brokers are Putting Their Economics Ahead of Customers’ Best Interests
BY SCOTT KUPOR
According to SEC Chairwoman Mary Joe White, implementing a pilot program to widen tick sizes for small-cap stocks (sub-$750 million market cap) is a “near-term project” for the SEC. In other words, it might actually happen, and that has some of the biggest players on Wall Street in a panic.
According to SEC Chairwoman Mary Joe White, implementing a pilot program to widen tick sizes for small-cap stocks (sub-$750 million market cap) is a “near-term project” for the SEC. In other words, it might actually happen, and that has some of the biggest players on Wall Street in a panic.
Widening tick sizes and restricting the increments at which small-cap stocks can trade – a change for which I and others have been advocating – would bring more liquidity to the small-cap marketplace.
To retail investors – who comprise about 80 percent of the small stocks – this would bring institutional investors back into small-cap stocks, helping both increase stock prices, reduce volatility and provide much needed expansion capital. To small-cap companies, this would mean access to the capital needed to grow their businesses, invest in innovation and create jobs. And to the broader U.S. economy, this would create more IPOs and thus the attendant job growth. In other words, the rising tide of liquidity would float all boats.
That all sounds great. So, why are the largest retail brokers, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade and others, sounding the alarm bells? If widening tick sizes is good for retail investors, why do they think the opposite – that doing so will in fact hurt the retail investor?
Probe a little deeper and you get to the root of their concerns. They aren’t out to protect the retail investor; rather, they are fighting to protect the economics of their retail investor-driven business models. Business models that drive profits not just in small caps, but through every strata of the market up to the highest volume, large cap stocks.
To understand this, we need to take a detour into the annals of stock market trading – in fact back to a practice started in 1980 – to see what actually happens when you place a retail stock trade order.
It turns out that, in nearly all cases, when you place a retail stock trade order, the retail brokerages don’t actually execute the trade themselves. Rather, they sell those orders to other institutions commonly referred to as “internalizers.”
These internalizers – among them are companies like Citadel, Knight-Getco, Citigroup, UBS, Goldman Sachs, National Financial Services – pay the retail brokers as much as $0.32 per 100 shares traded, according to reports. This is a practice known as “payment for order flow.”
Yes, those are small numbers, but given the large stock trading volumes in the overall stock market, these little payments can add up to real dollars. For example, Reuters estimates that in 2012 TD Ameritrade received $200 million in fees for directing orders to internalizers, representing about 8 percent of total annual revenue and 20 percent of its pre-tax income. Knight-Getco alone paid an estimated $90 million in fees in 2012 to various retail brokers for order flow.
To be clear, this is not an illicit practice in the U.S. In fact, it’s sanctioned by the SEC (and firms report on it via a form known as a Rule 606 Report). Other countries (Canada and Australia) have outlawed the practice and some (the U.K.) have increased their regulatory scrutiny recently, recognizing the inherent conflicts of interest this practice can create.
But, what does any of this have to do with wider tick sizes? Well, under today’s rules, payment for order flow thrives because the internalizers take virtually no trading risk when they accept orders from retail brokerages. To satisfy the SEC’s National Best Bid & Offer rules (NBBO), internalizers need only realize a small bump up in stock price, literally fractions of a penny, to execute the trade. As a result, they will take (almost) whatever they can get, and happily pay for the privilege.
If, however, small-cap tick sizes are widened to $0.05 and trades can occur only at the bid, ask or mid-point, internalizers would need to price improve by at least 2½ cents. In this case, the trade goes from almost a zero-risk proposition to one that requires that they actually take some level of market risk. Instead of stepping ahead of the displayed quote by a fraction of a penny, they would need to do so by at least 2½ cents. This probably means their willingness to pay for order flow goes down, and with it goes the fee income to retail brokerages.
And the financial pain to the brokerages could be even greater. If they can’t get paid to send the trades to internalizers, Fidelity (and other retail brokers) would likely need to send those retail orders directly to the stock exchanges and, for orders that reduce liquidity in the markets, pay the exchanges a “take fee” under the maker-taker rules.
The disconnect in all of this, though, is that the proposed pilot program is dealing with small-cap stocks only, a mere 2 percent of total market trading volume. The truth of the matter is that any changes in this tiny segment of the market would have NO meaningful impact to retail brokers’ bottom lines. So why all of the fuss over mere peanuts?
Because the opposition to the SEC’s small-cap pilot program isn’t about peanuts. Nor is it about protecting retail investors.
Rather, it’s about not exposing the largely unknown underbelly of payment for order flow in the broader market. If this pilot program invited scrutiny to that practice, the implications would add up to a whole lot more than mere peanuts. Indeed, what’s been happening for nearly 30 years under the big tent of the entire retail brokerage system could be fodder for the lions.
A version of this story originally appeared in Bloomberg.
Marc Andreessen
Ben Horowitz
http://a16z.com/
Link: http://a16z.com/2014/03/18/by-opposing-small-cap-market-reform-wall-streets-largest-retail-brokers-are-putting-their-economics-ahead-of-customers-best-interests/
Friday, March 21, 2014
, Benjamin Graham and the Power of Growth Stocks
Benjamin
Graham is the father of value investing, but his greatest investment
success came from one growth stock that increased his net worth more
than all his other investments combined. Benjamin Graham and the Power of Growth Stocks
helps you rediscover the legendary economist’s forgotten
growth-investing strategy through a cutting-edge approach to capturing
profits in today’s volatile markets.
Inside, leading investment
manager Fred Martin shares the investing approach that was founded on
Graham’s long-lost valuation formula. Martin’s method lets you
accurately and confidently value growth companies for a buy-and-hold
strategy that mitigates risk and positions your portfolio for superior
long-term returns. Benjamin Graham and the Power of Growth Stocks puts everything you need at your fingertips, including:
- Effective guidance and techniques for zeroing in on the critical factors of making good investment decisions
- The three key rules for creating a margin of safety when investing in growth companies
- Tips for identifying the hidden “barriers” and “handcuffs” that signal doom for a company’s growth
- Insightful best practices and pitfalls to avoid from the author’s personal experience
- Graham’s most useful and straightforward treatise on growth-stock investing—in its entirety—for the first time since 1962
If you want your wealth to serve
you—not your broker and mutual funds—start acquiring the dream-team
companies for your portfolio today withBenjamin Graham and the Power of Growth Stocks.
Benjamin Graham and the Power of Growth Stocks: Lost Growth Stock Strategies from the Father of Value Investing
Link:
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Demystifyin the Cloud
What Is The Cloud, Anyway?
March 14, 2014
As individuals, we use the cloud everyday. Gmail,
iCloud and Netflix are all cloud-based services that consumers use on a
regular basis.
Increasingly, the enterprise is taking advantage of cloud-based
applications and services too. Most enterprise CIOs say their firm has
exposure to 30-42 cloud applications. However, the number is likely much
higher. The average exposure to the cloud in the enterprise averages 662.
[Moving to the cloud is not done overnight. Where is your financial
firm when it comes to migrating to the cloud? Learn how one enterprise is making the shift. Attend the An Enterprise Journey to Hybrid Cloud session at Interop 2014 in Las Vegas, March 31-April 4.]
With such a high exposure to the cloud, it's helpful to know what the cloud actually is, and isn't.
Link: http://www.wallstreetandtech.com/it-infrastructure/what-is-the-cloud-anyway/240166626
You use cloud-based services and applications, it's helpful to know what the cloud is and how it operates. This infographic helps with the basics of the cloud.
Here is a great infographic primer from Telx Data Centers:
Quant
Cathy O'Neil: Former analyst, D.E. Shaw & Co.; Occupy Wall Street
Cathy O’Neil taught mathematics at Barnard College before working as an analyst for the hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co. Disillusioned, she joined Occupy Wall Street and Occupy the SEC, where she hopes to devise an alternative banking system. She created the blog Mathbabe to explain and demystify terminology and practices in the financial system. This is the edited transcript of an interview conducted by producer Martin Smith on Jan. 18, 2012.
"One of the reasons I liked math was the idea that it was either right or wrong"
Let's start with just talking about your background, your educational background and your journey to where you are today.
Sure. So when I was a kid, I wanted to be a mathematician. Essentially one of the reasons I liked math was I liked the idea that it was either right or wrong, that a question could be clean; the answer could be clean.
And I entered mathematics partly because I just love that feeling of knowing it was the right thing, right answer. I fell in love with number theory in college, and I went to grad school and got a Ph.D. in number theory. I was a postdoc. And then I even became an assistant professor at Barnard College. Once I got there --
... Where [did] you [do] your undergraduate?
... I went to UC Berkeley as an undergrad. I loved that place. I went to Harvard for grad school. And then I was a postdoc for five years at MIT. So then I went to Barnard, and I had sort of been thinking, been striving to become a math professor essentially since I was 13 or 14. And when I finally became that math professor, I looked around and I said, "You know, is this really what I want?" There were various aspects of the job that just didn't suit my personality, and one of them was the feedback was very slow, and it was also very mixed.
I started realizing that the idea that you could be valued for your ideas, for your theorems was kind of naive; that in fact people -- and this is a general truth about the world -- people sort of take you on your face value, like, do they like you? Do they think your field is important? Questions like that --
So you're teaching --
I'm teaching, uh-huh.
-- at Barnard, and then you start to think--
Yeah. I just realize I'd like -- I want to go back to that place where you're being measured by something that you can point to, that you understand. And then I thought, I also want more feedback. I want to be part of the world. I really like New York. I like the energy. So I wanted to be in business, and I wanted to be measured by something I understood.
So I applied to work at a hedge fund,
D. E. Shaw, and I got the job. And I thought this was great. I mean,
here is a hedge fund; the bottom line is money, and I will know -- I
will sort of understand things in terms of this metric. And I kind of
wanted to hold onto that. So I went to work there at D. E. Shaw.
Sure. So when I was a kid, I wanted to be a mathematician. Essentially one of the reasons I liked math was I liked the idea that it was either right or wrong, that a question could be clean; the answer could be clean.
And I entered mathematics partly because I just love that feeling of knowing it was the right thing, right answer. I fell in love with number theory in college, and I went to grad school and got a Ph.D. in number theory. I was a postdoc. And then I even became an assistant professor at Barnard College. Once I got there --
... Where [did] you [do] your undergraduate?
... I went to UC Berkeley as an undergrad. I loved that place. I went to Harvard for grad school. And then I was a postdoc for five years at MIT. So then I went to Barnard, and I had sort of been thinking, been striving to become a math professor essentially since I was 13 or 14. And when I finally became that math professor, I looked around and I said, "You know, is this really what I want?" There were various aspects of the job that just didn't suit my personality, and one of them was the feedback was very slow, and it was also very mixed.
I started realizing that the idea that you could be valued for your ideas, for your theorems was kind of naive; that in fact people -- and this is a general truth about the world -- people sort of take you on your face value, like, do they like you? Do they think your field is important? Questions like that --
So you're teaching --
I'm teaching, uh-huh.
-- at Barnard, and then you start to think--
Yeah. I just realize I'd like -- I want to go back to that place where you're being measured by something that you can point to, that you understand. And then I thought, I also want more feedback. I want to be part of the world. I really like New York. I like the energy. So I wanted to be in business, and I wanted to be measured by something I understood.
So I applied to work at a hedge fund
,
D. E. Shaw, and I got the job. And I thought this was great. I mean,
here is a hedge fund; the bottom line is money, and I will know -- I
will sort of understand things in terms of this metric. And I kind of
wanted to hold onto that. So I went to work there at D. E. Shaw.Link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/oral-history/financial-crisis/cathy-oneil/
Friday, March 14, 2014
The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World
Published on Feb 27, 2014
February 26, 2014
4:30 pm-6:00 pm
Santa Monica
The Leading Indicators:
A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World
Speaker: Author and investor Zachary Karabell
GDP,unemployment, inflation. Trade, housing and stock market data.
These are among the "leading indicators" that purport to define what matters
in our economic lives.
But these broad, clear-cut markers were developed decades ago, and gray areas have come to permeate the U.S. economy since those days.
Nevertheless, these outmoded factoids still drive trillions of dollars in spending decisions and steer judgments about our success as a nation and as individuals.
Milken Institute Forum,
Zachary Karabell, a well-known money manager and author of
"The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World," will discuss the origins of these pervasive statistics, their outsize
influence and how they fail to capture the most essential information.
As he'll explain, part of the problem is the absorption of the specific
into the mass. The unemployment rate, for instance, means something
different, or perhaps nothing at all, to working people of varied ages,
regions, and educational levels.
Karabell is particularly knowledgeable about the complex ties between the Chinese and American economies, and he'll construct a truer picture of that relationship beyond what he considers misleading trade numbers. Having sounded the alarm about indicators, Karabell believes the solution lies in the
explosion of information in the digital era, which enables each of us to
gather all the data we want and customize it to our needs.
About the Author
Zachary Karabell, a Milken Institute senior fellow, is an author, money
manager, commentator, and president of River Twice Research, where he
analyzes economic and political trends. Educated at Columbia, Oxford,
and Harvard, Karabell has written 11 previous books. He is a regular
commentator on CNBC, MSNBC, and CNN.
He writes the weekly "Edgy Optimist" column for Reuters and the Atlantic, and is a contributor to the Daily Beast, Time magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the New Republic, the New York Times and Foreign Affairs.
A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World
Speaker: Author and investor Zachary Karabell
GDP,unemployment, inflation. Trade, housing and stock market data.
These are among the "leading indicators" that purport to define what matters
in our economic lives.
But these broad, clear-cut markers were developed decades ago, and gray areas have come to permeate the U.S. economy since those days.
Nevertheless, these outmoded factoids still drive trillions of dollars in spending decisions and steer judgments about our success as a nation and as individuals.
Milken Institute Forum,
Zachary Karabell, a well-known money manager and author of
"The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World," will discuss the origins of these pervasive statistics, their outsize
influence and how they fail to capture the most essential information.
As he'll explain, part of the problem is the absorption of the specific
into the mass. The unemployment rate, for instance, means something
different, or perhaps nothing at all, to working people of varied ages,
regions, and educational levels.
Karabell is particularly knowledgeable about the complex ties between the Chinese and American economies, and he'll construct a truer picture of that relationship beyond what he considers misleading trade numbers. Having sounded the alarm about indicators, Karabell believes the solution lies in the
explosion of information in the digital era, which enables each of us to
gather all the data we want and customize it to our needs.
About the Author
Zachary Karabell, a Milken Institute senior fellow, is an author, money
manager, commentator, and president of River Twice Research, where he
analyzes economic and political trends. Educated at Columbia, Oxford,
and Harvard, Karabell has written 11 previous books. He is a regular
commentator on CNBC, MSNBC, and CNN.
He writes the weekly "Edgy Optimist" column for Reuters and the Atlantic, and is a contributor to the Daily Beast, Time magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the New Republic, the New York Times and Foreign Affairs.
Category - Nonprofits & Activism
- License - Standard YouTube License
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Bill Gross
-
Bill Gross compares investors to falcons
Leave it to Bill Gross to use the falcon and the falconer from William Butler Yeats' "The Second Coming" to describe investors and central bankers.
In his latest monthly investment outlook, Pimco's founder and chief investment officer used the first three lines of the 1919 poem to introduce how his firm's investment process works.
"Yeats describes a falcon, which in this metaphorical context should be assumed to be the investors, 'turning and turning in the widening gyre,'" in search of higher and higher returns," said Gross. - The falconer, he said, is the global central banker, "training the vulturous investors to swoop down and snatch attractively priced assets on command."
- Related: Is Pimco's Bill Gross a jerk?
But Gross thinks the key question is whether the falcon can even hear the falconer anymore at this point. Central banks around the world, including the Federal Reserve, have been holding interest rates low for years since the financial
"Does the investor have confidence in the word and efficacy of the falconer's artificially priced policy rate? Can the center hold?" asked Gross.
He argues that if central bankers can convince investors that their policies of holding interest rates artificially and abnormally low can stimulate the economy, then riskier assets such as stocks and bonds can have higher returns than cash
This will be particularly important as the Fed considers tweaking its guidance. The Fed has been saying it will keep interest rates low until unemployment falls to around 6.5%. But now that threshold is about to be crossed, and officials are considering changing its guidance to be more qualitative.
Related: Janet Yellen blames it on the weather
While Pimco has been saying for several years that the Fed's policies will ultimately be ineffective over the long-term, Gross said that "to be specific for 2014," investors will believe the Fed. The falcon will listen to the falconer.
But he still warns investors to be mindful of longer-term consequences as the central bank unwinds its stimulus measures, including scaling back its monthly bond purchases. In fact, he said 2014 "may be the last of the years in which falconer and falcon act in capitalistic unison."
As the Fed ends its bond buying program, Gross said liquidity in the corporate bond market will be challenged. And if inflation begins to ramp up as interest rate rise from their lows, then that could create more turmoil. But for now, Gross concludes that investors should not fight the Fed.
"Another 'coming' is certainly in our future, but perhaps not just yet." Gross said. "Falcons, for now, can keep circling."
Posted in: bill gross, bonds, Fed, federal reserve, Janet Yellen, mohamed el-erian, pimco, quantitative easing, risk assets, stocks, tapering
Posted in: bill gross, bonds, Fed, federal reserve, Janet Yellen, mohamed el-erian, pimco, quantitative easing, risk assets, stocks, tapering- Related: Is Pimco's Bill Gross a jerk?
Jim Grant
ValueWalk.com
@valuewalk
Jim Grant: Life Would Be Simpler If Valuation Followed Law Of Gravityby @MarkMelin http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/03/jim-grant-market-valuation/ … $MACRO pic.twitter.com/taqShGKFUO
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Warren Buffett Interviews Henry Paulson
posted on Jul 23, 2013
Paulson, acting as U.S. Treasury
Secretary, caused outcries from both the Republican and Democratic
Parties as well as the general populace as he tried to get the situation
under control.
Through unprecedented intervention by the U.S. Treasury, Paulson led government efforts which he said were aimed at avoiding a severe economic slowdown. After the Dow Jones dropped 30% and turmoil ensued in the global markets, Paulson pushed through legislation authorizing the Treasury to use $700 billion to stabilize the financial system. Working with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, he influenced the decision to create a credit facility (bridge loan and warrants) of US$85 billion to American International Group so it would avoid filing bankruptcy, after having been told that AIG held teacher pension plans, 401k plans, $1.5 trillion in life insurance plans for Americans, and the French Finance Minister called to let Paulson know that AIG held the interests of many Eurozone countries.
On September 19, 2008, Paulson called for the U.S. government to use hundreds of billions of Treasury dollars to help financial
firms clean up nonperforming mortgages threatening the liquidity of
those firms. Because of his leadership and public appearances on this
issue, the press labeled these measures the "Paulson financial rescue
plan" or simply the Paulson Plan.
With the passage of H.R. 1424, Paulson became the manager of the United States Emergency Economic Stabilization fund.
As Treasury Secretary, he also sat on the newly established Financial Stability Oversight Board that oversaw the Troubled Assets Relief Program.
Paulson agreed with Bernanke that the only way to unlock the frozen capital markets was to provide direct injections into financial institutions so investors would have confidence in these institutions. The government would take a non-voting share position, with 5% dividends for the first year on the money lent to the banks and 9% thereafter until the banks stabilized and could repay the government loans. According to the book Too Big To Fail, Paulson, Bernanke, New York Federal Reserve Chairman Timothy Geithner, and FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair attended the October 13, 2008 meeting on at which this plan was presented to the CEOs of nine major banks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_pau...
Through unprecedented intervention by the U.S. Treasury, Paulson led government efforts which he said were aimed at avoiding a severe economic slowdown. After the Dow Jones dropped 30% and turmoil ensued in the global markets, Paulson pushed through legislation authorizing the Treasury to use $700 billion to stabilize the financial system. Working with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, he influenced the decision to create a credit facility (bridge loan and warrants) of US$85 billion to American International Group so it would avoid filing bankruptcy, after having been told that AIG held teacher pension plans, 401k plans, $1.5 trillion in life insurance plans for Americans, and the French Finance Minister called to let Paulson know that AIG held the interests of many Eurozone countries.
With the passage of H.R. 1424, Paulson became the manager of the United States Emergency Economic Stabilization fund.
As Treasury Secretary, he also sat on the newly established Financial Stability Oversight Board that oversaw the Troubled Assets Relief Program.
Paulson agreed with Bernanke that the only way to unlock the frozen capital markets was to provide direct injections into financial institutions so investors would have confidence in these institutions. The government would take a non-voting share position, with 5% dividends for the first year on the money lent to the banks and 9% thereafter until the banks stabilized and could repay the government loans. According to the book Too Big To Fail, Paulson, Bernanke, New York Federal Reserve Chairman Timothy Geithner, and FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair attended the October 13, 2008 meeting on at which this plan was presented to the CEOs of nine major banks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_pau...
-
Category - Education
-
License - Standard YouTube License
Link: http://youtu.be/uTj9HEt3Mc0
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)