Hedge Fund Manager Advice on Deflation
This guys comments make sense and give some interesting advice on investing for deflation.
The Long Term Effect of Government Unions
This is too good of a quote to pass up. Read the whole article at the Aleph Blog
My view of unions is that they slowly kill whomever they serve. Industries with high unionization die eventually. Countries that support unions die slowly as well.
Unions introduce inflexibility into the economic process which has a huge cost, eventually. Greece is controlled by its unions. They are willing to seek their own prosperity even if it leads to the destruction of the nation. They don’t think the nation will be destroyed, but think that there are parties in power that hold back value from them, and they must be opposed, deluded fools that the unions are.
via The Aleph Blog » Blog Archive » The Lack of Cultural Agreement Roars, the Eurozone Mews.
Case-Shiller Data on California Cities
I noted with interest the year over year price changes for the three California cities on the Case-Shiller price data list. Here are the one year price changes through February of 2010.
- Los Angeles: +5.31%
- San Diego: +7.56%
- San Francisco: +11.86%
The California market bottomed price-wise in April of 2009, so these numbers should continue to improve for the next two months. By then we will be in the summer buying season. Will perception become reality and the public start to believe California home values are rising?
There are numerous economic factors that should be holding back California real estate. But the trend tends to be self sustaining. How much will and upward price trend start to change the attitudes in California? Time will tell.
Goldman Sachs troubles cause turmoil in the energy markets
The following is reprinted with permission from oilprice.com
Oil Market Summary for 04/12/2010 to 04/16/2010
Oil prices plunged on Friday after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Goldman Sachs with fraud in its marketing of certain subprime mortgage securities, amid a general sell-off in financial and commodity markets.
The allegations against one of the biggest market makers in virtually every markets dampened speculation heading into the weekend. Much like the volcanic eruption in Iceland spewed a cloud of dust over northern Europe that grounded all air travel, the SEC charge cast a pall over financial markets.
The May contract for West Texas Intermediate, which expires next week, settled down $2.27 or 2.7% at $83.24 after briefly dipping below $83 in the wake of the SEC announcement. The benchmark contract settled at $84.92 a week earlier.
Goldman Sachs had no immediate comment. Prices had been drifting lower in equities and other markets prior to the announcement, but fell sharply afterwards, led by a plunge of more than 10% in Goldman shares.
Some analysts speculated that prices could rebound on Monday once the dust has settled, but market participants remained uncertain about the long-term impact of the SEC charge on Goldman’s business and on that of other major banks.
In the past, Goldman has rejected charges of misleading investors when it sold securities that it subsequently shorted in its own trading, asserting that that is the role of a market maker. Goldman is one of the biggest participants in the energy futures markets.
Oil prices started the week soft, but firmed up after Wednesday’s inventory report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which showed a small decline in crude inventories after 10 successive weeks of increases.
An unexpected decline in April consumer sentiment reported on Friday, however, led to new doubts about the strength of the economic recovery and depressed prices. The market had been expecting a reading of 75 after 73.6 in the previous month, but instead the index came in at 69.5.
The inventory report on Wednesday pushed oil prices up 2.1%, to $85.84. But the monthly outlook from OPEC released the same day actually revised its forecast for 2010 demand for OPEC oil downward by 135,000 barrels a day from the previous month, to 28.8 million barrels a day. The group’s expectation for the overall growth in oil consumption also trails that of other analysts.
By. Darrell Delamaide for Oilprice.com who offer detailed analysis on Crude oil, Geopolitics, Gold and most other commodities. They also provide free political and economic intelligence to help investors gain a greater understanding of world events and the impact they have on certain regions and sectors. Visit: http://www.oilprice.com
The future for commercial real estate
This video is a little old but I found the content interesting. Especially the last minute. If these REIT companies can get their hands on distressed bank held commercial properties, they appear to be able to make some nice returns. One would assume that the banks see the same potential if they can hold on to the property and maybe squeeze some more cash out of the borrower before they go belly up.
