Warren Buffett Cashes In on Railroad Tank Cars

Warren Buffett Cashes In on Railroad Tank Cars

By Drake Bennett November 14, 2013

Boomtowns on the prairie, young men heading west to find work as roustabouts—there’s an undeniable throwback quality to the American shale oil industry. The 21st century economy was supposed to be driven by Silicon Valley and Wall Street; instead it’s being pumped out of the ground in North Dakota and Texas. That’s creating growth in unlikely places. Read more of this post

Wal-Mart Touts $98 TV in Weakest Holiday Season Since ’09

Wal-Mart Touts $98 TV in Weakest Holiday Season Since ’09

By Cotten Timberlake – Nov 19, 2013

U.S. retailers are discounting earlier than ever as they brace for the weakest holiday shopping season since 2009. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is dangling a 32-inch flat-screen TV for $98, down from $148 last year. Sears Holdings Corp. has waived layaway fees and its Kmart chain is introducing a rent-to-own program. More than a dozen retailers are opening earlier, or for the first time, on Thanksgiving Day. Among the attention-grabbing stunts: a $1 million jackpot for one of the first shoppers to visit Gap Inc. (GPS)’s Old Navy chain on Black Friday. Read more of this post

Waiting for the thaw: Most Britons are unimpressed by a recovery they do not feel

Waiting for the thaw: Most Britons are unimpressed by a recovery they do not feel

Nov 16th 2013 |From the print edition

THE 8m Britons who tuned in to watch “X-Factor”, a talent show, on November 9th were treated to a contest both lavish and cut-throat. And that was just in the ad breaks—on the weekend in which Britain’s biggest retailers unveiled their Christmas advertising campaigns. Read more of this post

Small no longer looks quite so beautiful; The opportunity to enter the rally in smaller companies has passed

November 13, 2013 9:07 am

Small no longer looks quite so beautiful

By John Authers

The opportunity to enter the rally in smaller companies has passed

Size isn’t everything. Indeed, of late, lack of it has been highly profitable. Small-capstocks have readily outperformed larger stocks all year, and have done so since the post-crisis rally began in March 2009. The question now is whether the rally can possibly have more legs. Read more of this post

Singapore and Malaysia market regulators face delicate task

Updated: Monday November 18, 2013 MYT 9:32:05 AM

Market regulators face delicate task

BY GURMEET KAUR

CAPITAL market oversight is no easy task. It is a fine balancing act for regulators: they can’t over-regulate less they be accused of stifling the markets, and neither can they be lax for they may be accused of not safeguarding the interests’ investors. In this context, the recent experiences of the Malaysian and Singaporean regulators are worth a look. Singapore is reeling from the aftermath of the SGX penny stock crash, involving the highly speculated plays of Asiasons Capital Ltd, Blumont Group Ltd and LionGold Corp. Shares in the three companies made huge gains earlier in the year before crashing in a frenzied 40 minutes of trading on Oct 4. Read more of this post

Retail investors may be unprepared for a move into more aggressive strategies by hedge funds

November 17, 2013 9:05 pm

Playing to the cheap seats

By Stephen Foley

Retail investors may be unprepared for a move into more aggressive strategies by hedge funds

There were “booths as far as the eye can see”, says Henry Davis. Chicago’s McCormick Place conference centre bustled with activity in June, as asset managers and boutique investment houses competed for the attention of more than 1,000 financial advisers. These advisers are the gatekeepers to America’s retail investors, so anyone hawking a mutual fund wants to hawk it at Morningstar’s Investment Conference. And that was why Mr Davis was there for the first time. Read more of this post

Oldest Italian Bell Maker Avoids Death Knell by Growing Exports

Oldest Italian Bell Maker Avoids Death Knell by Growing Exports

The process of making bronze bells hasn’t altered much in 1,000 years at the Pontifical Marinelli Foundry. What’s changing is where they chime, as Italy’s oldest family business looks abroad to dodge the economy at home. The company in Agnone, a small town about 220 kilometers (137 miles) southeast of Rome, has increased exports to 20 percent of its revenue, four times the proportion a decade ago. With the Italian economy entering a third year of recession, reliance on sales abroad is only going to get greater, said Pasquale Marinelli, who owns the foundry with his brother. Read more of this post

Oaktree’s Marks Says Bargains Hard to Find After Rally

Oaktree’s Marks Says Bargains Hard to Find After Rally

Oaktree Capital Group LLC (OAK) Chairman Howard Marks said it’s difficult to find bargains because prices of private assets have risen as investors search for yield. “The bargain hunter is having a tough time because the low level of Treasury rates has pushed everyone to riskier assets, which has driven up prices,” Marks said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television with Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle. “I’m not aware of any broad sweet spots today, and I don’t think there should be any.” Read more of this post

New Zealand Stops a Housing Bubble

New Zealand Stops a Housing Bubble

Perhaps the Federal Reserve has something to learn from the central bank of New Zealand about how to manage a mortgage market. Unlike the Fed, which has been sharply criticized for having failed to keep the U.S. housing bubble from expanding, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is sounding the alarm over rising housing prices and imposing limits on mortgages. Read more of this post

Malls Billionaire Targets Overseas Expansion: Corporate Brazil

Malls Billionaire Targets Overseas Expansion: Corporate Brazil

Brazilian billionaire Jose Isaac Peres is considering expanding his mall operations overseas as the nation’s trade barriers for consumer goods and rising interest rates limit options to grow locally. Peres, who owns 31 percent of Multiplan Empreendimentos Imobiliarios SA (MULT3), the country’s largest mall operator, said he has met with Peter Lowy of Australia’s Westfield Group and executives from Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group Inc. as he seeks opportunities abroad. Chile and Uruguay are attractive markets, Peres said. Read more of this post

Krugman: A Permanent Slump? The new normal for our economy may be a state of mild depression

November 17, 2013

A Permanent Slump?

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Spend any time around monetary officials and one word you’ll hear a lot is “normalization.” Most though not all such officials accept that now is no time to be tightfisted, that for the time being credit must be easy and interest rates low. Still, the men in dark suits look forward eagerly to the day when they can go back to their usual job, snatching away the punch bowl whenever the party gets going. Read more of this post

Junk Glistens Under ‘Bernankecare’ as Worst Win in Stocks, Bonds

Junk Glistens Under ‘Bernankecare’ as Worst Win in Stocks, Bonds

Carl Giannone says he’s given up hunting for quality stocks. Now he’s simply riding the wave of upward momentum in the U.S. market. “It’s a game of musical chairs,” said Giannone, who manages a team of stock pickers at T3 Trading Group LLC in New York. “You just want to make sure you can sit down.” Read more of this post

Investors See End to Bond Rally; Americans Are Highly Exposed to Fixed Income

Investors See End to Bond Rally

Americans Are Highly Exposed to Fixed Income

E.S. BROWNING

Updated Nov. 17, 2013 10:40 p.m. ET

Smart analysts have been warning for years that the bottom could fall out of the surging bond market. They were wrong. Bond yields went to unprecedented lows, pushing bond prices to unprecedented highs and they just kept going. The weak economy, tiny inflation and exceptional Federal Reserve policies took bonds to unnatural levels. Read more of this post

How Wall Street Manipulates Everything: The Infographics

How Wall Street Manipulates Everything: The Infographics

Tyler Durden on 11/18/2013 18:44 -0500

Courtesy of the revelations over the past year, one thing has been settled: the statement “Wall Street Manipulated Everything” is no longer in the conspiracy theorist’s arsenal: it is now part of the factually accepted vernacular. And to summarize just how, who and where this manipulation takes places is the following series of charts from Bloomberg demonstrating Wall Street at its best – breaking the rules and making a killing. Read more of this post

Gross Domestic Freebie: You may think that Wikipedia, Twitter, Snapchat, and Google Maps are valuable. But, as far as G.D.P. is concerned, they barely exist…

GROSS DOMESTIC FREEBIE

by James SurowieckiNOVEMBER 25, 2013

Twitter’s recent I.P.O. bonanza gave us all some striking numbers to consider. There’s the company’s valuation: an astounding twenty-four billion dollars. And its revenue: just five hundred and thirty-five million. It has more than two hundred and thirty million active users, and a hundred million of them use the service daily. They collectively send roughly half a billion tweets every day. And then there’s the starkest number of all: zero. That’s the price that Twitter charges people to use its technology. Since the company was founded, ordinary users have sent more than three hundred billion tweets. In exchange, they have paid Twitter no dollars and no cents. Read more of this post

Golden Hellos Surge as CEOs Get Signing Jumbo Bonuses

Golden Hellos Surge as CEOs Get Signing Jumbo Bonuses

More U.S. companies are luring top executives with multimillion-dollar “golden hello” signing bonuses, undeterred even as high-profile flameouts such as Ron Johnson’s short tenure at J.C. Penney Co. expose the risks. The number of companies making upfront payments surged to more than 70 this year from 41 in all of 2012, according to governance-advisory firm GMI Ratings Inc. J.C. Penney fired Johnson in April, 17 months after giving him a signing bonus of $52.7 million in shares to recruit him from Apple Inc. Read more of this post

Gold No Slam-Dunk Sell in China as Aunties Buy Bullion

Gold No Slam-Dunk Sell in China as Aunties Buy Bullion

Yang Cuiyan, a 41-year-old housekeeper from Anhui province, is one reason China is poised to topple India as the world’s top consumer of gold even as investors desert the metal. Standing outside Beijing’s busiest jewelry store, wearing a thick coat against the autumn chill, she clasps a gold necklace that cost her 10,000 yuan ($1,640), or five months’ wages. Read more of this post

Global stocks may be running out of steam

Updated: Monday November 18, 2013 MYT 3:07:21 PM

Global stocks may be running out of steam

LONDON: Global stocks may be running out of room to rally further after a bumper year as the fragile economic recovery and the prospect of a cut in the Federal Reserve’s bond-buying discourage big investors. Equities are the best performing asset so far in 2013, with the benchmark MSCI world equity index rising 17% since January. Wall Street and some European indexes have been hitting record highs on a daily basis. Read more of this post

Fed Ponders How to Temper Tapering Without Rate Increase

Fed Ponders How to Temper Tapering Without Rate Increase

By Caroline Salas Gage – Nov 18, 2013

One of Janet Yellen’s first challenges as Federal Reserve chairman will be figuring out how to cushion against a lurch in interest rates when she pares the pace of the central bank’s bond buying. After sending 10-year Treasury yields more than a percentage point higher by fueling taper expectations in May and June, policy makers now are grappling with their options when they do reduce debt purchases that have swelled their balance sheet to a record $3.91 trillion. Read more of this post

Food Stamp Costs Swelled by States Spending $1 for Heat

Food Stamp Costs Swelled by States Spending $1 for Heat

Congressional critics looking to cut the nation’s food stamp bill — which has doubled in the past five years — are pointing to what some say is a loophole in the law: If a state gives a resident as little as $1 a year in heating assistance, it allows that person’s household to automatically qualify for an average of $1,080 in additional food stamps annually from the federal government. Read more of this post

Espresso Machines at $20,000 Bring High Design Into Homes

Espresso Machines at $20,000 Bring High Design Into Homes

Kees van der Westen first encountered espresso as a college student. It was the 1980s, and he was studying industrial design in Genk, Belgium. Like most college students, he valued the dark, acidic shots pulled in local cafes primarily for their caffeine content, not their complexity of flavor, mouth feel or aroma. Read more of this post

Business in Bulgaria: Succeeding in spite of the state; Honest Bulgarian firms specialise, stay small and steer clear of the government

Business in Bulgaria: Succeeding in spite of the state; Honest Bulgarian firms specialise, stay small and steer clear of the government

Nov 16th 2013 | SOFIA |From the print edition

MILEN GEORGIEV’S father had bought him a kit of cheap magic tricks. That was lucky, because it helped the young Bulgarian figure out the sleight-of-hand in the hustlers’ three-card con trick at an open-air market in Sofia. Over ten weeks, Mr Georgiev made 1,000 lev (then around $18 at official rates), while getting just 90 lev a month on his student stipend. The hustlers started turning him away. Read more of this post

Bubbles, bubbles everywhere, investors beware

Updated: Tuesday November 19, 2013 MYT 2:01:07 PM

Bubbles, bubbles everywhere, investors beware

NEW YORK: Five years of rapid-fire money printing at the US Federal Reserve and easy money policies at other central banks have left trillions of dollars sloshing around the world financial system, and some of it is ending up in some rather odd places. The froth can be seen in everything, from Pakistan’s stock market, thoroughbred racehorses and rare paintings, to gemstones, taxi licenses and the digital currency Bitcoin. Read more of this post

As U.S. default threatened, banks took extraordinary steps

As U.S. default threatened, banks took extraordinary steps

8:54am EST

By David Henry and Lauren Tara LaCapra

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As the United States threatened to default on its debt last month, major U.S. banks set up war rooms, spent many millions of dollars on contingency planning and, in some cases, even prepared to underwrite federal government benefits. Read more of this post

As Oil Slumps, Wildcatter Struggles With Shale Debt; Energy Drillers Find Pursuing Big Drilling Plans Tougher Amid Investor Skepticism

As Oil Slumps, Wildcatter Struggles With Shale Debt

Energy Drillers Find Pursuing Big Drilling Plans Tougher Amid Investor Skepticism

A shift on Wall Street to more defensive energy stocks is making it harder for oil-and-gas drillers to pursue expansions without the cash flow from production to finance the work.

By Russell Gold

One of the early stars of the U.S. energy boom is having a tough time in an increasingly skeptical energy investment environment. Floyd C. Wilson, chairman and chief executive of Halcón Resources Corp., was a pioneer in finding oil and gas in shale formations. His previous company, Petrohawk Energy Corp., discovered the prolific Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas and became a Wall Street darling before being acquired by BHP Billiton Ltd. in 2011. Read more of this post

Are Asset Bubbles the Only Road to Growth?

Nov 18, 2013

Are Asset Bubbles the Only Road to Growth?

By Alen Mattich

Are asset bubbles the only way for central banks to boost demand? Leading economists are starting to wonder. And both the pundits and central bankers are clearly tilting in favor of keeping asset prices frothy if that’s the only way to keep the economy ticking over. Read more of this post

Are Bitcoins the Criminal’s Best Friend?

Are Bitcoins the Criminal’s Best Friend?

Until very recently, the virtual currency known as bitcoins could be mistaken for just another Internet fad (the Winkelvoss twins of Facebook fame even had a role). But when federal law enforcement closed the “Silk Road,” the wildly popular online illegal-drug emporium that used Bitcoin as a medium of exchange, politicians and policy makers took notice. Criminals, it turns out, really like bitcoins, which can be exchanged for nefarious purposes on the “Dark Web,” with complete anonymity and, it seems, impunity. Read more of this post