Market Outlook
“Disregard the amateur warnings and ride the gold bull,†says Richard Russell
Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog. The remarks below come from 86-year old Richard Russell, writer of the daily Dow Theory Letters. Russell has been bullish on gold from just about the start of the nascent bull market in 2001. “Lately there’s been a tide of [...]
Continue reading...Stiglitz urges South Africa to take action to weaken rand
20 January 2011 – 6:32 am PDT
Comments Off
Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog. Joseph Stiglitz, economics professor at Columbia University and a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, has once again encouraged South Africa to take a more interventionist stance to weaken its exchange rate, saying that commodity-rich countries are [...]
Continue reading...Housing starts down, but permits provide hope
20 January 2011 – 6:32 am PDT
Comments Off
Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog. The latest round of housing data shows residential construction has fallen again, with December housing starts dropping 4.3% below November to an annualized rate of 529,000 units. Although this decline is somewhat deeper than expected, permit extensions increased strongly by [...]
Continue reading...Picture du Jour: Besides China, it’s (almost) all good on U.S. trade imbalances
20 January 2011 – 6:30 am PDT
Comments Off
Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog. “The yearly U.S. trade deficit peaked at 6.4% of GDP in August 2006. It improved significantly after the financial crisis, bottoming out at 3.6% in January 2010. This swing provided a boost to GDP and nudged the U.S. external balance [...]
Continue reading...Brazil: Restarting the hikes
20 January 2011 – 5:54 am PDT
Comments Off
Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog. This post is a guest contribution by Gray Newman of Morgan Stanley. When Brazil’s central bank meets this week to review monetary policy, there is little doubt now that the authorities will raise interest rates. After having begun a hiking cycle [...]
Continue reading...Laugh out Loud: $100 oil – trouble ahead
20 January 2011 – 5:54 am PDT
Comments Off
Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog. Source: Marshall Ramsey, SlateV.com, January 19, 2011. Did you enjoy this post? If so, click here to subscribe to updates to Investment Postcards from Cape Town by e-mail. Laugh out Loud: $100 oil – trouble ahead was first posted on [...]
Continue reading...Fed “consistently and repeatedly messes up everything,†says Faber
19 January 2011 – 3:00 am PDT
Comments Off
Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog. Chris Martenson, is an economic researcher and futurist, and creator of the widely-viewed video seminar, The Crash Course, has just conducted a wide-ranging interview with famed investor Marc Faber, author of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report, as reported by [...]
Continue reading...Inflation titans marshalling 2011 forces
19 January 2011 – 2:12 am PDT
Comments Off
Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog. By Cees Bruggemans, Chief Economist of FNB. Having dipped as low as 3.2%, CPI inflation has already been rising for two months back to 3.6%, with forecasts of 4.5% this year and 5.5% next year. This, though, is a ‘risk-free’ scenario, [...]
Continue reading...Technical Talk: What to do, what to do?
19 January 2011 – 2:12 am PDT
Comments Off
Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog. The comments below were provided by Kevin Lane of Fusion IQ. “If you don’t create change, change will create you.†Mahatma Ghandi This remains the million dollar question as there are plausible arguments for both the bulls and the bears. The [...]
Continue reading...Southern Europeans are not lazy!
19 January 2011 – 2:00 am PDT
Comments Off
Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog. This chart below, courtesy of Société Générale (via Business Insider – Clusterstock) shows the gaps in labor utilization and labor productivity eurozone members need to make up in order to reach U.S. GDP per capita. The labor utilization number measures [...]
Continue reading...
20 January 2011 – 6:33 am PDT
Comments Off