How much longer can investors bet on the US?
The biggest trend of 2014 has been the
incredible outperformance of the
American economy when compared to
the rest of the world. That divergence
has reduced bond yields, sent the dollar
surging, crushed commodities, and been
a big tailwind for equities.
However, as stock prices have
continued to surge, valuations have
become more stretched and appear to
have outpaced economic growth. That
has left investors who watch traditional
metrics unsure of how to invest in the
year ahead.
"You can see the glass as half full or
half empty," said Curtis Holden, senior
investment officer with Houston-based
Tanglewood Wealth Management. "It's
half full because the U.S. right now
looks pretty good as a place for
investing verses the rest of the world.
But it's half empty because this is a
below-average recovery by our
standards."
The latest piece of good news for
America came on Friday, when the
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported
that 321,000 jobs were created in
November, in a rock-solid report that
also showed mild gains in income.
This is in line with a string of relatively
strong U.S. numbers, in comparison to
a global situation that remains rocky at
best.
Japan and Europe are both battling off
deflation and recession. Separately, oil-
producing nations like Russia have been
hammered by the plunge in oil price—
which is itself partially due to slowing
global growth and surging U.S. energy
production.
These trends have strengthened the
U.S. dollar (.DXY), bettered the position
of the U.S. consumer, and caused bond
yields (US10Y) to drop dramatically
around the world and in America. This
all conspires to make U.S. stocks more
attractive, both in relative economic
terms, and because they seem poised
to provide greater long-term returns
than bonds.
However, rising valuations have caused
pause for some value-obsessed
investors. While off recent highs due to
a strengthening earnings outlook, the
S&P 500' (.SPX)s price-to-earnings
ratio has risen dramatically over the
past few years.
Noting the current elevated level of
valuations on CNBC's " Futures Now,"
Marc Chandler of Brown Brothers
Harriman gave a succinct piece of
advice for those buying stock now:
"Pray."
"That's the problem with being a value
investor—sometimes the market does
not provide value investments," he
continued.
"The discipline means you wait until you
find value, and that's what the great
investors of our generation do,"
Chandler said. "They say 'There's no
opportunity now, so I'm going to have
to stay in cash.'"
Of course, not everyone is able to do
that do that. Convergex chief market
strategist Nicholas Colas says that U.S.
outperformance has laid bare a stark
difference between two different sorts
of investors.
"The way the average investor is
different from institutional investors is
that average investors have a choice
— 'Do I want to be in the market a lot,
a little, or not at all?'
Institutional investors won't sit out the
market, "and thus have to shift assets
based on where the best opportunities
are. And the clear winner is the U.S.," he
said. "But for a lot of people, there's a
big disconnect, because there's not a
lot of wage growth, there's not a lot of
good news," Colas said.
Colas reports that one of the common
questions he hears is "'Nick, things
aren't good, so why is the market doing
well?'"
"If you don't want to play, I totally
understand," he said. "But at the end of
the day, if you're saving over the
medium to long term, you won't get
much return in bonds. You can hold
cash, but to do that you have to save
money. So if you want to maintain your
standard of living, then you're left with
stocks."
The massive rally in stocks makes even
some sober long-term investors sound
a bit like momentum-chasers.
"We've been overweight equities for
three and a half years, and we're still
overweight equities, but we no longer
have the comfort of buying into a
market that's undervalued," said Albert
Brenner, who leads the asset allocation
strategy team at People's United Wealth
Management, a firm that manages $5.5
billion in assets.
"We are anticipating a time when we'll
be dialing back equity exposure, and
valuation is very important for longer-
term returns, but for shorter-term
returns it's less predictive," Brenner
said.
In the meantime, "there's a possibility
that enthusiasm could support
expansion in multiples even stronger in
2015, but we think the slow, steady
grind upward of revenue and earnings
will be enough to support positive
returns," he added.
To that point, betting against stocks
could certainly continue to be a painful
trade in the year ahead.
"When momentum is moving, it's a
powerful force. And if you're six
months, a year, two years early on a
call, you can get slaughtered," Holden
said. "And while a lot of what's going on
now won't necessarily last forever, the
U.S. does seem to have the edge right
now—and perhaps will for a few more
years."
Or, as trader Brian Stutland puts it:
"If interest rates remain low, this rally
is going to continue next year. But
you've got to have a quick trigger
finger."
On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
> The PlayStation gaming console wrapped
> up its second decade on Wednesday, and
> Sony celebrated by looking to the past.
> The Japanese tech giant announced that a
> limited edition 20th Anniversary
> PlayStation 4 will be released soon. The
> console will be gray, like the first
> PlayStation released December 3, 1994 in
> Japan. It will include other imagery like the
> iconic four-color PlayStation logo that
> harks back to the system's history.
> "The mid-'90s were an exciting time for
> game developers, driven by the explosion
> of powerful but affordable 3-D graphics
> rendering hardware and the birth of many
> young and adventurous development
> studios," Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony
> Computer Entertainment Worldwide
> Studios, wrote in the post on the
> PlayStation blog. "The original PlayStation
> was meant to embody that sense of
> adventure and discovery, that sense that
> anything was possible."
> The PlayStation sold a then unheard-of
> 100,000 units in its first weekend and hit 1
> million units in six months, according to
> Sony.
> Only 12,300 units of the 20th Anniversary
> PS4 will be released, according to a video
> on the blog post. Pre-orders will begin
> Saturday, and details about how to vie for
> one of the handful of slots will come
> during a keynote presentation from
> PlayStation Experience, a fan and
> developer expo being held in Las Vegas.
> The keynote will be Saturday at 1 pm ET.
> To celebrate the 20th anniversary, we
> assembled a gallery of images of the
> PlayStation, and the people who love it,
> from the past two decades.
>
> On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Bond is back and we're pleased to have
>> all of the details of the new movie.
>> Director Sam Mendes revealed the
>> name and cast of the new movie,
>> Spectre, during a live event held at
>> London's Pinewood Studios.
>> The movie is set to be released on 6th
>> November 2015. Avid fans will know
>> Spectre stands for: Special Executive
>> for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism,
>> Revenge and Extortion,
>
>
>> On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Gangnam Style hit music video by
>>> South Korean singer, PSY, has exceeded
>>> YouTube's view limit, prompting
>>> YouTube to upgrade its counter.
>>> The video which was released in 2012,
>>> was announced to be its most watched
>>> ever and has been viewed more than
>>> 2,147,483,647 times. YouTube has now
>>> changed the maximum view limit to
>>> 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, or more
>>> than nine quintillion.
>>> On December 1, YouTube posted a
>>> statement saying: "We never thought a
>>> video would be watched in numbers
>>> greater than a 32-bit integer… but
>>> that was before we met Psy."
>>> Meanwhile, how do you say
>>> 9,223,372,036,854,775,808? That's
>>> over a quadrillion, over a trillion, and
>>> over a billion.
>
>
>>> On 12/4/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Kim K has been named the "Most Searched
>>>> Person of 2014″, beating last year's winner,
>>>> Beyonce. 2014 was definitely the year of the 34
>>>> year old reality star with buzz-worthy events like
>>>> her wedding to Kanye, her Vogue cover and
>>>> most recently her 'break the internet' naked pics
>>>> for Paper magazine.
>>>> Beyonce comes second, while Miley Cyrus and
>>>> Katy Perry come 3rd and 4th respectively. See
>>>> the top ten most searched personalities of 2014
>>>> after the cut...
>>>> 1. Kim Kardashian
>>>> 2. Beyonce Knowles
>>>> 3. Miley Cyrus
>>>> 4. Katy Perry
>>>> 5. Justin Bieber
>>>> 6. Joan Rivers
>>>> 7. Jennifer Lopez
>>>> 8. Kendall Jenner
>>>> 9. Kaley Cuoco
>>>> 10. Robin Williams
>
>
>>>> On 12/3/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> At the Pioneers Festival in Vienna, a
>>>>> Slovakian startup called AeroMobil unveiled
>>>>> the thing that we have all been dreaming
>>>>> about since we saw that first episode of the
>>>>> Jetsons while still wearing diapers: The first
>>>>> flying car. It's here. It's real. And it's
>>>>> spectacular.
>>>>> According to Venturebeat, the company
>>>>> took the wraps off AeroMobil 3.0, the latest
>>>>> iteration of its flying car that has been in
>>>>> development for almost 25 years.
>>>>> "We believe personal transportation is about
>>>>> to change forever," said AeroMobil chief
>>>>> executive Juraj Vaculik at a press
>>>>> conference. "We think it's time to make
>>>>> transportation more emotional and more
>>>>> personal."
>>>>> The car was designed by Stefan Klein,
>>>>> founder and head of the Department of
>>>>> Transport Design at the Academy of Fine
>>>>> Arts in Slovakia. Klein had been tinkering
>>>>> with the concept as far back as 1989.
>>>>> Image
>>>>> The car needs very little runway to take off,
>>>>> and it can be refueled at any standard gas
>>>>> station when the wings are retracted.
>>>>> AeroMobil believes it will be attractive for
>>>>> countries that don't have billions of dollars
>>>>> to spend building a modern transportation
>>>>> infrastructure.
>>>>> The body is built from advanced composite
>>>>> materials that keep it lightweight but also
>>>>> durable. Under the hood, it has autopilot
>>>>> and an advanced parachute deployment
>>>>> system. The cockpit can carry two people,
>>>>> and in the air the flying car can reach top
>>>>> speeds of 200 km/h. It has a 27-foot
>>>>> wingspan and is 19.7 feet long.
>>>>> No word on the price tag.
>
>>>>> On 12/3/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> According to reports Angelina Jolie's black
>>>>>> SUV car slipped on a wet road, slid into the
>>>>>> curb with extreme force, popping two tires,
>>>>>> almost causing the driver to lose control of
>>>>>> the vehicle.
>>>>>> The actress was heading home in a
>>>>>> chauffeured black SUV from Writers' Guild
>>>>>> Theater, when the car hit the curb.
>>>>>> According to an eyewitness (who spoke ti
>>>>>> X17 Online): "The car slammed into the
>>>>>> curb at a significant speed. Angelina must
>>>>>> have wondered if they hit another car. It
>>>>>> was pretty bad -- the tire exploded and it's
>>>>>> amazing nothing worse happened to the
>>>>>> car. I wouldn't be surprised if she has
>>>>>> whiplash."
>>>>>> Angelina reportedly stayed in the car after
>>>>>> the incident and was later picked up, not
>>>>>> by Brad pitt, but by another driver from the
>>>>>> same car service.
>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>>>>>> 12/03/2014 10:47:00 am
>
>
>
>
>>> --
>>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>>> 12/07/2014 01:50:00 am
>
>
>> --
>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>> 12/07/2014 03:24:00 am
>
>
> --
> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
> 12/07/2014 06:03:00 am
>
incredible outperformance of the
American economy when compared to
the rest of the world. That divergence
has reduced bond yields, sent the dollar
surging, crushed commodities, and been
a big tailwind for equities.
However, as stock prices have
continued to surge, valuations have
become more stretched and appear to
have outpaced economic growth. That
has left investors who watch traditional
metrics unsure of how to invest in the
year ahead.
"You can see the glass as half full or
half empty," said Curtis Holden, senior
investment officer with Houston-based
Tanglewood Wealth Management. "It's
half full because the U.S. right now
looks pretty good as a place for
investing verses the rest of the world.
But it's half empty because this is a
below-average recovery by our
standards."
The latest piece of good news for
America came on Friday, when the
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported
that 321,000 jobs were created in
November, in a rock-solid report that
also showed mild gains in income.
This is in line with a string of relatively
strong U.S. numbers, in comparison to
a global situation that remains rocky at
best.
Japan and Europe are both battling off
deflation and recession. Separately, oil-
producing nations like Russia have been
hammered by the plunge in oil price—
which is itself partially due to slowing
global growth and surging U.S. energy
production.
These trends have strengthened the
U.S. dollar (.DXY), bettered the position
of the U.S. consumer, and caused bond
yields (US10Y) to drop dramatically
around the world and in America. This
all conspires to make U.S. stocks more
attractive, both in relative economic
terms, and because they seem poised
to provide greater long-term returns
than bonds.
However, rising valuations have caused
pause for some value-obsessed
investors. While off recent highs due to
a strengthening earnings outlook, the
S&P 500' (.SPX)s price-to-earnings
ratio has risen dramatically over the
past few years.
Noting the current elevated level of
valuations on CNBC's " Futures Now,"
Marc Chandler of Brown Brothers
Harriman gave a succinct piece of
advice for those buying stock now:
"Pray."
"That's the problem with being a value
investor—sometimes the market does
not provide value investments," he
continued.
"The discipline means you wait until you
find value, and that's what the great
investors of our generation do,"
Chandler said. "They say 'There's no
opportunity now, so I'm going to have
to stay in cash.'"
Of course, not everyone is able to do
that do that. Convergex chief market
strategist Nicholas Colas says that U.S.
outperformance has laid bare a stark
difference between two different sorts
of investors.
"The way the average investor is
different from institutional investors is
that average investors have a choice
— 'Do I want to be in the market a lot,
a little, or not at all?'
Institutional investors won't sit out the
market, "and thus have to shift assets
based on where the best opportunities
are. And the clear winner is the U.S.," he
said. "But for a lot of people, there's a
big disconnect, because there's not a
lot of wage growth, there's not a lot of
good news," Colas said.
Colas reports that one of the common
questions he hears is "'Nick, things
aren't good, so why is the market doing
well?'"
"If you don't want to play, I totally
understand," he said. "But at the end of
the day, if you're saving over the
medium to long term, you won't get
much return in bonds. You can hold
cash, but to do that you have to save
money. So if you want to maintain your
standard of living, then you're left with
stocks."
The massive rally in stocks makes even
some sober long-term investors sound
a bit like momentum-chasers.
"We've been overweight equities for
three and a half years, and we're still
overweight equities, but we no longer
have the comfort of buying into a
market that's undervalued," said Albert
Brenner, who leads the asset allocation
strategy team at People's United Wealth
Management, a firm that manages $5.5
billion in assets.
"We are anticipating a time when we'll
be dialing back equity exposure, and
valuation is very important for longer-
term returns, but for shorter-term
returns it's less predictive," Brenner
said.
In the meantime, "there's a possibility
that enthusiasm could support
expansion in multiples even stronger in
2015, but we think the slow, steady
grind upward of revenue and earnings
will be enough to support positive
returns," he added.
To that point, betting against stocks
could certainly continue to be a painful
trade in the year ahead.
"When momentum is moving, it's a
powerful force. And if you're six
months, a year, two years early on a
call, you can get slaughtered," Holden
said. "And while a lot of what's going on
now won't necessarily last forever, the
U.S. does seem to have the edge right
now—and perhaps will for a few more
years."
Or, as trader Brian Stutland puts it:
"If interest rates remain low, this rally
is going to continue next year. But
you've got to have a quick trigger
finger."
On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
> The PlayStation gaming console wrapped
> up its second decade on Wednesday, and
> Sony celebrated by looking to the past.
> The Japanese tech giant announced that a
> limited edition 20th Anniversary
> PlayStation 4 will be released soon. The
> console will be gray, like the first
> PlayStation released December 3, 1994 in
> Japan. It will include other imagery like the
> iconic four-color PlayStation logo that
> harks back to the system's history.
> "The mid-'90s were an exciting time for
> game developers, driven by the explosion
> of powerful but affordable 3-D graphics
> rendering hardware and the birth of many
> young and adventurous development
> studios," Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony
> Computer Entertainment Worldwide
> Studios, wrote in the post on the
> PlayStation blog. "The original PlayStation
> was meant to embody that sense of
> adventure and discovery, that sense that
> anything was possible."
> The PlayStation sold a then unheard-of
> 100,000 units in its first weekend and hit 1
> million units in six months, according to
> Sony.
> Only 12,300 units of the 20th Anniversary
> PS4 will be released, according to a video
> on the blog post. Pre-orders will begin
> Saturday, and details about how to vie for
> one of the handful of slots will come
> during a keynote presentation from
> PlayStation Experience, a fan and
> developer expo being held in Las Vegas.
> The keynote will be Saturday at 1 pm ET.
> To celebrate the 20th anniversary, we
> assembled a gallery of images of the
> PlayStation, and the people who love it,
> from the past two decades.
>
> On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Bond is back and we're pleased to have
>> all of the details of the new movie.
>> Director Sam Mendes revealed the
>> name and cast of the new movie,
>> Spectre, during a live event held at
>> London's Pinewood Studios.
>> The movie is set to be released on 6th
>> November 2015. Avid fans will know
>> Spectre stands for: Special Executive
>> for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism,
>> Revenge and Extortion,
>
>
>> On 12/7/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Gangnam Style hit music video by
>>> South Korean singer, PSY, has exceeded
>>> YouTube's view limit, prompting
>>> YouTube to upgrade its counter.
>>> The video which was released in 2012,
>>> was announced to be its most watched
>>> ever and has been viewed more than
>>> 2,147,483,647 times. YouTube has now
>>> changed the maximum view limit to
>>> 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, or more
>>> than nine quintillion.
>>> On December 1, YouTube posted a
>>> statement saying: "We never thought a
>>> video would be watched in numbers
>>> greater than a 32-bit integer… but
>>> that was before we met Psy."
>>> Meanwhile, how do you say
>>> 9,223,372,036,854,775,808? That's
>>> over a quadrillion, over a trillion, and
>>> over a billion.
>
>
>>> On 12/4/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Kim K has been named the "Most Searched
>>>> Person of 2014″, beating last year's winner,
>>>> Beyonce. 2014 was definitely the year of the 34
>>>> year old reality star with buzz-worthy events like
>>>> her wedding to Kanye, her Vogue cover and
>>>> most recently her 'break the internet' naked pics
>>>> for Paper magazine.
>>>> Beyonce comes second, while Miley Cyrus and
>>>> Katy Perry come 3rd and 4th respectively. See
>>>> the top ten most searched personalities of 2014
>>>> after the cut...
>>>> 1. Kim Kardashian
>>>> 2. Beyonce Knowles
>>>> 3. Miley Cyrus
>>>> 4. Katy Perry
>>>> 5. Justin Bieber
>>>> 6. Joan Rivers
>>>> 7. Jennifer Lopez
>>>> 8. Kendall Jenner
>>>> 9. Kaley Cuoco
>>>> 10. Robin Williams
>
>
>>>> On 12/3/14, Joseph Ogunlowo <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> At the Pioneers Festival in Vienna, a
>>>>> Slovakian startup called AeroMobil unveiled
>>>>> the thing that we have all been dreaming
>>>>> about since we saw that first episode of the
>>>>> Jetsons while still wearing diapers: The first
>>>>> flying car. It's here. It's real. And it's
>>>>> spectacular.
>>>>> According to Venturebeat, the company
>>>>> took the wraps off AeroMobil 3.0, the latest
>>>>> iteration of its flying car that has been in
>>>>> development for almost 25 years.
>>>>> "We believe personal transportation is about
>>>>> to change forever," said AeroMobil chief
>>>>> executive Juraj Vaculik at a press
>>>>> conference. "We think it's time to make
>>>>> transportation more emotional and more
>>>>> personal."
>>>>> The car was designed by Stefan Klein,
>>>>> founder and head of the Department of
>>>>> Transport Design at the Academy of Fine
>>>>> Arts in Slovakia. Klein had been tinkering
>>>>> with the concept as far back as 1989.
>>>>> Image
>>>>> The car needs very little runway to take off,
>>>>> and it can be refueled at any standard gas
>>>>> station when the wings are retracted.
>>>>> AeroMobil believes it will be attractive for
>>>>> countries that don't have billions of dollars
>>>>> to spend building a modern transportation
>>>>> infrastructure.
>>>>> The body is built from advanced composite
>>>>> materials that keep it lightweight but also
>>>>> durable. Under the hood, it has autopilot
>>>>> and an advanced parachute deployment
>>>>> system. The cockpit can carry two people,
>>>>> and in the air the flying car can reach top
>>>>> speeds of 200 km/h. It has a 27-foot
>>>>> wingspan and is 19.7 feet long.
>>>>> No word on the price tag.
>
>>>>> On 12/3/14, ogunlowo joseph <ogunlowojoseph@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> According to reports Angelina Jolie's black
>>>>>> SUV car slipped on a wet road, slid into the
>>>>>> curb with extreme force, popping two tires,
>>>>>> almost causing the driver to lose control of
>>>>>> the vehicle.
>>>>>> The actress was heading home in a
>>>>>> chauffeured black SUV from Writers' Guild
>>>>>> Theater, when the car hit the curb.
>>>>>> According to an eyewitness (who spoke ti
>>>>>> X17 Online): "The car slammed into the
>>>>>> curb at a significant speed. Angelina must
>>>>>> have wondered if they hit another car. It
>>>>>> was pretty bad -- the tire exploded and it's
>>>>>> amazing nothing worse happened to the
>>>>>> car. I wouldn't be surprised if she has
>>>>>> whiplash."
>>>>>> Angelina reportedly stayed in the car after
>>>>>> the incident and was later picked up, not
>>>>>> by Brad pitt, but by another driver from the
>>>>>> same car service.
>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>>>>>> 12/03/2014 10:47:00 am
>
>
>
>
>>> --
>>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>>> 12/07/2014 01:50:00 am
>
>
>> --
>> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
>> 12/07/2014 03:24:00 am
>
>
> --
> Posted By ogunlowo joseph to entertainment,investing,education on
> 12/07/2014 06:03:00 am
>
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