Bull and Bear – an optimistic and pessimistic view of investment news. Today’s stories: Winners and losers: some countries fall into recession, some don’t, some even boom. Oh Those Russians! US inflation tumbles.US retail sales pick-up. Germany expects Hollande to see things its way. Cost of Euro collapse. Companies in the news: Anglo Pacific, Smiths Group
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After the event people looked back and said that when Saatchi and Saatchi made a bid to buy Midland bank, it was a sign things had gone too far. They said that the crash of 1987 occurred because markets had become over exuberant, and the bid by an advertising agency to buy the listening bank was a pretty clear indication of this. Today it seems we have several reasons to fret. For one thing markets still don’t seem to be fully taking into account the dangers of a full blown euro collapse. And what about Facebook? Shares are due to be trading later this week. Is its huge valuation a sign that markets have well and truly lost any sense of sanity?
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In the eye of a storm?
All hell didn’t really break out yesterday. Sure we saw some very interesting movements in the markets with an awful lot of selling in some areas and buying in others, but the media headlines were overdone. Markets have still not got their collective intelligence around what is really going on. And that is why yesterday was more like a dress rehearsal than the real thing. The news on the latest GDP figures relating to the two big economies that make up the euro were perhaps better than expected, not that that is saying much. But what we are seeing at the moment is being charged by the electorate; Real Street as opposed to Wall Street is making the moves. And yesterday, it was the vote in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia area that proved pretty momentous. But there is something else going on, there is a deep rooted issue that needs to be addressed and the Austerians who see tax cuts as the answer to everything have yet to realise this. But a report out from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) this morning, really does hit the nail on the head.
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All of a sudden the talk is everywhere; the inevitability of a Greek exit from the Eurozone dominated Radio One’s ‘Newsbeat’ yesterday, for example. This morning the headline on the German web site ‘Spiegel’ stated: ‘Greece Can No Longer Delay Euro Zone Exit.’ And we are told it is a disaster for Greece. Others say they just hope the firewall in the euro area is strong enough to stop the contagion spreading to the UK. And of course we are told that Greece is a special case; that it can leave the euro, but Spain, Portugal and co will be unaffected. But I want to consider the other scenario. Suppose the Greek exit ultimately proves to be a boon for Greece, and we are about to see a pretty unique buying opportunity.
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Bull and Bear – an optimistic and pessimistic view of investment news. Today’s stories: Good news at the factory gate. Food prices fall. China’s woes. JP Morgan admits to mistake as UK arm comes under fire.
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This morning there was encouraging news on the price of oil. This is how it is supposed to be. Problems in the global economy lead to lower commodity prices, meaning the global economy picks up. That’s why we have an economic cycle. But can it really be that simple?
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