Countries & Regions Archives - Page 158 of 381

July 29, 2014

Cold War Strategies Are Back in Russia’s Playbook | The Moscow Times

From Alexander Golts, deputy editor of the online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal:

Russia is becoming a lonely pariah without alliances or military might, other than its nuclear weapons. And without any other easy means of achieving its objectives, I am afraid that the Kremlin will constantly try to prove it is just crazy enough to use its nuclear weapons. In short, Russia is turning into a second North Korea, only much, much larger, and far more dangerous.

July 29, 2014

ASX 200 bullish respect of support

The ASX 200 retracement respected support at 5540/5560. Breakout above 5590 would confirm an intermediate target of 5700* for the advance. Rising 21-day Twiggs Money Flow indicates medium-term buying pressure. Reversal below 5540 is unlikely, but would warn of a correction.

ASX 200

* Target calculation: 5540 + ( 5540 – 5380 ) = 5700

July 29, 2014

Asia: Sleeping tigers awaken

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index broke long-term resistance at 24000, signaling a primary advance with an intermediate target of 27000*. The recent 13-week Twiggs Money Flow trough at zero indicates long-term buying pressure. Expect retracement to test the new support level. Reversal below 24000 is unlikely, however, and would warn of a correction to the rising trendline.

Hang Seng Index

* Long-term target calculation: 24000 + ( 24000 – 21000 ) = 27000

Singapore’s Straits Times Index likewise broke resistance at 3300, signaling a primary advance to 3600*. Rising 13-week Twiggs Money Flow indicates medium-term buying pressure. Again, expect retracement to test the new support level, but reversal below 3200 is unlikely and would warn of another test of primary support at 3000.

Straits Times Index

* Target calculation: 3300 + ( 3300 – 3000 ) = 3600

China’s Shanghai Composite Index broke resistance at 2150 as the PBOC aggressively injects bank credit to revive a flagging economy. This may lift the medium-term outlook, but is not sustainable in the long-term and could well aggravate the eventual contraction. Rising 13-week Twiggs Money Flow indicates medium-term buying pressure. Breakout above 2250 would confirm a primary up-trend. Reversal below 2100 is unlikely at present, but would warn of another test of primary support at 1990/2000.

Shanghai Composite Index

* Target calculation: 2000 – ( 2150 – 2000 ) = 1850

India’s Sensex is retracing to test the new support level at 26000. Breach would indicate a test of 25000. Bearish divergence on 13-week Twiggs Money Flow warns of selling pressure. Failure of support at 25000 would warn of a correction to the primary trendline at 23000. Respect of (or recovery above) 26000, however, would offer a target of 27000*.

Sensex

* Target calculation: 21000 + ( 21000 – 15000 ) = 27000

Japan’s Nikkei 225 is testing 15500. Breakout from the consolidation of recent weeks would indicate a rally to 16000*. Oscillation of 13-week Twiggs Money Flow above zero indicates healthy long-term buying pressure. Reversal below 15000 is unlikely, but would warn of another test of primary support at 14000.

Nikkei 225

* Target calculation: 15000 + ( 15000 – 14000 ) = 16000

July 29, 2014

Footsie bullish but DAX selling pressure

The Footsie is headed for another test of 6850/6900. Respect of the zero line by 13-week Twiggs Money Flow indicates healthy long-term buying pressure. Breakout would offer an intermediate target 7300*. Reversal below 6650, however, would warn of a correction to 6400/6500.

FTSE 100

* Target calculation: 6900 + ( 6900 – 6500 ) = 7300

Germany’s DAX is testing support at 9600. Breach would warn of a correction to 9000 — and a weakening primary up-trend. Declining 13-week Twiggs Money Flow indicates selling pressure, but respect of the zero line would suggest the primary trend is intact. Breach of primary support at 8900/9000 is unlikely, but would signal a primary down-trend. Recovery above 10000 is also unlikely at present, but would indicate an advance to 10500*.

DAX

* Target calculation: 9750 + ( 9750 – 9000 ) = 10500

July 29, 2014

Canada: TSX 60 at 2008 high

Canada’s TSX 60 is testing its 2008 high at 900. Rising 13-week Twiggs Money Flow troughs above zero indicate strong buying pressure. Expect resistance at 900, but this is unlikely to hold. Reversal below the rising (secondary) trendline is not expected, but would warn of a correction to 800/820.

TSX 60

July 29, 2014

Dow and S&P 500 remain bullish

Dow Jones Industrial Average found support at 16950, with long tails indicating short-term buying pressure. Recovery above 17075 would indicate a fresh advance; above 17150 would confirm. A close below 16950 is less likely, but would warn of a correction to 16500. The decline of 21-day Twiggs Money Flow indicates mild selling pressure typical of a consolidation.

Dow Jones Industrial Average

* Target calculation: 16500 + ( 16500 – 15500 ) = 17500

The S&P 500 also displays a long tail indicative of buying pressure. Recovery above 1985 would indicate another attempt at 2000. Further consolidation below the 2000 resistance level is likely. Reversal below 1950, however, would warn of a correction to 1900.

S&P 500

* Target calculation: 1500 + ( 1500 – 750 ) = 2250

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), trading at low levels last seen in 2005/2006, is typical of a bull market.

VIX Index

July 28, 2014

Platinum founder warns on property “act of faith”

By Leith van Onselen

The founder of Platinum Asset Management, billionaire investor Kerr Neilson, has released an interesting report warning about Australia’s frothy house price valuations and the risks of a correction once “conditions change, [and] a lot of the assumptions are found wanting”.

The report highlights four “facts” about Australian housing:

1. Returns from housing investment are often exaggerated and flattered by inflation.
2. Holding costs of rates, local taxes and repairs are estimated to absorb about half of current rental yields.
3. Long-term values are determined by affordability (wages + interest rates).
4. To be optimistic about residential property prices rising in general much faster than inflation is a supreme act of faith.

It then goes on to examine each of these facts.

On returns, the report notes that “the rise in the price of an average home in Australia…[has] been about 7% a year since 1986. In dollar terms, the average existing house has risen in value by 6.3 times over the last 27 years. No wonder most people love the housing market!”

But rental returns have gotten progressively poor:

…we earn a starting yield of say 4% on a rented-out home or if you live in it, the equivalent to what you do not have to pay in rent. But again, looking at the Bureau of Statistics numbers, they calculate that your annual outgoings on a property are around 2%. This takes the shape of repairs and maintenance, rates and taxes, and other fees. This therefore reduces your rental return to 2%, and what if it is vacant from time to time?

And the prospect for future solid capital growth is low due to poor affordability:

…the last 20 or so years has been exceptional. Australian wages have grown pretty consistently at just under 3% a year since 1994 – that is an increase of about 1% a year in real terms.

Affordability is what sets house prices and this has two components: what you earn and the cost of the monthly mortgage payment (interest rates).

…even though interest rates have progressively dropped, interest payments today absorb 9% of the average income, having earlier been only 6% of disposable income.

Today, houses cost over four times the average household’s yearly disposable income. At the beginning of the 1990s, this ratio was only about three times household incomes. As the chart over shows, this looks like the peak.

Finally, the report argues that for Australian home prices to significantly outpace inflation over the next ten years, as they have in the past, “would require a remarkable set of circumstances”, namely a combination of:

1. Continuing low or lower interest rates.
2. Willingness to live with more debt.
3. Household income being bolstered by greater participation in the income earning workforce.
4. Average wages growing faster than the CPI.

The last point is improbable seeing that wages and the CPI have a very stable relationship, while the other points are not very likely.

Reproduced with kind permission from Macrobusiness.

July 28, 2014

Is unemployment really falling?

US unemployment has fallen close to the Fed’s “natural unemployment rate” of close to 5.5%. Does that mean that all is well?

Chart: The unemployment rate vs. Fed's measure of "natural" unemployment rate (NAIRU) over the past 20 years – pic.twitter.com/zq2fxtcHLt

— SoberLook.com (@SoberLook) July 28, 2014

Not if we consider the participation rate, plotted below as the ratio of non-farm employment to total population.

Employment Participation Rate

Participation peaked in 2000 at close to 0.47 (or 47%) after climbing for several decades with increased involvement of women in the workforce. But the ratio fell to 0.42 post-GFC and has only recovered to 0.435. We are still 3.5% below the high from 14 years ago.

When we focus on male employment, ages 25 to 54, we exclude several obscuring factors:

the rising participation rate of women;
an increasing baby-boomer retiree population; and
changes in the student population under 25.

Employment Rate Men 25 to 54

The chart still displays a dramatic long-term fall.

July 28, 2014

Let the Past Collapse on Time! by Vladimir Sorokin | The New York Review of Books

From Vladimir Sorokin:

Yeltsin, who was tired after climbing to the top of the pyramid, left the structure completely undisturbed, but brought an heir along with him: Putin, who immediately informed the population that he viewed the collapse of the USSR as a geopolitical catastrophe. He also quoted the conservative Alexander III, who believed that Russia had only two allies: the army and the navy. The machine of the Russian state moved backward, into the past, becoming more and more Soviet every year.

In my view, this fifteen-year journey back to the USSR under the leadership of a former KGB lieutenant colonel has shown the world the vicious nature and archaic underpinnings of the Russian state’s “vertical power” structure, more than any “great and terrible” Putin….A country such as this cannot have a predictable, stable future….

Unpredictability has always been Russia’s calling card, but since the Ukrainian events, it has grown to unprecedented levels: no one knows what will happen to our country in a month, in a week, or the day after tomorrow. I think that even Putin doesn’t know; he is now hostage to his own strategy of playing “bad guy” to the West…..If you compare the post-Soviet bear to the Soviet one, the only thing they have in common is the imperial roar. However, the post-Soviet bear is teeming with corrupt parasites that infected it during the 1990s, and have multiplied exponentially in the last decade. They are consuming the bear from within. Some might mistake their fevered movement under the bear’s hide for the working of powerful muscles. But in truth, it’s an illusion.

Translated from the Russian by Jamey Gambrell.

July 28, 2014

A compassionate conservative: Arthur C. Brooks

Bill Moyers interviews the American Enterprise Institute’s president Arthur C. Brooks on how to fight America’s widening inequality.

“The problem is we have a bit of a conspiracy between the right and left to have people now who are tending to be more part of the machine…We need a new kind of moral climate for our future leaders.”

Bill Moyers seems a bit light on the economics of the Walmart situation. Raising the minimum wage would reduce welfare payments to Walmart employees, but WMT is a rational entity with the primary goal of maximizing profits and shareholder value. An increase in the minimum wage would increase the appeal of automation and result in a reduction in staff numbers, causing an increase in unemployment, or alternatively WMT will pass on the additional cost in the form of increased prices to consumers, causing a rise in inflation. The only sustainable long-term solution is not an easy one: to increase economic growth and employment so that market-driven wage rates rise. Interference with the pricing mechanism in a market — whether through legislated minimum wages, price controls or Fed interest rates — is misguided and unsustainable. It may defer but also amplifies the original problem.