| Culling weak funds will strengthen ETF herd
The long-expected culling of the weak has begun in the world of exchange-traded funds. Eleven duds listed in the U.S. market are being closed and the safest bet on the stock markets right now is that more of these mutual fund alternatives will bite the dust before long. "We've always thought that the next bear market – and we're probably in one right now – would eliminate a lot of the duplicate funds and the esoteric funds," said Tyler Mordy, director of research at Hahn Investment Stewards & Co. Bring it on, baby. Closing ETFs addresses the confusing glut of products, while the impact on people who actually own doomed funds is minimal, other than a potential tax hit. ETFs are stocks that provide a clean, cheap way to buy the returns of hundreds of stock indexes and commodities.
Cyclo-cross news & racing roundup for November 28
Verge MAC brings down the curtain on its 2007 campaign with a "classic" double-header of UCI racing on the first weekend of December. Mike Hebe's Carlisle Classic in central Pennsylvania kick-starts the racing weekend on Saturday, December 1 and the traditional season-ending Capital Cross Classic brings international cyclo-cross back to the Washington, DC suburb of Reston, Virginia the following day. One thing that has changed dramatically for the Pennsylvania leg of the weekend is the new venue at the Carlisle Fairgrounds. After outgrowing its former home in nearby Lower Allen Township, race promoter Mike Hebe has relocated his race to the Carlisle Fairgrounds, site of the some of the world's largest auto shows. The new venue not only provides more infrastructure and a centralized location, it also offers the racers a different kind of challenge.
Lotterman: There are potential economic perils if Fed lowers interest ...
The Federal Reserve's policymaking Open Market Committee meets Tuesday for the last time in 2007. It faces harder tradeoffs than any other time in many years. And whatever the committee decides, it will be years before the success or failure of the action becomes evident.General opinion seems to be that the committee will further increase the money supply to lower short-term interest rates. Many commentators use phrases like "the Fed will have no choice but to lower interest rates." This perpetuates the public's misunderstanding that the Fed is broadly able to cure economic ills and that there are no drawbacks to hefty increases in the money supply.The economy obviously is slowing. Keynesian theory, which millions learned in college economics courses and which remains the dominant mindset for the media and Wall Street, prescribes increasing the money supply when an economy slides into recession.
Sensex slips in early trade
At 10:05 am, the Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex was down 216 points or 1.19 per cent at 17,859.92
Bharti Airtel (down 2.53%), BHEL (2.48%), ICICI Bank (2.2%), HDFC (2.08%) and NTPC (1.91%) were the biggest index losers. Bajaj Auto (up 1.61%), Satyam Computer (1.61%), Infosys Technologies (1.17%), Wipro (1.02%) and Tata Consultancy Services (0.47%) were the major gainers. The National Stock Exchange's Nifty was down 61 points or 1.15 per cent at 5220.25.
“We had a gap up opening Tuesday, but lost around 1 per cent from the day's high. The discount in the Nifty February futures also widened to 20 points from 4 points. We will see profit booking coming at these levels, but Nifty might find support at 5150 levels," UTI Securities said in a note.
The brokerage recommends buying HCL Tech, Mphasis, Sasken, and Tech Mahindra expecting them to outperform the market in the near term.
Iowans! Heed the Undernews!
Not to mention the teachers' unions. (What's "right" for the country is that mediocre teachers can be fired as easily as you'd cut a mediocre tight end from a football squad. What's right for the NEA is ...) ... 4:23 P.M. link ___________________________ I'm reluctant to write skeptically about the NYT's David Leonhardt--I owe him one, having failed to answer his reasonable response to a criticism of several years ago. (All in good time!) His contrast between Hillary Clinton's domestic policy approach ("narrowly tailored government policies, like focused tax cuts," relying on rational economic incentives) and Obama's (broader, "simpler" programs that acknowledge people don't act rationally) seems highly useful. But I don't see how the great health care "mandates" debate fits this typology very well Isn't it Hillary who is proposing the broad, simple program: 'Everybody has to buy insurance!' And isn't this mandate at least somewhat similar to Obama's semi-mandatory ("opt out") employer-deduction savings plan in that it acknowledges people, if left to their own devices, won't do something that might in fact be good for them or at least for society,** even if given a seemingly sufficient incentive? Won't Obama need lots of little complex subsidies to enable people to afford the insurance he won't require them to buy? And if he actually adds a penalty for those who buy insurance later, when they get sick, isn't he relying on the "idea that people respond rationally to financial incentives"? That said, Leonhardt does make Hillary's vision seem dreary ("She has proposed new tax credits for savings, tuition, health care, elder care and renewable energy use.
Slouching towards Petroeurostan
Now more than ever, it may also signal a geoeconomic earthquake, a potentially shattering blow to US dollar hegemony.
The Iranian oil bourse - the first oil, gas and petrochemical exchange in the Islamic Republic, and the first within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) - was launched on Sunday by Irans Oil Minister Gholam-Hossein Nozari, flanked by Minister of Economy and Financial Affairs Davoud Danesh Jafari, the man who will head the exchange.
Officially called the Iranian International Petroleum Exchange
(IIPE), it is widely known in Iran and the Persian Gulf as the Kish bourse, named after Kish island, a free zone (declared by the shah) in an ideal laissez faire setting: lots of condos and duty-free malls, no Khomeini mega-portraits and hordes of young honeymooners shopping for made-in-Europe home appliances.
Sony's Blu-Ray wins HD DVD battle
Last month Warner Bros, the world's largest DVD producer, announced it would only release in Blu-Ray, while Disney, MGM, Sony Pictures and Fox have also dumped HD DVD. · To contact the MediaGuardian newsdesk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332. · If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". .
Stocks Slip Ahead Of U.S. Data, Sterling Up
Caution ahead of key U.S. retail sales data on Wednesday prompted investors to pare some gains in stocks while tough talk on inflation by the Bank of England helped boost sterling. Though rising off early lows, stocks were still in the red with investors taking risky bets off the table in case the U.S. report, due at 1330 GMT, showed more weakness in the world's biggest economy than already anticipated. A weakening consumer sector, which accounts for more than two thirds of the U.S. economy, has fuelled concerns that a recession is increasingly likely. Also worrying was fresh data showing much weaker than expected euro zone industrial output in December -- another sign of a global slowdown. "Euro zone growth is in trouble and the ECB had better get its skates on for easing soon," said David Brown, chief European economist at Bear Sterns International.
ASX chief warns of more turmoil
ASX chief executive Robert Elstone has warned shareholders to prepare for a fourth wave of stock market turbulence because of credit downgrades to "monoline" bond insurers in the US. In a rare statement from the manager of a stock exchange, he said yesterday it was "almost impossible" to think that there would not be more share market turbulence ahead. He noted there had been three recent share market lurches, starting in August with the sub-prime meltdown. "Then there was the real credit crunch in early December and the sell-off from January 8 through to 19," he said. "There is a lot of speculation now around the monoline insurers," he told The Australian. Such insurers, mostly based in the US, "rent" their triple-A status to bond issuers to reduce the latter's interest costs but a recent rash of downgradings by ratings agencies has left many institutions owning bonds that are now rated lower than their mandates allow.
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