10 Tuesday AM Reads

March 17, 2015 7:30am by

Markets were upbeat yesterday on news from Europe. As my pal Doug Kass noted, the Dow rose 140 last Monday, was down 330 on Tuesday, +260 on Thursday, -250 on Friday (before finishing -145), while yesterday +228.

And today? We have your morning train reads:

• Mutual Funds Pick Year When S&P 500 Is Up 1% to Beat the Market  (Bloomberg)
• Shiller: How Scary Is the Bond Market? (Project Syndicate) see also Bonds Hit Boiling Point Thanks to ECB (WSJ)
• (Now) Apple is all about China (Om)
• In Praise of Short Sellers (New Yorker)
• You Kids Get Off Mark Zuckerberg’s Lawn (Medium)

Continues here

 

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  2. RW commented on Mar 17

    The Fed and the low interest-rate policies it is pursuing is essentially a response to a disfunctional political system, grossly inappropriate fiscal austerity, widespread financial misfeasance, a global savings glut, secular stagnation and a damaged housing-finance system.

    To imagine that this response is the cause of market and economic ‘distortion’ is to confuse cause and effect (never mind the difficulty of defining ‘distortion’ sufficiently for modeling purposes).

    The weird way people talk about zero interest rates (ht WCEG)

    There’s something about zero interest rates that makes people go a little crazy. Something about it that just seems, well, unnatural. Maybe it’s not dogs and cats living together, but it’s still pretty close to mass hysteria.

    Well, at least that’s what Wall Street thinks. Gillian Tett, who’s one of the best at getting the masters of the universe to tell us what they think in between their flights from Davos to Aspen, says that “ultra-low interest rates have a nasty habit of distorting markets in all manner of unexpected ways, all over the world.” You can see that, supposedly, in the all the money that’s pouring into “U.S. activist funds, angel investments, laying down wine or jumping into the art market.” In other words, we should worry that billionaires are paying so much for Picassos and pinot noirs as part of the hyperinflation in the Hamptons.

    Now it’s true that lower interest rates make asset prices go up, but “distorts” is a funny way of putting that. After all, we don’t say that higher interest rates “distort” asset prices down. ….

  4. VennData commented on Mar 17

    Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: France, Germany and Italy said to join

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/17/asian-infrastructure-investment-bank-france-germany-and-italy-said-to-join

    I propose Illinois joins as well. Leave the Republicans out of it. With their distaste for infrastructure investment, I just don’t want to be under their ideological thumb.

    Hopefully they majority of Republicans will leave America since they hate it so much here and do their own personal tax inversion in any of the many free market paradises around the world. CYA.

  5. rd commented on Mar 17

    Brick by brick, the neo-cons have been dismantling the US’s influence in the world. The latest is the rise of a new international bank that will effectively be helmed by China with participation from Europe and other countries. The US is not participating. It was set up because the Congress has refused to allow the World Bank to allow more influence by countries like China.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/17/us-europe-asia-bank-idUSKBN0MD0B320150317

  8. VennData commented on Mar 17

    Patrick Schwarzenegger Denies Cheating On Miley Cyrus During Spring Break

    ​”…Photographic evidence can be hard to explain, especially when such exists of you doing body shots off a girl who isn’t your girlfriend during spring break. USC student and Miley Cyrus’ boyfriend, Patrick Schwarzenegger, appears in such photos taken while he was in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico this week…”​

    ​”…On Monday, Us Weekly reported the 21-year-old was spotted at Mango Deck Restaurant & Bar “cozying up” to a “petite brunette,” in a “tiny black bikini” and a “‘Kappa Kappa Gamma’ sorority head scarf,” who wrapped her arms around his neck at one point. Later, Schwarzenegger was photographed taking shots off her body…”​

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/17/patrick-schwarzenegger-cheating-miley-cyrus_n_6884932.html

    This is ridiculous! ​Doing a body shot is not cheating.

    • intlacct commented on Mar 17

      At least he wasn’t one of the bad boyz of PSU’s Kappa Delta Rho!

      Move on Mi-Mi. Patrick will be banging the help before you know it…

  9. rd commented on Mar 17

    It looks like the US is in the late middle game in the Middle East with Iran becoming the dominant player. The Iraq war left the US in the unenviable position of: having boots on the ground with IEDs going off and uncertain relations with an independent country that the US is basically trying occupy militarily; or letting Iran fill the power vacuum remaining after the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime..

    http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-16/mideast-s-balance-of-power-tips-toward-iran

    • VennData commented on Mar 17

      At least “they” couldn’t laugh at Dick Cheney anymore for leaving Saddam in power after they invaded Kuwait and we freed them, to put the mullahs back in power their, or whatever they call their Allah descended genetic rulers in Kuwait. Emirs?

      Nice to have male ego driving our foreign policy.

  15. intlacct commented on Mar 17

    From Business Insider:

    Cheney said Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, who are both the first black officials in their respective offices, played “the race card” by suggesting their ethnicity has factored into some of the attacks against them:

    “I think they’re playing the race card, in my view. Certainly we haven’t given up — nor should we give up — the right to criticize an administration and public officials. To say that we criticize, or that I criticize, Barack Obama or Eric Holder because of race, I think it’s obviously not true. My view of it is the criticism is merited because of performance — or lack of performance, because of incompetence. It hasn’t got anything to do with race.”

    So, he essentially adopts the Republican proposal for health care reform, ‘dithers’ in the sense that he permits a year’s worth of dilatory discussion by the obstructionists, and then nil of the Republicans support it and they vote to repeal it 50x. Definitely merit-based.

    Which of Mr. Bush’s State of the Union speeches was interrupted by a member of Congress standing up and accusing him of lying?

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