BUY THIS BOOK
amazon.com : BUY
barnesandnoble.com: BUY
ftpress.com: BUY
BUY THIS BOOK
amazon.com : BUY
barnesandnoble.com: BUY
wiley.com: BUY
04/3-10 at 15.40 Vinh Q. Tran
March 4, 2010 – Like the proverbial Greek tragedy that is in full display in the land that lends its name, Greece’s fiscal fiasco has been conjured by the Greeks themselves. It has been long in the making and abetted by big investment banks like Goldman Sachs. Their schemes to hide debts off balance sheet pitched to governments desperate to comply with EU budget deficit rules have been widely practiced in other European countries. Yet when the chickens come home to roost and Greece faces debt defaults, the urge again is to provide bailouts. However, Greece is not the only country that has a debt time bomb on its hands –although in its case the fuse is extremely short.    My friend and Belgian-born international money manager Herve Caloen of New York-based Du Pasquier Asset Management, formerly with Scudder Stevens & Clark and Bankers Trust, has a view that I would like to share with you.    Gerald Ford to New York: Drop Dead. Remember? Those were the days when no city was too big ...
24/2-10 at 11.16 Vinh Tran
February 24 -- Last week the Fed presented financial markets with presumably a surprise move: it hiked the discount rate by 25 basis points to 0.75%. As explained in its press release, the action was “…intended as a further normalization of the Federal Reserve's lending facilities... not expected to lead to tighter financial conditions for households and businesses and do[es] not signal any change in the outlook for the economy or for monetary policy.” Nevertheless, bond prices fell and stocks sold off, similar to the global markets’ reaction to the action of the People’s Bank of China to tighten bank reserve requirements on the eve of the Chinese New Year.             That the markets’ subsequently recovered points to the predicament that world central banks are facing. Their wish to maintain credibility as inflation fighters, as well as, in China’s case, to prevent another bubble in the real estate sector, collides with the realities of the need for continued economic growth. As suggested by Roubini Global Economics, China has not restricted liquidity significantly, nor laid out a clear strategy ...
16/2-10 at 02.58 Vinh Q. Tran
February 16 –Today is the third day of the Year of the Tiger. Much of Asia is in slow motion and the Chinese banks have closed for a week of holidays. However, the Dow opens with a decent gain of some 60 points, more than making up for the loss on Friday. In Vancouver, excitement reigns as two Chinese ice skating pairs took the gold and silver medals, dethroning Russia, which has long dominated the sport since 1964. Will China’s good fortune in sport carry over to the economic sphere and propel both China’s economic growth and its stock market forward in 2010, at a breath-taking pace similar to 2009?  After expanding at 8.7% in 2009, China’s GDP is expected to rise by 10% in 2010. Propelling this economic expansion was a huge surge in bank lending which set a record in 2009 at CNY9.8 trillion ($1.5 trillion) and was 95.3% higher than in 2008. The real estate market also turned red hot, with property prices in Shenzen doubling while in overall China prices rose by 22% ...
10/2-10 at 05.32 Vinh Q. Tran
January 31, 2010 -- This entry is my first on the eve of the release of Market Upside Down: How to Invest Profitably in a Shrinking Economy. I’m excited about it after 9 months of gestation and waiting. Although it is my third book, the birth of a new “baby” is always uplifting to the spirit. One thing for sure: the economy, the stock market and Washington do not seem to be in a mood to celebrate. The election of the supposedly Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts to the Senate had spin-doctors of all shades jumping and Obama vowed to freeze discretionary spending by $250 billion over 10 years (and declared other shifts in programs and rhetoric to pacify the right.) Are you kidding? The deficit this year has swollen to $1.56 trillion, a new record. Last year’s deficit of $1.41 trillion was already the highest since WWII. How big is enough for the market to take notice of the unreality of rising debt from continuing budget deficits? The budget “savings” (more like spending deferred ...
 
fsddf