Archive for May, 2012

China Emerges As Smart-Grid Powerhouse

The speed of China 's economic growth has been breathtaking. A generation ago, millions of Chinese lacked reliable access to power

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Facebook Flop: Actually, Mark Zuckerberg Should Say NOTHING And Stay On His Honeymoon

In the past few days, as Facebook's ( FB ) stock has continued to collapse, a growing chorus of people have been suggesting that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg needs to say something.

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Record Low Interest Rates Stiff Savers and the Economy

Follow The Daily Ticker on Facebook! Fearing the European debt crisis will continue to deteriorate, investors have piled into U.S. Treasuries in a flight for safety. The yield on the benchmark U.S

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World Bank President: Euro Bonds Need to Be On the Table

World Bank President Robert Zoellick is calling for the issuiing of a supranational "euro bond" that would be backed by credit guarantees from stronger euro zone economies while providing cheaper funding to struggling ones. Calling his suggestion a "partial euro bond solution" based on the "Hamiltonian model" used by the first 13 U.S. states during the late 18 th  century, Zoellick told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the revenue from such bonds could be used to facilitate a "match between the length of reforms and the length of funding." "The idea is, you offer some support for reforming countries on the financing side, but you keep the pressure on so that the markets will continue to apply discipline, in this case to any debt over the 60 percent," Zoellick said Or you could use the ESM [European Stability Mechanism, Europe's continent-wide rescue fund] and have the ESM provide the support, and the ESM will fund itself with what are in effect euro bonds.

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Aung San Suu Kyi’s Star Power Dominates Bangkok Economic Summit

Aung San Suu Kyi, the iconic pro-democracy activist from Myanmar, has made a splash at the opening of the World Economic Forum in Bangkok, during the third day of her visit to Thailand -- her first time out of her native country in more than two decades. Suu Kyi’s star-power overwhelmed the summit, with eager admirers, including other diplomats and delegates from around the world, as well as autograph-seekers asking for moments of her time and even taking photographs

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After May Swoon, Look for Bounce in June…And Sell Into It: Roberts

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Analysis: the Chilean economy in 2012

The Chilean economy has long been the model for Latin America and maintains the region's highest credit ratings with Aa3 from Moody's and A+ from Standard & Poor's and Fitch. [caption id="attachment_62095" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Andes tower over Santiago, Chile"] [/caption] The Chilean economy reported its fastest growth in three quarters with 5.6% in the first quarter. Moderating pricing pressures and global risks have allowed the central bank to keep from raising rates.

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Daily State of the Markets: Is All News Good News?

By David Moenning Chief Investment Strategist StateoftheMarkets.com It was a tough day for the S&P 500 on Wednesday as the blue chip index gave back 1.43%, which amounted to the entire gain seen over the past five sessions. I'm told it was a "90% down day" as down volume swamped up volume by more than 14 to 1 and that the all-important 50-day moving average was breached to the downside. Other harbingers of bad things to come included the Euro (FXE) diving to lowest level in two years, gold (GLD) and the dollar (UUP) surging, commodities (DBC) plunging, the VIX (VXZ) spiking, and the yield on the U.S

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Euro Zone Inflation Falls More Than Expected In May

Euro zone annual inflation fell to 2.4 percent in May, down from 2.6 percent in April, the European Union's Eurostat statistics office said Thursday. The May euro zone inflation flash estimate beat consensus estimates of 2.5 percent, according to a report by Capital Economics.

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Crandall: Europe’s banks a worry

http://www.FT.com/ MassMutual chief executive Roger Crandall tells the FT's Telis Demos that European issues may take up to 5 years to resolve. In the US, he says savers are suffering as economic pressures keep interest rates low.

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