Category: Countries & Regions

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Europe strengthens

Germany’s DAX respected its new support at 10500. Follow-through above 10800 would confirm the primary up-trend.

DAX

* Target calculation: 10500 + ( 10500 – 9500 ) = 11500

Italy’s FTSE MIB (Milano Italia Borsa) Index remains in a primary down-trend. Breakout above 17000 and the descending trendline, however, would suggest that a base is forming. Rising Twiggs Money Flow highlights buying pressure.

FTSE MIB

The Footsie retreated from resistance at 7000 but short candles and rising Twiggs Money Flow suggest buying pressure. Expect another test of 7000/7100 but resistance is strong. Correction to 6500 would establish a more stable base for further advances.

FTSE 100

* Target calculation: 6500 + ( 6500 – 5900 ) = 7100

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Asia pulls back

China’s Shanghai Composite Index retreated below resistance at 3100. Prospects of a primary up-trend have dimmed and further consolidation between 2800 and 3100 is likely.

Shanghai Composite Index

Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index is pretty directionless, retreating from resistance at 17000. Breach of 16000 would warn of another test of primary support at 15000. But a broad base between 15000 and 17000 is likely.

Nikkei 225 Index

India’s BSE Sensex is the most promising, consolidating in a bullish narrow range around 28000. Upward breakout would signal a further advance towards the 2015 high of 30000. Bearish divergence on Twiggs Money Flow warns of long-term selling pressure, however, and downward breakout would warn of a correction to 25000 or 26000.

SENSEX

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Gold, rising interest rates and the falling Yuan

Interest rates are rising. Upward breakout from an ascending triangle formation on 10-year Treasury yields indicates an up-trend.

10-year Treasury Yield

A rate hike from the Fed would increase pressure on the Chinese Yuan, leaving the PBOC with a dilemma. Either allow the Yuan to slide, which could panic investors and borrowers into a rout, or sell off more of its $3.2 trillion foreign exchange reserves to slow Dollar appreciation against the Yuan.

USDCNY

Long tails on USDCNY indicate buying at the 6.60 support level. Breakout above 6.70 would warn of another advance (decline for the Yuan).

Rising interest rates increase downward pressure on gold but a falling Yuan would boost demand as a store of value. Spot Gold is above the rising trendline on a weekly chart but expect a test of support at $1300/ounce. Momentum holding above zero continues to indicate a healthy primary up-trend. Respect of support at $1300 would confirm. Breach of support remains unlikely but would signal trend weakness and a test of primary support at $1200.

Spot Gold

* Target calculation: 1300 + ( 1300 – 1050 ) = 1550

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How to Counter the Putin Playbook | The New York Times

Michael A. McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford, served as United States ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2012 to 2014:

…We will not find security in isolationism. No missile defense shield, cybersecurity program, tariff or border wall can protect us if we disengage. Menacing autocracies, illiberal ideas, and antidemocratic and terrorist movements will not just leave us alone or wither away. The threats will grow and eventually endanger our peace, as we saw in Europe and Japan in the 1930s, and Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Conversely, the growth of democracy around the world serves American interests. Democracies do not threaten us; autocracies do. Democratic allies also vote with us at the United Nations, go to war with us, support international treaties and norms, and stand with us against tyranny.

So we must push back, in new ways. Just as the Kremlin has become more sophisticated at exporting its ideas and supporting its friends, so must we.

We should think of advancing democratic ideas abroad primarily as an educational project, almost never as a military campaign. Universities, books and websites are the best tools, not the 82nd Airborne. The United States can expand resources for learning about democracy……

I agree with the sentiment but not the execution. Win friends by promoting education and building infrastructure abroad. These have practical, tangible benefits to citizens of developing nations. Democracy can come later. In many parts of the world it is as foreign a concept as gay marriage.

Source: How to Counter the Putin Playbook – The New York Times

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Beware of recency bias

Every the year the 2016 Russell Investments/ASX Long-term Investing Report provides an invaluable summary of before and after-tax returns on various asset classes for Australian investors, over 10 and 20 years.

Naive investors are likely to automatically pursue the asset classes that offer the highest yields. Recent performance is more likely to attract our attention than more stable longer-term performance. Josh Brown highlighted last year that mutual funds that attracted the most new investment tended to underperform funds that attracted the least new inflows. I suspect that the same applies to asset classes.

If we consider each of the asset classes highlighted, it is clear that performance over the next 10 years is likely to be substantially different from the last decade.

Australian Asset Classes 10-year Performance to 31 December 2015

Source: 2016 Russell Investments/ASX Long-term Investing Report

Australian Shares

Australian Shares endured a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime financial crisis in 2008. 10-Year performance is going to look a lot different in two years time (20-years is 8.7% p.a.). Prices of Defensive stocks, on the other hand, have since been inflated by record low interest rates.

Residential Property

Residential property prices boomed on the back of low interest rates and an influx of offshore investors. But growth is now slowing.

RBA: Australian Housing Growth

Listed Property

REITS were smashed in 2008 (20-years is 7.7% p.a.). But before contrarians leap into this sector they should consider the impact of low interest rates, with many trading at substantial premiums to net asset value.

Bonds & Cash

Low interest rates again are likely to impact future returns.

Global Shares

Global Shares also weathered the 2008 financial crisis (20-year performance (unhedged) is 6.4% p.a.). Subsequent low interest rates had the greatest impact on Defensives, while Growth & Cyclicals trade at more conservative PEs.

I won’t go through the rest of the classes, but there doesn’t seem to be many attractive alternatives. It may be a case of settling for the cleanest dirty shirt, and the least smelly pair of socks, in the laundry basket.

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Defensive PE at a dangerous high

Low interest rates and the accompanying search for yield have driven the forward Price-Earnings ratio for Defensives to a 20-year high. This is likely to reverse when (not if) rates eventually rise. Cyclicals and Growth, however, still look reasonable.

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Valley of a Thousand Hills

I tried this as a test of Vimeo, but don’t you just love the attitude of these young Zulu kids. Few possessions other than a skateboard (most likely donated) but not a worry in the world.

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Elon Musk’s Next Plan | Inc.com

By Kevin J. Ryan:

During Tuesday’s SolarCity earnings call, Elon Musk hopped in to let the world know what the company he co-founded plans to do next: create solar roofs. Not solar panels–entire roofs.

….”The point of all this was, and remains, accelerating the advent of sustainable energy,” Musk wrote in his recent Tesla “Master Plan Part Deux” blog post, “so that we can imagine far into the future and life is still good.”

Now, that plan is beginning to crystallize a bit more. Should Tesla close its $2.6 billion deal to buy SolarCity, it will bring Musk’s vision a little closer to reality–especially the part that entails creating cars that get their energy from solar-powered batteries.

A home that powers itself and perhaps the cars parked in its garage–and in the process, helps the world lessen its dependency on fossil fuels in a very big way–might not be that far off. And it might not look that bad, either.

Source: Elon Musk’s Next Plan: Do for Roofs What He Did for Cars | Inc.com

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How Global Elites Forsake Their Countrymen | WSJ

Great column by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal on the growing detachment between political and cultural elites and the problems facing ordinary citizens on the lower rungs of society. There is plenty of evidence of out-of-touch elites, including Brexit and Angela Merkel’s unilateral decision to allow 800,000 migrants and refugees from Muslim countries.

Nothing in their lives will get worse. The challenge of integrating different cultures, negotiating daily tensions, dealing with crime and extremism and fearfulness on the street — that was put on those with comparatively little, whom I’ve called the unprotected. They were left to struggle, not gradually and over the years but suddenly and in an air of ongoing crisis that shows no signs of ending — because nobody cares about them enough to stop it.

The powerful show no particular sign of worrying about any of this. When the working and middle class pushed back in shocked indignation, the people on top called them “xenophobic,” “narrow-minded,” “racist.” The detached, who made the decisions and bore none of the costs, got to be called “humanist,” “compassionate,” and “hero of human rights.”

Surprising support for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders also reflect the disillusionment of the bottom half with leadership by the 1 percent. They feel they have been taken for granted — if not shafted — and their anger will be reflected at the ballot box. Hopefully we can avoid the rise of tyranny as in the 1930s — after the last financial crisis — but these are dangerous times.

Source: How Global Elites Forsake Their Countrymen – WSJ

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