Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Eric Sprott: Finding Value in Zero Rate World

Eric Sprott, Sprott Asset Management CEO & president, discusses where investors can find yield in a low-rate environment.

Ken Fisher: Bull Market Is Halfway Done

The bull run in the stock market is about half over, and mega-cap companies are the way to go from here, says Ken Fisher of Fisher Investments.

Russian Equities Trade at Deep Discounts

Douglas Hefer, senior fund manager at HSBC, tells CNBC why Russian equities are trading at deep discounts to long-term average and how Russia is boosting investments into other sectors apart from commodities.

Parag Khanna: In North Korea, Look for Changes in Policy, Not Doctrine

Parag Khanna, Director, Hybrid Reality Institute is optimistic about the future of North Korea. He says we need to have a more gradualist view of what's going to happen in the country.

Flat Tax Lessons From Bulgaria

Rosen Plevneliev, President of Republic of Bulgaria, discusses how to solve the global economic crisis without taxing citizens to death.

Ken Heebner: Buy America!

Kenneth Heebner, Capital Growth Management, explains why he is bullish on America.

Michael Hasenstab: Look at Short Dated Asian Bonds

Michael Hasenstab, Senior Vice President, Franklin Templeton Fixed Income Group says to look at short dated Asian government bonds as the region will be at the forefront of the inflation trend as cheap money from the west flows into the region.

Michael Hasenstab: Traditional Safe Havens are Gone

Michael Hasenstab, Senior Vice President, Franklin Templeton Fixed Income Group says that due to rising inflation over time, traditional safe havens like the 10 year U.S. Treasury don't exists anymore.

Does Myanmar Have a Bright Future Ahead?

Alisher Ali, CEO, Silk Road Management says the easing of sanctions by the U.S. paves the way for increased interest from global firms and a variety of countries. He tells CNBC which industries are set to outperform the economy.


Investing in Mongolia

Travis Hamilton, MD, Khan Investment Management welcomes recent comments by Mongolia's new government that it's open to foreign investments. He expects the country to be financially independent in 4-5 years time.

Stanley Crouch sees 25% correction

Stanley JG Crouch, Aegis Capital CIO, explains why he thinks the market "will likely see a massive correction in all risk assets."

Jim Chanos on Short Selling, Hedge Funds, Election

Jim Chanos, founder and president of Kynikos Associates, talks about short-selling opportunities, strategy in technology and banking stocks, and the hedge-fund industry. Chanos, speaking with Betty Liu at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, also discusses the U.S. election.

Bob Rodriguez: Brace for another drop

First Pacific Advisors' CEO Bob Rodriguez, explains why he thinks the "Fed's economic forecasts have been overly optimistic," and why Bernanke should be replaced with a "less intrusive chairman."

Very much like prior to the last credit crisis where there were cancers developing in various areas of the credit market that were a function of unsound monetary policy in '03, but you didn't see it for several years. The same thing is happening with the Fed's QE policy, particularly with this QE3, since it's forcing investors to make what I would call riskier decisions...

We are coming into the most critical year, I believe, in the last 80 years in 2013. and it's something I've spoken about ... as I argued earlier this year that we would be going into recessions in Europe as well as Japan and that China was slowing and the international area was very much important to the growth. Secondly, labor costs as well as lower interest rates have been key drivers in the profit recovery. Those things may be tenuous at this stage of the game. I don't see a 3%-plus real gdp number. The cbo's real gdp base forecast of 4.2% through 2017 looks incredibly optimistic to me.

Michael Price likes JC Penney, Citigroup, JP Morgan

MFP Investors president and managing partner Michael Price talks with Bloomberg's Tom Keene about the pent up demand of American consumers and businesses and the lack of leadership on high-frequency trading.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Ray Dalio on QE3 and US Dollar


In an exclusive CNBC interview, legendary hedge fund manager, Raymond Dalio, Bridgewater Associates founder, & CIO, shares his thoughts on the Fed's monetary policy and the competitiveness of the U.S. dollar, with CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin. "There's a short squeeze on the dollar"

Well, I guess over the near term, I think that it's going to decline because as we're alleviating -- there's a short squeeze in dollars. There's a lot of dollar denominated debt. So that means there's a lot of promises for dollar. That means people need dollars. So when we have the movement in emerging countries and capital flows that way, Europe and European banks lend dollars. They have a funding problem so they need dollars. That all creates a squeeze, but like any market squeeze, once you have the market squeeze that'ses passed, then it goes down and I think we're in the phase of that happening.It's an ugly contest. so I think over a longer period of time, those currencies have their problems, and then we have emerging market currencies. They're not very well developed, but they have a much more fundamentally strong position, and then we have gold as a currency. So that's the comparison

Ray Dalio's Rules For Investing


Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates founder and CIO, explains why he doesn't get "caught up in the moment" when making investment decisions.

I think these things sort of keep happening over and over again, and then I have this template and then I have these rules -- if this happens, that happens probably because it's all happened before.


Ray Dalio Reads Europe's 'Tea Leaves'


Ray Dalio shares his predictions on the future of Europe and why he believes the euro zone is likely to stay together.

I think in the next couple of years I think that we're going to have a depression in southern europe and it's going to be a managed depression. there will be a combination of monetary policy, printing a certain amount of money to relieve it and at the same time a de-leveraging and restructuring of debt. de-leveragings, restructuring of debt and austerity are deflationary, and they are negative for growth. printing of money is inflationary and positive for growth. you have to have enough stimulation that you raise growth, you have to have a higher level of growth than you have of interest rates and so that process will continue and it will be a 10 to 15-year managed depression. the euro in that thesis stays together in. I think the euro stays -- eurozone. -- likely to stay together, although in later years, it's more risky.

 I think the euro is controlled by southern Europeans for the most part, it's a vote of the members, and it will be run that way. And that will help to achieve the balance ... if there is a breakup, I think it's more likely that the northern europeans would leave.

What Worries Ray Dalio?


Ray Dalio discusses his biggest concerns about the global economy, and why he thinks gold should be part of every investor's portfolio.

I worry about social disruption, about another leg down in the economies causing social disruptions. Because deleveraging can be very painful until they're managed. But when people get at each other's throat, the rich and the poor and the left and the right and so on and you have a basic breakdown, that becomes very threatening. For example, Hitler came to power in 1933 because of the social tension between the factions.

I think gold be a part of everybody's portfolio to some degree because it diversifies the portfolio. It is the alternative money. we have a situation now where when you have too much debt, too much debt leads to printing of money to make it easier to service. So all of those things mean that some portion should be in gold.


Ray Dalio Discusses Possible Downturn in US Economy


The odds of that [a significant downturn] are comparatively low but I worry about it because it's significant possibility. I described it as though, imagine you're on an airplane that's flying from here to Los Angeles, you're probably going to get there okay but if you hit an air pocket and meaning if the economy goes down, there's not an easy way to reverse it. Monetary policy is less effective because when you buy a bond, when the Fed makes a purchase, that has the effect of giving money to somebody who won't put that money into something like that bond. And that money does not easily go to people who spend it, that's a balance between monetary and fiscal policy and I worry about the policymakers getting that balance right ... other than that, I think the most likely situation is we will fly successfully from here to Los Angeles essentially but we have longer risks. You need a balance between austerity and sometimes debt restructurings, and monetization. If you have too much monetization, you're going to have an inflationary problem. you have too little stimulation, monetary and fiscal policy, you're going to have a depression ...  I would say that there are reasonable risks that it will not be managed well.

Ray Dalio on China


The fact that they can have 6% growth and think that's depressing and we can have 2% growth and think that's good is a reflection of the difference in our competitiveness.

El-Erian:
The critical issue is can china navigate the middle income transition. only five countries have navigated this middle income transition at high speed ... our gut feeling is yes, they'll be able to but it's going to be really bumpy and this is one of the big five risks that the market faces going forward ... It's always good to remember that most countries, Brazil, the Indonesias, failed at that level. So this is an important stage in history.

AQR's Asness Discusses Hedge Fund Performance, Fees

Cliff Asness, a co-founder and managing principal of AQR Capital, talks with Bloomberg's Stephanie Ruhle about the hedge-fund industry's performance and fees at the Bloomberg Markets 50 Summit in New York.

Howard Davidowitz on Consumer Spending, Economy

Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates Inc., talks about the performance of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and the impact of Fed policy on consumer confidence.

Jeff Gundlach: Stocks Won't Repeat Lost Decade,

Muddy Waters' Block on Investing Strategy, Research

Carson Block, founder of Muddy Waters Research, talks about investment opportunities outside China, equity research by banks and corporate auditing practices.

Stephen Roach: Fed's Asset Purchases Are `Charade,'

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Marc Faber: Fed Policy Will 'Destroy the World'

Nouriel Roubini: ECB Will Be Strict on Conditionality

Nouriel Roubini discusses the European Central Bank's bond-purchase program, the outlook for the euro and expectations for today's U.S. August jobs report.

Morgan Creek's Yusko Seeks `Protege' Fund Managers

Mark Yusko of Morgan Creek Capital, former CIO of the U of North Carolina endowment, talks about how he goes about selecting managers in this long and quite informative interview. He talks about why he likes small and large funds, but not medium-sized ones. He also talks about some managers that he likes today.

US Economy Is `Teasing With Recession'

Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial, talks about the outlook for the U.S. economy, manufacturing and the housing market.

Straszheim: China On the Cusp of a 'Hard Landing'

Donald Straszheim, senior managing director at International Strategy & Investment Group, talks about China's economy and the country's relationship with Japan.

Jason Trennert on Strategy, U.S. Equities Outlook

Jason Trennert, chief investment strategist at Strategas Research Partners, talks about the outlook for U.S. stocks. [A recent interview with Trennert in Barron's]

Gary Shilling Sees China Hard Landing on Export Reliance

Gary Shilling talks about the prospects for global deflation and the Chinese economy.

Jeff Gundlach: The 'New Bond King' (Part 2)


I think it is more likely that the fed buys all the US treasury bonds that exist than that they're going to work the opposite direction and start selling them. I have no concept of what the fed exit strategy would look nor does an investor or viewer need to have a concept because it is way out in the future. The fed is doing exactly the opposite. they're expanding their balance sheet. They're working on qe3 and qe infinity ...  The next move is not the fed exiting. It is the fed continuing, and that's what we have to deal with.

This is a world where you have to get away from all of the types of traditional things that are largely still advocated which is index based. You can't own treasury bonds. You have to move into international bonds. I like for the first time in years bank debt type of funds where they invest in floating rate senior in the capital structure or corporate bonds which look relatively attractive versus traditional junk bonds and of course mortgage-backed securities around the edges that we're so expert in, and finally really safe dividend paying stocks and I mean really safe. I don't mean technology companies. I mean consumer product companies, Campbell's soup, Kraft.

I think if you're a buy and hold person, will you be disappointed. You will end up with something around 5% or so at best case. This is a market where buy and hold unfortunately is completely out the door. This is unfortunate because of all of these policy manipulations and these twin towers of risk (the u.s. deficit and the european situation), people have to be more active than ever before which is really difficult for individual investors.

Jeff Gundlach: The 'New Bond King' (Part 1)


I don't see any investment value in the ten-year treasury at all ... I have been saying I think the yield could rise 100 basis points from where it is now even before year end. For this reason we have gone to the lowest interest rate exposure in history in the summer of this year ...  I think the reason ten-year treasury rates can go up is because it is so unattractive as an investment at 1.8%.

We're in this kind of situation of zero interest rates and the fed doing what they can seemingly as far as the eye can see, but it won't bring interest rates down. Just look at the bloodless verdict of the market.

Now the problem with all of this manipulation of the market is you can play a small ride to a gain but once you get to that gain what's the forward looking prospect? It is less.

As my friend Jim Grant says we're living in a hall of mirrors where you don't really know what investors think because the price discovery is being destroyed by government intervention and to that basis I don't really like what the Fed is doing.

In general, I don't like risk assets at the level they're at today in the short-term and I am not very positive. In the longer term i think these policies that the Fed is trying to put in place mean that longer term you want to be involved in real businesses and real assets that can have the ability to preserve purchasing power and move forward. I don't think we'll have a lost decade and I won't buy them because everything is so high.

I think the obsession with Apple is truly remarkable social phenomena. When you watch CNBC, everybody wants to talk about is Apple going up today, down today, fixation, obsession, with apple. to me that means the stock is over believed and over bought.

What I am going to talk about for investors recommending stocks or stock markets is pair trades - looking at things and saying if we're going to get inflationary fix, you want to own the Spanish stock market. You want to own natural gas. You want to own agricultural commodities. Short things like Apple and the S&P ...

Jim Chanos: Is HFT Just a Better 'Mouse Trap' or Unfair?


Jim Chanos discusses whether high-frequency traders have an unfair advantage over the individual investor.


Jim Chanos Covers Shorts on Health Care

Jim Chanos: Long Financials, Short Tech


Investors should avoid the whole PC chain. Apple as well as the cloud are changing fundamentally the way we gather data. We're not long Apple. Interestingly we're long Microsoft and Oracle against our HP short ... You want to be sure the actual PC hardware, you want to be short printers, you want to be short ink.

We believe in the concept of the deleveraging credit python and if you think about the three little pigs in the python, the US is the pig at the end of the credit python, Europe is the pig in the middle of the python and our friends in China are the pig going into the python. In any case I think the US is coming out of this ... We're long JP Morgan, we're long Citi actually. 


Why Jim Chanos Is Short China

We get criticized because China is not lying there in smoke and ruins. We've done just fine in China. I think what we're seeing is the model, the economic model everybody trumpeted three years ago, when I first started talking about it here, is under a lot of scrutiny...

We've cautioned people that China's net exports is a very small part of their economy, but gross exports is very large, it's almost 40% of the economy. sort of 40% exports, 37% imports for net three, but if the 40 drops to 35, you can have problems. The other interesting thing that's new in China is that we are beginning to see not the trade export balance decrease, which has been happening, but now capital is going out of China. so they're actually seeing a deficit in terms of investment. well, hot money is leaving... It's a huge, huge change and it's going to make the policy much harder to implement from Beijing,

Interesting David Einhorn article in the WSJ

Friday, September 14, 2012

Frank Giustra interview

 Frank Giustra is a billionaire mining and entertainment mogul

Sixteenth century Spain. In just over 100 years, it went from an almost nothing nation, to a great empire, and back to a nothing nation. They became a consumption economy…They waged a number of wars with almost everybody on the planet…because they felt they were a superior nation…[and] that’s what’s happening in America today…There’s no way out except currency debasement.

It’s easier to make money with inflation than with deflation. All you need to make money with inflation is money…Those that influence policy are usually the ones that have access to money, or can borrow it very cheaply… They have a conflict of interest… [Inflation is] where a lot of people are getting rich, and the public is being educated—quote “educated” to accept that type of [inflationary outcome].”

Thursday, September 13, 2012

(ECRI) The 2012 Recession: Are We There Yet?

The 2012 Recession: Are We There Yet?

For the U.S., the economy is recessionary despite all of the extraordinary efforts by the Fed over the past four years. In that sense, one might argue that, as far as the economy is concerned, the Fed’s actions have become increasingly ineffective.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Rob Arnott: Emerging Markets Still Look Good

Arnott: Emerging Markets Still Look Good
Emerging markets, for the most part, don’t have large deficits; for the most part don’t have large debt burdens. Not because they wouldn’t be willing to have large debts, but because the markets won't let them. The debt burden of the emerging economies is 10 percent of the world total. For the G5, it’s 70 percent. Both represent 40 percent of world GDP. So one has seven times the debt coverage ratio of the other. Which would you rather own?


Thor Equities' Sitt on Real Estate Investment

Joseph Sitt, chief executive officer of Thor Equities LLC, talks about his investment strategy for real estate in Europe, central bank policy and the outlook for the global economy

Hedge Funds: What's Working, What's Not

Agecroft Partners Don Steinbrugge discusses the success of macro funds.

John Taylor (FX Concepts) Fed to Signal Stimulus

Kenneth Rogoff on Economy, Europe Debt Crisis

Shah: Stay Away From Financial Stocks

Ashok Shah, director of investment at London & Capital Group, discusses financial stocks.

Meredith Whitney on Bank Industry, Jobs, Economy

Brevan Howard to Start Trading in August

DW Investment Management, which manages money for Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP, hired mortgage trader Sean Macleod from hedge fund Metacapital Management

John Mauldin: Draghi Has `Nothing to Give'

David Zervos on payrolls

Interview with Dinakar Singh (TPG-Axon)



Phoenix Leads U.S. Housing Recovery

Steve Berkowitz, chief executive officer of Move Inc., talks about Realtor.com's latest quarterly report on the top 10 turnaround housing markets in the U.S.

Fed's Fisher on Monetary Policy, Stimulus Risks

GoldenTree's Tananbaum on Investment Strategy

Ace Greenberg on Knight Capital, Trading Platforms

US Corporate Bonds, Stocks Favored by Hermes Fund

Swiss Franc Peg to Snap as Deflation Risk Abates

High-Frequency Trading Is `Video Game'

Sal Arnuk, a partner at Themis Trading LLC, talks about the implications of high-frequency trading for financial markets and the the Aug. 1 software malfunction that caused Knight Capital Group Inc. to suffer a $440 million dollar trading loss.

Shilling: Fed Action Won't Make Much Difference

Spain Heading to Full Country Bailout

Armando Senra on Latam Outlook

Armando Senra, head of Latin America and Iberia region at BlackRock, discusses the outlook for Latin American markets and currencies.

Charles Peabody: Financials Will Lead Market `Melt Up'

Billionaire Gerald Ford on Bank M&A, Glass-Steagall

Gerald J. Ford, chairman of Hilltop Holdings Inc. and Diamond A-Ford Corp., talks about bank acquisition strategy and the prospects for breaking up large banks. Ford, who became a billionaire buying distressed lenders during the savings-and-loan crisis, speaks with Stephanie Ruhle.

Joshua Rosner on on Mortgage Banking Outlook

Joshua Rosner, an analyst at Graham Fisher & Co., talks about the outlook for the mortgage banking industry.

MKM's Darda on Stock Market, Economic Outlook

Michael Darda, chief economist and chief market strategist at MKM Partners LP, talks about the outlook for the U.S. stock market and economy.

Stephen Schork on Oil Outlook

Stephen Schork, president of the Schork Group, talks about the outlook for oil prices and the possible impact of rising gas prices on the U.S. presidential campaign.

Jim Rickards on Iran-Israel, Australian Dollar, Yuan

Spruce's Bailey on Hedge Funds

John Bailey, founder and chief executive officer of Spruce Private Investors, discusses hedge funds and investment strategy.

David Malpass Sees US Recession Risk in 2013

Byron Wien: S&P May Reach 1,500 in 2012

Michael Pachter: Facebook Lockups May Make Stock Cheap

Barclays's Croft on Africa Commodities, Middle East

Helima Croft, an analyst at Barclays Capital, talks about China's role in Africa's metals market.

BlueBay Overweight Spanish, Italian, Irish Bonds

Mark Dowding, a fixed-income portfolio manager at BlueBay Asset Management, talks about his strategy for euro-zone sovereign bonds.

Adam Parker Sees 18% Slide in S&P, Likes Energy

Tom Friedman: US Needs Third-Party Candidate

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman talks about his book, "That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back," the national debt, education and competitiveness, the environment and the nation's political discourse.

Qatar SWF Seeks Emerging-Market Exposure

Rachel Ziemba, senior analyst at Roubini Global Economics, discusses Qatar's sovereign wealth fund.

Martin Fridson on QE, Economy

Howard Davidowitz: JC Penney CEO `Off-Track'

Sethi: Investors Have Clamored for Yield

Sarat Sethi, principal at Douglas C. Lane & Associates, talks with Bloomberg's Betty Liu and Dominic Chu about his investment strategy.

CBO Warns of Recession, $1.1T Deficit

Barry Ritholtz: September Make or Break for Stocks

Emerging Markets Offer Dividend Income

Daniel Morris, a strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, talks about the outlook for stocks and the U.K. economy.

Gary Shilling: 30-Year Yield to Fall to 2%

Uri Landesman: Terrible Risk-Reward in US Stocks

Uri Landesman, president of Platinum Partners, talks about risk in U.S. stocks and equity investment strategy.

Chris Whalen: Some Banks to Drop National Charter

Charles Dumas: ECB Cannot Deliver on `Impossible' Dual Mandate

Man Group's Ellis on Fund of Funds, FRM Acquisition

Luke Ellis, CEO of Man Group's multi-manager business, talks about the fund-of-funds industry and the firm's acquisition of FRM Holding

Venture Capital Opportunities in Los Angeles Fashion

Dana Settle, a partner at Greycroft Partners LLC, talks about venture capital investment opportunities in Los Angeles including in the fashion industry.

EA's Gibeau on Next Generation Game Consoles

Frank Gibeau, head of labels at Electronic Arts Inc., talks about the transition to the next generation of game consoles and EA's acquisition of PopCap Games.

Europe Small-Cap Valuations Attractive

Jeffrey Davis, chief investment officer at Lee Munder Capital Group, talks about investment strategy in Europe and the U.S.

Bill Gross Expects More Fed QE `Relatively Soon'

Carl Weinberg on US., Chinese Economies, Europe's Debt

Carl Weinberg, founder and chief economist at High Frequency Economics, talks about the U.S. and Chinese economies and Europe's debt crisis.

Meredith Whitney on Fed Accommodation, Banking

Wilbur Ross: Financial Markets in `Treacherous Spot''

Arnab Das: Fed QE Will be Too Little, Too Late

Levkovich on U.S. Market Outlook, Strategy

Mohnish Pabrai at UC Davis

Marc Faber's forecasts for the global economy

Jim Grant: Fed 'Manipulates' Areas It Shouldn't

Interview with Michael Wexler (Maple Leaf Capital)

Veteran volatility trader Michael Wexler from Maple Leaf Capital explains how investors can actually profit from volatility by employing strategies that make more money in higher volatility than low vol environments. This is possible because the dislocation in the pricing of options between fair value and actual trading is greater at higher volatility levels.

Alexander Ineichen on the investment case for hedge funds

Alexander Ineichen is the author of "Absolute Returns ― The Risk and Opportunities of Hedge Fund Investing" and “Asymmetric Returns―The Future of Active Asset Management”