Macro Analysis

Be wary of lumping all European nations into one category; the differences between them can be significant and spell either opportunity or reason for extra caution, as this interactive graphic suggests. The Greek elections have put an end to six weeks of uncertainty with pro-eurozone, pro-austerity parties collecting just enough votes to form a coalition [...]

Pro-bailout/Pro-austerity parties triumph at the polls, but Greece and the eurozone face big hurdles. The victory at the ballot box in Greece yesterday of pro-euro, pro-bailout forces led by the New Democracy party sparked a brief – a very brief – relief rally in global financial markets. Still, the initial euphoria that Greece may finally [...]

Investing indirectly in China, rather than acquiring Chinese equities, may be the way to go – at least for those investors with a longer time horizon. For most of the last decade, investors’ eyes have been fixed firmly on China. Spoken or unspoken, the belief of many pundits was that during any future economic crisis, [...]

When looking for exposure to Asian emerging markets, don’t overlook Indonesia and its turbo-charged growth. Released: June 13, 2012 Length: 3 Minutes Watch this 3 minute video to how analysis from Datastream Professional and StarMine earnings show Indonesian forecasts have historically been better than China’s—and may in fact surpass them in the near future. The [...]

Spain’s bank sector bailout is a short-term approach to a long-term structural problem, and not a panacea. The 100 billion euro bailout of Spain’s troubled banking sector, agreed to in a weekend conference call, may be more than double the size of the amount the International Monetary Fund calculated the country’s banks needed to stay [...]

Risk aversion by investors has left some global market valuations at very cheap levels. U.S. stocks experienced their best week so far in 2012 last week, a welcome relief for investors fed up the fact that the indicator signaling whether global financial markets are in “risk on” or “risk off” mode has been stuck firmly [...]

The United States may be wrestling with a wide array of economic problems, ranging from subpar economic growth to a new uptick in the unemployment rate. But for many investors, dollar-denominated assets are overwhelmingly the “safe haven” asset of choice, to a far greater extent than has been the case in the last several decades. [...]

The month of June has gotten off to a gloomy start in Japan, just as it has elsewhere, among fears that in addition to the economic and political problems in the Eurozone, the wheels have fallen off the U.S. recovery. While Japanese stocks have fallen as investors bolt for safe havens, that has been good [...]

While financial markets were uneasy and volatile during April, by early May they were teetering on the brink of panic. The inconclusive Greek election May 6th – which left the country effectively leaderless at the worst possible moment in the three years it has spent trying to come to grips with its fiscal crisis – [...]

It has been only two weeks since we warned that technical market analysis was signaling that yields on 10-year Treasury notes, rather than edging higher from the 2% level around which they have been bouncing for the last year, were in fact more likely to decline still further than they were to climb. The only [...]