Greenspan Warns Exuberant " Bond Bubble To Bust" & More Top Insights

Greenspan warns about bond-market bubble

: Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is sounding the alarm about a bubble that he believes is forming in the bond market.

In two television interviews in recent days, Greenspan said interest rates could shoot higher and derail the economy when the bubble bursts.

The former Fed chairman says the current situation in the bond market is comparable to what happens in the stock market during an equity bubble.

Noting that stock-market bubbles are typically characterized by extreme price-to-earnings ratios, Greenspan said extremely low yields are telling a similar tale for bonds.

“If you turn the bond market around and you look at the price of bonds relative to the interest received by those bonds, that looks very much like the usual spread which would concern us if it were equities, and we should be concerned,” Greenspan said in an interview with Fox Business Network.

The World's Top China Analyst Has A Doomsday Scenario

There are China analysts, and then there is Charlene Chu.

She has been called a rock star of Chinese-debt analysis. Money managers the world over pay tens of thousands of dollars for access to her research at her new firm Autonomous Research. Her reports are rarely leaked, and she rarely gives interviews.

Business Insider got a glimpse at a massive report she wrote at the end of July.

This was when everyone was freaking out about the precipitous fall of China's stock markets, and it predates the Chinese authorities' decision to devalue the yuan.

Her base case in the report was for Chinese authorities to maintain stability of the equity market and forestall contagion.There is also a doomsday scenario, however, in which there is contagion to other domestic and international markets, large capital outflows, and an acceleration of problems associated with financial-sector weakness and corporate indebtedness.

The report said: "This in turn would likely lead to a significant pullback in credit, putting the brakes on GDP growth and bringing an end to China's decades of stellar economic growth. At that point, social and political stability — the critical wild cards in this equation — could come under question."

This is what doom looks like

Saudi Stocks Sink Into DeathCross as IMF Sees Growth Slowing

Growth in OPEC’s biggest exporter will slow to 2.8 percent this year and 2.4 percent in 2016 after oil prices slumped, the Washington-based IMF said in a statement on Monday. If spending isn’t curbed, its fiscal deficit would be “very large” this year and over the medium term, it added.

Brazil Stocks Extend Six-Day Slide as 

Gol Sinks on Economic Woes

“Moody’s isn’t the only one predicting that growth will be slow to rebound,” said Ari Santos, a trader at Sao Paulo-based brokerage H.Commcor. “Looking forward, we’ll have a stagnant economy, with no growth and no outlook to grow.”

Brazil’s Political Crisis Puts the Entire

Economy on Hold

In the midst of its deepest economic and political crisis in a generation, Brazil is contending with a business climate so punishing that major projects across numerous sectors are being frozen or shrunk, while small businesses slash prices and shift focus.

Singapore bankers rattled by Asian

moves to chase undeclared wealth

Singapore-based wealth managers, already under pressure from a global move towards tax information sharing, face a more immediate threat as Asian countries including Indonesia and India look to chase undeclared money in the low-tax city state. A global crackdown on tax evasion launched during the 2008 financial crisis has already forced Switzerland and other European offshore hubs to surrender their prized bank secrecy.

Private Sector UK Pension Deficit Reaches £900 Billion

The combined deficit of private sector DB schemes in the UK

 now stands at around £900 billion, up from £250 billion

 since the start of the millennium, despite companies pouring

 in £500 billion towards pension saving over that time.

 According to Hymans Robertson, the stark figures highlight

 that for too long pension schemes have been taking too 

much risks

Learning Success: 

APPLY Tips From The Best

Larry Page,  Google – 


Larry Page is another example of a businessperson who can persevere any challenge. Larry and his company have faced much criticism and received ample praise over the years for his company’s actions. But in the midst of the storm, he has never let what others think sway him from pursuing the course for his company that he considers the best.

Top Weekly Ideas and Insights

An Inconvenient Truth

"Battle For Oil" 

What Happens When Political Interests Get Desperate?

EXISTENTIAL REALITY 

"Coming To The End Of Oil Age"

 - Looking Beyond The Brink -

Ten Currencies Hit Wall St. Bank Watch List, & More Top Insights

Morgan Stanley's Fragile Five

Swells To Troubled 10 

 In Selloff

Forget the “Fragile Five.” These days, strategists at Morgan Stanley are worried about what could be called the “Troubled Ten.”

That’s how many nations they say are particularly at risk since China devalued the yuan. While the analysts haven’t used the term themselves, it’s as good a description as any for the currencies -- from the Brazilian real to Peru’s sol and South Korea’s won -- which have trading ties making them susceptible to a slowdown in the world’s second-biggest economy.

“It’s all about vulnerability,” said Hans Redeker, the London-based global head of foreign-exchange strategy at Morgan Stanley. “Major victims of the policy change this time are currencies of countries with high export exposure and export competitiveness with China.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-16/morgan-stanley-s-fragile-five-swells-to-troubled-10-in-selloff

23 Nations Around The World Where Stock Market Crashes Are Already Happening

You can stop waiting for a global financial crisis to happen.  The truth is that one is happening right now.  All over the world, stock markets are already crashing.  Most of these stock market crashes are occurring in nations that are known as “emerging markets”.  In recent years, developing countries in Asia, South America and Africa loaded up on lots of cheap loans that were denominated in U.S. dollars.  But now that the U.S. dollar has been surging, those borrowers are finding that it takes much more of their own local currencies to service those loans.  At the same time, prices are crashing for many of the commodities that those countries export.  The exact same kind of double whammy caused the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s and the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s.

As you read this article, almost every single stock market in the world is down significantly from a record high that was set either earlier this year or late in 2014.  But even though stocks have been sliding in the western world, they haven’t completely collapsed just yet.

Ten Years Later, the “Halliburton Loophole” and America’s Dirty Fracking Boom

Bush explicitly exempted fracking operations from key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. These exemptions from a fundamental environmental protection law provided the oil and gas industry the immunity to develop a highly polluting process on a grand national scale.

Cheap solar in India sounds death knell for coal imports, Australia’s included

Solar pricing is now cheaper than new imported thermal coal-fired power plants.  Thus it is irrational to build another power plant fuelled by imported coal. The death knell for the seaborne traded coal industry has sounded.

What We Don’t Know Will Hurt Us: 

Ignorance In The Information Age 

When discussing what makes a difference in the health of

 Canadians, we tend to think first of the health care system. 

Doctors and hospitals, physiotherapists and pharmacies;

 these things are important. But they are far less important 

than other elements of people’s lives. 

Is the Economy Ready for Higher 

Interest Rates? 

Low interest rates act as a boost to the economy; they spur 

lending and encourage spending capital. Higher interest

 rates do the opposite; they suppress lending, and encourage 

saving — both of which slow an economy.

In other words, if rates were to lift off in a fragile economy,

 one like we have, it could cause a greater collapse than the

 financial crisis because the few people who are spending

 now would stop and sock their wealth away in savings to 

enjoy the higher rates.

Looking Back

Why Southeast Asia's Boom Is A Bubble-Driven Illusion

Since the Global Financial Crisis, Southeast Asia has been one of the world’s few bright spots for economic growth and investment returns. With its relatively young population of 600 million and its growing middle class, Southeast Asia has been the scene of a modern-day gold rush as international companies clamor to get a piece of the action. Unfortunately, my research has found that much of this region’s growth in recent years has been driven by ballooning credit and asset bubbles – a pattern that is also occurring in numerous emerging economies across the globe.

In the past few months, I have published reports about the growing bubbles inSingapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, and I will use this report to explain the region’s economic bubble as a whole. My five Southeast Asian country reports have generated quite a bit of interest and controversy, and were read nearly 1.3 million times, and were publicly denied by the central banks of Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Top Weekly Ideas and Insights

An Inconvenient Truth

"Battle For Oil" 

What Happens When Political Interests Get Desperate?

EXISTENTIAL REALITY 

"Coming To The End Of Oil Age"

 - Looking Beyond The Brink -