Countries & Regions Archives - Page 201 of 374

July 9, 2013

European rally follows US lead

The S&P 500 Index penetrated its descending trendline, indicating the correction has ended. Follow-through above 1650 would signal a primary advance to 1800*.

S&P 500 Index

* Target calculation: 1680 + ( 1680 – 1560 ) = 1800

The FTSE 100 broke through medium-term resistance at 6400, confirming the correction has ended, after earlier penetrating its descending trendline. Follow-through above 6500 (from the March 2013 peak) would strengthen the signal, indicating an advance to 6900. Recovery of 21-day Twiggs Money Flow above zero would also strengthen the signal. In the long term, breakout above 7000 would offer a target of 8000*.

FTSE 100 Index

* Target calculation: 7000 + ( 7000 – 6000 ) = 8000

Germany’s DAX is testing resistance at 8000. Breakout above that and the declining trendline would signal another primary advance, with a target of 9300*. Recovery of 21-day Twiggs Money Flow above zero would indicate medium-term buying pressure. Respect of resistance and reversal below 7700 is less likely, but would warn of a test of prmary support at 7400.
DAX Index

* Target calculation: 8500 + ( 8500 – 7700 ) = 9300

Italy’s MIB Index is consolidating below resistance at 16000. Penetration of the declining trendline suggests the correction is over. Breach of resistance would signal an advance to 18000. Recovery of 21-day Twiggs Money Flow above zero would strengthen the signal. Respect of resistance is unlikely, but would test primary support at 15000.
FTSE 100 Index

Spain’s Madrid General Index broke resistance at 800 and its descending trendline, indicating the correction is over. We still need to watch the weak 21-day Twiggs Money Flow: a peak below zero would indicate selling pressure, but recovery above zero would suggest a fresh advance. Respect of the new support level at 800 would confirm an advance to 870. Reversal below 800, while unlikely, would warn of another test of primary support at 750.
FTSE 100 Index

July 8, 2013

Bond ETF exits proving costly| Bloomberg

Lisa Abramowicz and Mary Childs at Bloomberg write:

Investors who sought exchange-traded funds as a faster way to trade corporate bonds are finding that they can be as expensive to trade as the underlying debt.

As trading in the three-biggest credit ETFs surged to unprecedented levels last month amid the market’s biggest losses since 2008, the funds’ shares dropped as much as 1.1 percentage points more than the net value of the less-traded securities they hold. The two largest high-yield bond ETFs have lost about 6 percent since reaching a five-year high May 8. That’s about 2 percentage points more than the loss for the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. High Yield Index….

July 8, 2013

It’s time we draft Aussie Rules to tackle Indigenous mathematics

I found this essay by Christine Nicholls, senior lecturer at Flinders University, truly inspiring:

When discussing how to embed Indigenous Australian knowledge and practices into the Australian national curriculum effectively – particularly the maths curriculum – there’s no better place to start than analysing our own distinctively Australian national sport: AFL, the winter game.

Why, you might ask. Well, have you ever wondered why Indigenous players frequently excel at Aussie Rules, where they are vastly over-represented in the national AFL competition?

She points out that this excellence is not natural ability, based on superior genetics, but learned from early nurturing.

Australia’s Indigenous languages are rich in spatial terminology. As linguist Mary Laughren once noted:

“Desert children’s ability to handle directional and spatial terminology in particular is taken as a sort of intelligence test similar to the counting prowess test among Europeans.”

This ability, to handle sophisticated terminology about space and directionality with confidence and accuracy, and the concomitant skill in land navigation even when one is completely surrounded by desert, is inculcated into children from the earliest infancy, even today.

This spatial terminology is largely foreign to our Western culture.

This culturally specific form of mathematical knowledge, intergenerationally transmitted, imparted in its most intact form via Aboriginal languages, plays itself out not only on the AFL field but in tradition-oriented Aboriginal art, and has an important role in other Indigenous knowledge.

The ability to apply such knowledge is a product of nurture, not nature – it cannot be genetically transmitted any more than it is possible to transmit concepts about number and computation to other little Australians, except via processes of acculturation.

This reinforces the view that one culture is not superior to another — just different. And that we have a great deal to learn from indigenous culture. As Will Rogers once said: “We are all ignorant. Just on different subjects.”

P.S. I will forgive Christine for classing AFL as the only football code requiring 360 degree spatial awareness. She obviously has not been exposed to Soccer or Gridiron.

July 7, 2013

ASX 200 threatens breakout

The ASX 200 has also penetrated its descending trendline, suggesting the correction is over. Breakout above 4850 would signal a test of 5250. Bullish divergence on 21-day Twiggs Money Flow indicates buying pressure. Target for a break above 5000 would be 5850* to 6000. Respect of 4850/4900 is unlikely but would warn of another test of support at 4650.

ASX 200 Index

* Target calculation: 5250 + ( 5250 – 4650 ) = 5850

July 7, 2013

S&P500 tide changing

The VIX retreated below 15, signaling that market risk is falling.

S&P 500 Index

The S&P 500 is testing its declining trendline after a brief consolidation above 1600. Penetration would suggest that the correction is over; confirmed if resistance at 1650 is broken. 21-Day Twiggs Money Flow is leveling out and a trough above the line would signal a healthy primary up-trend. Target for an advance would be 1800*.

S&P 500 Index

* Target calculation: 1680 + ( 1680 – 1560 ) = 1800

The TSX Composite index penetrated its declining trendline, suggesting that the correction is over. Follow-through above 12250 would strengthen the signal, while a rise above 12400 would confirm. Recovery of 21-day Twiggs Money Flow above zero would indicate buying pressure. Target for an advance would be 12900/13000. Reversal below 11900 is now unlikely, but would signal a primary down-trend.

Nikkei 225 Index

July 4, 2013

What’s wrong with inequality?

Robert Douglas summarizes the argument against inequality presented by Andrew Leigh, economist and (Labour) parliamentarian, in his book Battlers and Billionaires:

Leigh sees inequality as a socially corrosive force undermining the egalitarian spirit that has been one of the positive defining characteristics of Australian society. He argues that unequal wealth demands attention from our political system and that there are a variety of ways in which it can be addressed.

There has been much hand-wringing from the left about rising inequality, but I believe this is an attempt to frame the political debate along class lines — the rich against the rest — as Barack Obama succeeded in doing, with the able assistance of Mitt Romney, in 2012. Framing the debate in relative terms is shrewd politics. An attempt to distract voters from the real issues:

Is poverty rising or falling?
Is general health, as reflected by life expectancy, improving or deteriorating?

Poverty is a subjective concept, as Thomas Sowell points out:

Most Americans with incomes below the official poverty level have air-conditioning, television, own a motor vehicle and, far from being hungry, are more likely than other Americans to be overweight.

Life expectancy, however, is difficult to fudge.

Inequality, as I said earlier, is relative: we can have declining poverty and rising life expectancy while inequality is growing. In fact when the economy is booming and employment rising, inequality is also likely to be growing. Do we really want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? Raising taxes to discourage new entrepreneurs? That is what targeting inequality can succeed in doing: harming the welfare of all rather than improving the welfare of the poor at the expense of the rich.

Instead we should focus on job creation and health improvements. And if that means creating incentives to encourage entrepreneurs, so be it, provided we all benefit.

The fact that inequality rose after the GFC is an anomaly that is unlikely to persist in the long term. The wealth of the masses are predominantly represented by real estate, while the rich hold a far higher percentage of their wealth in financial assets: stocks and bonds. Housing was hardest hit by the GFC and has taken longest to recover, causing a surge in inequality readings. That is not the fault of the rich — apart from a few investment bankers — and in fact we should learn from their experience. Real estate investment may have served us well in the past, but that is likely to change with the end of the credit super-cycle. We will need to concentrate a far higher percentage of our investment in stocks and bonds.

July 4, 2013

Surprise as BOE, ECB Give Forward Guidance | WSJ

New [BOE] governor Mark Carney has already made changes. In a statement accompanying the widely-expected decision to leave both rates and asset purchases unchanged, the BoE said that rising market rates had shifted expectations for the Bank Rate above levels that were justified by the economic situation.

The fact that there was a statement at all indicated a change in policy. The old BOE just announced its decision and left interpretation to the markets.

This was a clear attempt to talk the markets down and it worked.

July 3, 2013

Forex: Euro hesitant while Aussie falls

The euro is testing support at $1.30, representing a two-thirds retracement of the previous advance. Follow-through below $1.2950 would signal another test of primary support at $1.28 — and a ranging market — while respect of $1.30 would suggest a primary advance to $1.36*. Recovery of 63-day Twiggs Momentum above zero would be a bullish sign.

Euro/USD

* Target calculation: 1.30 + ( 1.34 – 1.28 ) = 1.36

Pound Sterling is ranging between €1.16 and €1.19 against the euro. Upward breakout — and penetration of the descending trendline — would signal a primary advance to €1.22*. But breach of support at €1.16 would indicate another test of primary support at €1.14, while a 13-week Twiggs Momentum peak below zero would suggest continuation of the primary down-trend.
Pound Sterling

The greenback retraced to test the new support level at ¥100 against the Yen. Respect, indicated by follow-through above ¥101, would re-test resistance at ¥103 to ¥104. But reversal below ¥99 seems as likely, and would re-test primary support at ¥94.

USD/JPY

* Target calculation: 104 + ( 104 – 94 ) = 114

Canada’s Loonie is testing support at $0.95 against the greenback. Follow-through below $0.9450 is likely and would signal another decline, with a target of $0.9350*. 63-Day Twiggs Momentum oscillating below zero indicates a strong primary down-trend.

Canadian Loonie

* Target calculation: 0.96 – ( 0.9850 – 0.96 ) = 0.9350

The Aussie Dollar continues to fall, with an immediate target of $0.90* and a long-term target of $0.80* against the greenback. The RBA is cheering this on as they need a softer dollar to cushion the impact of a down-turn in commodity prices.

Aussie Dollar

* Target calculation: 0.92 – ( 0.94 – 0.92 ) = 0.90; 0.95 – ( 1.10 – 0.95 ) = 0.80

July 2, 2013

Australian banks: Who’s been swimming naked?

Margot Patrick at WSJ reports that the Bank of England is enforcing a new “leverage ratio” rule:

Top U.K. banks regulator Andrew Bailey told lawmakers that the requirement for banks to hold at least 3% equity against total assets “is a sensible minimum,” and that those who fall short must act quickly, but without cutting their lending to households and businesses.

The Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority on June 20 said Barclays and mutual lender Nationwide Building Society don’t meet the standard and gave them 10 days to submit plans for achieving it.

I hope that their Australian counterpart APRA are following developments closely. Both UK and Australian banks are particularly vulnerable because of their over-priced housing markets. And while the big four Australian banks’ capital ratios appear comfortably above 10 percent, these rely on risk-weightings of 15% to 20% for residential mortgages.

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked. ~ Warren Buffett

July 2, 2013

Rudd? Gillard? Australians have bigger problems | IOL Business

“Australia is a leveraged time bomb waiting to blow,” Albert Edwards, Société Générale’s London-based global strategist, said. “It is not just a CDO, but a CDO squared. All we have in Australia is, at its simplest, a credit bubble built upon a commodity boom dependent for its sustenance on an even greater credit bubble in China.”

From William Pesek at Rudd? Gillard? Australians have bigger problems – Columnists | IOL Business | IOL.co.za.