Some interesting currency moves today

[Primrose Hill]

FTSE ended at 5900

[JR8]

Had a look at the markets today? All markets are bleeding 3-6%. Feels like we are back to a new financial crisis.

Feels like interesting/fun times. Time to go cherry picking. There are some quality chips on insane yields right now. Time to 'buy and hold forever'; THIS week?


--- [Made up adage] - ' Buy whilst everyone is screaming'

[JR8]

Neil Woodford, one analyst/investor (of 'guru' status) I do listen to, as he is more than proven over very many years.

---
'Throughout my career as a fund manager I have been reminded, regularly, of the markets’ ability to surprise and alarm investors. It really is at times like this when Kipling’s advice to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, is particularly apt.

The past few weeks in global financial markets has been just such a time. It appears that investors everywhere are dramatically rebasing expectations. The principal trigger for this market rout has been the combination of weak macro data from China along with the precipitous fall in Chinese equity prices, which has confounded the authorities’ increasingly clumsy and apparently desperate attempts to stabilise the market.' [continues]
---
https://woodfordfunds.com/market-volatility-our-view/

[earthfriendly]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ ... spartandhp

Article titled "best day since 2011" . And nope, I did not bother to read the article. 2 days ago the drop was described as the worst since 2007. LOL ! So we get to experience 4 years worth in 2 days. Need more drama in our lives ?

[Primrose Hill]

I haven't dared look at my SIPP yet

[Barnsley]

Strong words from the Richest man in China?

Govt authorised , or will this guy disappear shortly?

From BBC

China's richest man said the government needs to give up any "fantasy" of maintaining high economic growth rates. Billionaire Wang Jianlin, speaking after his company Dalian Wanda Group said it had bought World Triathlon Corp for $650m, said that the key was whether economic growth is "sustainable and safe". In unusually bold comments, Mr Wang said: "China's economy needs to transform from relying on investment and exports to consumption. That's a painful process. If the transformation doesn't happen now, it would be even more painful in the future." He added: "China needs to drop the fantasy of keeping a high growth rate of 7 or 8% and just accept 6, 7 or even 5%."

[ScoobyDoes]

Strong words from the Richest man in China?

Govt authorised , or will this guy disappear shortly?

I don't think it's anything controversial or "bold" at all, the party is already trying to boost domestic consumption as a means of economic growth.......albeit at the same time as cutting rampant corruption.

In that case, both do not go hand in hand.

[earthfriendly]

A bull, a bear or..............

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/08/28/g ... -rejoices/

[Wd40]

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/ddd8caf0 ... z3kvWFxDeZ


While in 2008-09 the US was a key catalyst of emerging market distress, this time China is seen as the chief bugbear. Slowing Chinese GDP growth, coupled with a slowdown in construction, is triggering a large bout of capital flight as investors think they will earn more by parking their money elsewhere.
The main expression of this reversal is the implosion of the “China carry trade”, in which Chinese investors borrowed at low rates of interest abroad to pump back into Chinese property and a range of shadowy financial products . But such investments now seem more risky, and a record $91bn fled the country in the final quarter of last year.
“It’s all China, directly and indirectly,” says Frederic Neumann, economist at HSBC. “Despite a solid current account surplus, capital outflows over the past six months have drained reserves from China’s vast forex chest . . . and with the renminbi more fairly valued today it is difficult to see China running big balance of payment surpluses again.”
In Brazil, fragility stems from a combination of falling commodity prices and the rising US dollar. Although the country managed to attract net capital inflows in the second half of last year, the cost of doing so was a punitive interest rate environment in which the policy lending rate is 12.75 per cent.

[Wd40]

http://economyandmarkets.com/markets/ho ... al-estate/

What is so unusual about the Chinese is that they save just over half their income! And the top 10% save over two-thirds!

And where do those savings go? Mostly into real estate!

China’s home ownership rate is 90%. It’s just 64% in the U.S. even though we’re much wealthier and credit-worthy.

That’s because home ownership is a staple of their culture. A Chinese man has no chance of getting a date or getting laid unless he owns a home – no matter how small.

And while stocks are bouncing in China right now, I see almost no chance of them making a new high back above 5,178 on the Shanghai Composite.

If I’m being realistic, they’ll probably bounce to 4,300 over the coming weeks, but then start crashing again by September at latest. After that, I expect they’ll fall sharply for a year or so.

If they crash down to 2,000 and as low as 1,000 which I suspect they will, then the economy and real estate will come next. And like I’ve said, that will destroy massive amounts of wealth and take years to shake down.

Then beyond China, it’ll send shockwaves through real estate worldwide.

After all, who are the leading buyers in cities like Sydney, Singapore, L.A., San Francisco, New York, Vancouver, and London? The Chinese! Just in 2014, they accounted for 24% of international real estate purchases at some $22 billion!

[JR8]

Article by one 'Harry Dent Jr'.
But have you read his wikipedia page?... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dent

Sounds to me like he sells impending doom for a living, but just about everything he has predicted has turned out to be incorrect.

[JR8]

The euro/EU marches on to 'ever closer union'...

---
' The survival of economic and monetary union will require the creation of new supra-national institutions, including a joint eurozone treasury and a separate euro parliament, according to the single currency's bail-out chief.

Klaus Regling, head of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), joined a clamour of voices in Brussels who are pushing for member states to cede sovereignty in bid to establish a full-blown fiscal union on the Continent.

The first step will be the creation of a eurozone finance ministry, backed by a separate chamber for the currency's 19 member states in the European parliament, said Mr Regling, who oversees the euro's €500bn rescue fund.

The move is necessary to "increase the robustness and minimise the vulnerabilities of the currency union", said Mr Regling.

He added it would "imply a significant transfer of sovereignty, requiring democratic legitimacy", which could be provided by a "special chamber of the European Parliament composed of deputies solely from euro area Member States". [continues]'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... gn=DM47163
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Terrifying. This will allow the Germans to do to all of Europe, what they have and are over-seeing in Greece. I.e. a descent into near national anarchy.

[calugaruvaxile]

the vishegrad group is already showing them the finger

[ScoobyDoes]

Terrifying. This will allow the Germans to do to all of Europe, what they have and are over-seeing in Greece. I.e. a descent into near national anarchy.

It was pretty obvious from the setting up of a single currency something like this would be required someday, especially given that individual countries don't stick to spending and budget limits set out in agreements. No oversight or control, so they only have themselves to blame.

[JR8]

Obvious to the politicians, but they intentionally and knowingly didn't tell the citizenry lest they turn them into anti-EU rebels.

To paraphrase the post-war architect of the EU, Jean Monnet:
'Each step in the progressive move towards a single [federal] European state can only happen when the citizens will [grudgingly] accept it without too much of a fight. They must never be told what the planned and logical end goal of the project is, in case they reject it. The citizens must be told that each small step is inevitable, that there is no alternative, and that any reversal would be suicidal.'

To be clear; that is not a cynics view; rather that was and is the plan. I've linked some of Monnet's quotes before, including the actual/verbatim version of the above.
And the EU claims to be a democracy eh? Instead it seems to have turned almost all national PMs, who are knowingly participating in reaching this end-goal into whores to Brussels. No surprise though, their 'collaboration' guarantees them a fat tax-free career for life. Those who don't collaborate swiftly get the entire EU Brussels machinery land on their head (example: Athens, the original cradle of democracy [I'm not sure whether that is ironic or not]). I'd suggest it is perhaps the most egregiously undemocratic project ever carried out on a supposedly democratic continent.

[And no, I'm not necessarily anti-EU at all, but I am very uncomfortable with some of the ways it goes about it's business. The US shows that a federal union can thrive, but only when it is based upon deomocracy. The primary aim of the EU is to be an economic and geo-political counter-weight vs the US. But my 2c is that due to the EUs intrinsic socialism and autocracy, both deeply flawed methods, both absent in the US, that the EU will never reach it's dreamed of goal].

p.s. and yes you're right, you can't half-build a car engine and expect it to run sweetly.