Sellsmart | Every Sell-Side Idea

March Not as Strong in Post_Election Years(Feb 25, 2025)

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

March Not as Strong in Post_Election Years(Feb 25, 2025)

As part of the Best Six/Eight Months, March has historically been a respectable performing month with DJIA, S&P 500, NASDAQ, Russell 1000 & 2000, advancing more than 64% of the time with average gains ranging from 0.7% by Russell 2000 to 1.1% by S&P 500.Post-election year payments to the Piper have exacted a toll on March as average gains are trimmed. (see Vital Statistics table below). In post-election years March ranks: #7 for DJIA and S&P 500; # 8 for Russell 1000 and Russell 2000; and #9 for NASDAQ. NASDAQ also has the largest change in its average performance, dropping from +0.8% in all Marchs since 1971 to a loss of 0.1% in 13 post-elections years. NASDAQ’s massive 14.5% drop in 2001 is only partially offset by its impressive 10.9% advance in 2009.

Neutral

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Red Light for Risk Appetite(Feb 25, 2025)

Neutral

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Red Light for Risk Appetite(Feb 25, 2025)

I’ve been thinking a lot about if this could be the end…On the Morning Show today we talked about whether the bull market for stocks could continue if we lost Bitcoin.The answer is it definitely could. But, wouldn’t it be strange? Crypto and stocks have danced together for a long time.However, I think it’s less about crypto and more about the overall risk appetite of the market. Bitcoin is just one part of it. When I think about risk on corners of the market and the kind of things that should be working during a healthy bull cycle I’m thinking of homebuilders, semiconductors, and banks… to name a few groups. But I’m also looking into the relationships between groups. In particular, I’m analyzing the performance of offensive stocks versus defensive stocks. The best ratio for this has always been discretionary vs staples.XLY/XLP ranks second to none when it comes to the assessment of risk appetite.Are investors buying the risky consumer stocks and betting on growth?Or are they favoring the defensive ones and playing it safe?As a bull, you always want new highs in the stock market to be confirmed by the discretionary vs staples ratio. Right now, not only is XLY/XLP not supporting new highs, but it is flashing a dire warning sign.XLY/XLP just printed a nasty failed breakout and sold off to fresh multi-month lows. The ratio has now given back all of its post-election gains and violated its VWAP from the August low. The tactical trend has turned down, and the primary trend is in jeopardy. Momentum just hit its most oversold reading since the bear market lows in 2022. A valid breakdown in this relationship would mean further leadership from defensive stocks in the future. Over any sustained timeframe, this would constitute bear market behavior.I’m not saying it has to happen, but it’s where things are headed right now.And while the discretionary vs staples ratio is only one data point, it’s a pretty damn bearish one.

Neutral

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Dow closes down 260 points at session low as megacap tech stocks turn negative(May 18, 2021)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Dow closes down 260 points at session low as megacap tech stocks turn negative(May 18, 2021)

Major U.S. stock indexes wiped out earlier gains and closed at their session lows on Tuesday as Big Tech stocks reversed lower, while data showing housing starts dropped sharply last month also weighed on sentiment.The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the session 267.13 points, or 0.8%, to 34,060.66. The S&P 500 fell 0.9% to 4,127.83. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite erased a 0.8% gain and slid 0.6% to 13,303.64 as Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet all rolled over and fell more than 1% on the dayHousing starts tumbled 9.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.569 million units last month, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday. Economists polled by Dow Jones had forecast starts falling to a rate of 1.7 million units in April.Investors also digested better-than-expected earnings from big retailers. Walmart shares jumped more than 2% after reporting strong grocery sales and e-commerce growth for the quarter. Macy’s posted a surprise profit and hiked its full-year outlook, but its shares erased earlier gains and dipped 0.4%.Home Depot reported earnings of $3.86 a share for the previous quarter, much higher than the $3.08 expected by analysts polled by Refinitiv. Net sales surged 32.7%, more than expected. The stock ended the session 1% lower.Growth-heavy stocks have remained under pressure in recent sessions as investors fret over whether a pop in inflation will entrench or blow over as the Federal Reserve expects. Inflation above the Fed’s 2% target for a sustained period could prompt the central bank to tighten monetary policy and dampen stocks that outperform the market when interest rates are low.″Growth may be peaking, but it’s not a bull-market breaker yet,” said Lauren Goodwin, economist and portfolio strategist at New York Life Investments. “Data can’t stay at peak levels forever, and tailwinds from fiscal stimulus are likely to wind down. This can complicate the environment for investors; history suggests that when the economy starts to slow, market returns tend to slow with it.”Investors blamed that angst for the S&P 500′s dismal performance last week, which saw the broad market index fall 4% through midweek amid heightened inflation fears. The broad equity benchmark eventually rebounded and ended the week down 1.4%. All three benchmarks posted their worst week since February 26.The Fed’s minutes from its last meeting, which will be released Wednesday, could offer some clues on policymakers’ thinking on inflation.Elsewhere, the first-quarter earnings season is wrapping up with more than 90% of the S&P 500 companies having reported their results. So far, 86% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive EPS surprise, which would mark the highest percentage of positive earnings surprises since 2008 when FactSet began tracking this metric.

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

The Flawed Fed Valuation Model(Feb 5, 2008)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

The Flawed Fed Valuation Model(Feb 5, 2008)

There are lots of things that investors believe which I find perplexing. The Superbowl indicator is one, but the oddest to me is the so-called Fed Model, also known as the IBES Valuation Model.It is not that the Fed model is so terribly wrong — it has been both right and wrong over the years. Rather, it is the way too many people conceptualize it.First, the definition of the Fed Model: Yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury Bonds should be similar to the S&P 500 earnings yield (forward earnings divided by the S&P price). This, in theory, should inform you of when equities are over-priced or under-priced.Note that the formula contains two variables: While it is commonly described as a way to evaluate when stocks are over- or under-valued, the other variable in the formula above is the forward S&P500 earnings consensus. SPX prices and the 10 year yield are the knowns, while BOTH valuation and forward earnings estimates are the unknowns.Thus, the Fed model today might be telling you either of two things: When equities are undervalued — or when consensus earning estimates are simply too high.Let’s see how that looks on a chart:Looking at the chart above, we can identify some rather odd periods. The model had stocks extremely undervalued in 1979 — just before a major 30% selloff. In 1981, stocks were fairly valued on the eve of the greatest bull market in history. From 1982-85, stocks bounced between slightly overvalued to undervalued, according to the model. In 1987, a very timely crash warning. 1998, an extremely early crash warning, missing a huge 2 year run in the indices. In 2001, it had stocks as undervalued — and they proceeded to get a whole lot cheaper over the next 2 years. Equities have been extremely undervalued ever since.Now, given that rather inconsistent track record, I find it hard to get too excited about this. But the most damning evidence against the Fed model is the period prior to 1960s. Over that entire, the Fed model had no utility whatsoever. “Out of sample” testing — looking at a different set of data than the one proffered — is quite damning to the Fed model.Which brings us back to today. We continue to see the Fed model used to rationalize a bullish stance in equities. However, given that it is based in large part on analysts consensus for future SPX earnings, investors need to be extremely cautious relying solely on the Fed model. Why? Analysts are unflaggingly inaccurate at turning points. Example: Q3 S&P500 earnings consensus were +8% — S&P500 earnings came in at -8%. Q4 has been similarly lowered, undercutting the earlier forecasts of undervaluation.Now let’s look at 2008. S&P 500 forward earnings over the next 4 quarters are as follows: Q1 = 3%; Q2 = 4%; Q3 = 20%; Q4 = 50%, according to UBS.So stocks, so we are confronted with two possibilities. Perhaps, equities are seriously undervalued (that assumes earnings explode in 2H). An alternative explanation, and one I suspect is more likely: Analysts consensus earnings are wildly exuberant for the second half.One last issue: Let’s ignore the analysts, and merely consider mean reversion: As the chart below shows, earnings have been unusually high relative to history. If they merely mean revert, they will come down another 25%. Even worse, most mean reversion blows right past historical averages to opposite extremes.

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

S&P 500 Reporting YoY Decline in Net Profit Margin for 3rd Straight Qtr(Oct 21, 2019)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

S&P 500 Reporting YoY Decline in Net Profit Margin for 3rd Straight Qtr(Oct 21, 2019)

For the third quarter, the S&P 500 is reporting a year-over-year decline in earnings of -4.7%, but year-over-year growth in revenues of 2.6%. Given the dichotomy in growth between earnings and revenues, there are concerns in the market about net profit margins for S&P 500 companies in the third quarter. Given this concern, what is the S&P 500 reporting for a net profit margin in the third quarter?The blended net profit margin for the S&P 500 for Q3 2019 is 11.3%. If 11.3% is the actual net profit margin for the quarter, it will mark the first time the index has reported three straight quarters of year-over-year declines in net profit margin since Q1 2009 through Q3 2009. Nine of the 11 sectors are reporting a year-over-year decline in their net profit margins in Q3 2019, led by the Energy (5.4% vs. 8.1%) and Information Technology (20.6% vs. 23.0%) sectors.What is driving the year-over-year decrease in the net profit margin?One factor is a difficult year-over-year comparison. In Q3 2018, the S&P 500 reported the highest net profit margin since FactSet began tracking this data in 2008. While nine sectors are reporting a year-over-year decline in net profit margins, only one sector (Health Care) is reporting a net profit margin below its five-year average. Higher costs are likely another factor. Of the first 22 S&P 500 companies to conduct earnings calls for Q3, seven (32%) discussed a negative impact from higher wages and labor costs and five (21%) discussed a negative impact from higher raw material or other input costs. Please see our previous article on this topic.Based on current estimates, the estimated net profit margins for Q4 2019, Q1 2020, and Q2 2020 are 11.1%, 11.3%, and 11.7%. Net profit margins are expected to increase on a year-over-year basis again in Q1 2020.To maintain consistency, the earnings and revenue numbers used to calculate the earnings and revenue growth rates published in this report were also used to calculate the index-level and sector-level net profit margins for this analysis. In addition, all year-over-year comparisons for Q3 2019 to Q3 2018 (and all other year-over-year comparisons for historical quarters) reflect an apples-to-apples comparison of data at the company level.

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

More Than 40% Increase in S&P 500 Companies Citing 'Tariffs' on Earnings Calls in Q2 vs. Q1(Aug 12, 2019)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

More Than 40% Increase in S&P 500 Companies Citing 'Tariffs' on Earnings Calls in Q2 vs. Q1(Aug 12, 2019)

During each corporate earnings season, it is not unusual for companies to comment on subjects that had an impact on their earnings and revenues in a given quarter or may have an impact on earnings and revenues in future quarters. To date, 90% of the companies in the index had reported earnings results for the second quarter. Given the continued implementation of tariffs by the Trump administration, have companies in the S&P 500 commented on “tariffs” during their earnings conference calls for the second quarter?To answer this question, FactSet searched for the term “tariff” in the conference call transcripts of the 438 S&P 500 companies that had conducted earnings conference calls between June 15 and August 8.Of these 438 companies, 124 (or 28%) cited the term “tariff” during the call. At the sector level, the Industrials led all sectors with 35 companies citing” the term “tariff” on earnings calls.The number of S&P 500 companies discussing tariffs on Q2 2019 earnings calls during this time is well above the number through the same point in time in the first quarter. From March 15 through May 8, 88 S&P 500 companies (or 21%) had cited the term “tariff” during their Q1 2019 earnings calls. Thus, there has been a 41% increase (124 vs. 88) in the number of S&P 500 companies citing “tariffs” in Q2 relative to Q1. At the sector level, 10 of the 11 sectors witnessed an increase in the number of S&P 500 companies citing the term “tariff” on earnings calls in Q2 2019 relative to Q1 2019, led by the Information Technology sector (+11).However, the number of S&P 500 companies discussing tariffs on Q2 2019 earnings calls is still well below the number at the same point in time in the year-ago quarter. From June 15 (2018) through August 8 (2018), 162 S&P 500 companies (or 38%) had cited the term “tariff” on their Q2 2018 earnings calls. Thus, the number of S&P 500 companies citing “tariffs” in Q2 2019 is still 23% below the number from last year at the same point in time.It is interesting to note that the number of S&P 500 companies citing “tariffs” had declined for three straight quarters until Q2 2019. But, based on the numbers for Q2 2019, it appears concerns about tariffs may be back on the rise for S&P 500 companies.

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Record-High Number of S&P 500 Technology Companies Issuing Negative EPS Guidance for Q3(Sep 27, 2019)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Record-High Number of S&P 500 Technology Companies Issuing Negative EPS Guidance for Q3(Sep 27, 2019)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

U.S. IPOs Raised More Money in 2019, Despite a Decline in IPO Volume(Jan 9, 2020)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

U.S. IPOs Raised More Money in 2019, Despite a Decline in IPO Volume(Jan 9, 2020)

Despite the 28.9% increase in the S&P 500 in 2019, the number of initial public offerings on U.S. exchanges fell by 14.2% compared to 2018. The first quarter of the year started on bad footing as the U.S. government shutdown (December 22, 2018-January 25, 2019) shuttered the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), essentially bringing IPO activity to a halt. IPO activity rebounded in the second quarter before easing in the third quarter as market volatility increased. The S&P 500 saw an 8.5% jump in the fourth quarter, yet the number of IPOs remained flat. With markets off to a strong start in 2020, the pipeline indicates strong activity in the first quarter.IPO Highlights and TrendsThe end of the mega tech IPOsThe big IPO story this year was the disappointing performance of several much-anticipated technology IPOs. Coming into 2019, the market was anxiously awaiting initial public offerings for the next generation of tech stocks, which included Airbnb, Lyft, Peloton, Pinterest, Slack, Uber, and WeWork. The biggest disappointments were Lyft and Uber, which continue to trade significantly below their offer prices. Even Slack, which went public via a direct listing, has underperformed.The market is no longer interested in overpaying for companies that have yet to turn a profit. Investors are demanding to see growing revenues and a path to profitability as well as a solid leadership team. WeWork (The We Company), a shared office space company, pulled its planned IPO in September in the face of intense scrutiny after it reported $1.37 billion in losses in the first half of 2019. Shortly afterward, the CEO stepped down; it is unclear if or when the company will go public. The highly anticipated Airbnb IPO is now expected to take place in 2020 but it appears that this will happen via a direct listing.More direct offerings?We may see more technology companies opting for direct stock listings in 2020, bypassing the traditional IPO route via Wall Street underwriters. We’ve had just two over the last two years: 2018 brought us the Spotify debut and Slack went public in 2019. While Spotify got off to a rough start in 2018, ending the year down 24% from its debut, the stock is now up 18.2% from its offer price. Slack has also had troubles following its June 2019 offering and is currently trading 8.3% below its offer price. Two companies are expected to follow the direct listing path in 2020: Airbnb and GitLab. It will be interesting to see how many more follow suit.Fewer Chinese companies IPO on U.S. exchangesOver the last few years, we saw a surge in Chinese (China and Hong Kong) companies listing on U.S. exchanges; however, this activity slowed dramatically in 2019. According to FactSet data, 46 Chinese companies IPO’d in the U.S. in 2018; in 2019, that number declined 33% to 31. It’s not just the number of Chinese IPOs that has contracted; the offerings have been much smaller in size than we saw in previous years. The 31 IPOs of 2019 have raised a total of just $3.8 billion, a 61% drop from the $9.8 billion raised in 2018. The 2018 tally included four mega-IPOs, while the biggest Chinese IPO of 2019 raised just $775 million (DouYu International Holdings Ltd.).The escalation of trade tensions last year between the U.S. and China could be part of the reason for the decline in Chinese IPOs on U.S. exchanges. There are also growing incentives for Chinese companies to IPO locally. The Hong Kong exchange’s recent easing of rules is encouraging more companies to consider an IPO there. In addition, the new Science and Technology Innovation Board in Shanghai with its looser listing restrictions is expected to convince Chinese tech companies to IPO within China rather than on U.S. markets.Despite a Slow Start, 2019 Was a Strong Year for IPO ActivityThere were 235 company IPOs in 2019; while this was down from 274 in 2018, this represented the best two-year streak since 2014-2015 (515 combined). There were 54 IPOs in the fourth quarter of 2019, matching the third-quarter volume, but down 6.9% from the fourth quarter of 2018. Even though the volume of IPOs in the fourth quarter was unchanged from the previous quarter, gross proceeds dipped by 38%, falling to $9.3 billion. However, for the year, gross proceeds totaled $65.4 billion, up 3% from 2018’s $63.5 billion.2019 Saw Bigger Public Offerings Overall, but Q4 Featured Smaller DealsIn 2019, the average IPO size was $279 million, the highest since 2014. Even excluding the mega Uber IPO, the average IPO size was $246 million, still a five-year high. For the year, 11.1% of all IPOs had gross proceeds above $500 million, nearly identical to 2018’s 11.4% share.Despite the strong presence of large offerings for the entire year, there was a clear retreat to smaller deals in the fourth quarter. Just two of the IPOs in the final quarter of the year raised more than $500 million; more than half of the quarter’s IPOs (51.9%) raised less than $100 million. The quarter’s biggest IPO was Brazilian brokerage firm XP, which raised $2.25 billion in its debut. This was the fourth biggest IPO of 2019, behind Uber ($8.1 billion), Avantor ($3.3 billion), and Lyft ($2.6 billion).Finance Sector Leads Q4 IPOs in 2019, Both in Terms of Volume and Money RaisedOf the 54 initial public offerings in the fourth quarter, 21 came from the Finance sector, the highest representation of any sector. The Health Technology sector was next with 16 IPOs, followed by Technology Services with nine. The Finance sector also led all other sectors in terms of money raised, with a total of $3.7 billion. The XP IPO boosted the Technology Services sector total to $2.9 billion, while the Health Technology sector raised $1.9 billion.The Finance sector led all other sectors in IPO volume in 2019, coming in with a total of 81 IPOs for the year, followed by the Health Technology sector with 61 IPOs. Even though Technology Services had just 41 IPOs for the year, the sector raised more money than any other sector, with total gross proceeds of $25.7 billion. This total was driven by Lyft, Uber, and XP IPOs. The Finance sector raised $15.2 billion followed by Health Technology with $8.1 billion.Financial Sponsors Retreated in the Second Half of the YearIn 2019, 99 of the 235 IPOs (42.1%) priced on U.S. exchanges were backed by financial sponsors, i.e., private equity or venture capital firms; this was the lowest share of total IPO volume since 2008. In the fourth quarter, just 35.2% of IPOs were financial-sponsor-backed. However, in terms of capital raised, financial sponsor-backed IPOs represented 60.1% of the total gross proceeds in 2019; this was the highest share since 2014. All nine of the mega IPOs in 2019 were backed by financial sponsors. In the fourth quarter, financial-sponsor-backed IPOs accounted for 45% of total gross proceeds, largely due to XP.Venture Capital-Backed IPOs Lose Momentum in 2019There were 80 venture-capital-backed IPOs in 2019, down 19.2% from 2018. On a quarterly basis, VC activity peaked in Q2 with 35 IPOs following the government shutdown, but Q4 only registered 16 offerings. The offerings in 2019 tended to be larger, with gross proceeds totaling $28.9 billion. There were five mega VC-backed IPOs in 2019. The size of the average VC-backed IPO was $366.1 million, the highest seen since 2012 when Facebook debuted. In Q4, VC-backed IPOs raised just $1.9 billion, the lowest amount since the second quarter of 2017.

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Where Are Analysts Most Optimistic on Ratings for S&P 500 Companies for 2020?(Dec 23, 2019)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Where Are Analysts Most Optimistic on Ratings for S&P 500 Companies for 2020?(Dec 23, 2019)

With the end of the year approaching, where are analysts most optimistic and pessimistic in terms of their ratings on stocks in the S&P 500? How have their views changed over the past few months?Overall, there are 10,362 ratings on stocks in the S&P 500. Of these 10,362 ratings, 50.4% are Buy ratings, 42.5% are Hold ratings, and 7.0% are Sell ratings.At the sector level, analysts are most optimistic on the Energy (66%), Health Care (59%), and Communication Services (59%) sectors, as these three sectors have highest percentages of Buy ratings.On the other hand, analysts are most pessimistic about the Consumer Staples (39%), Utilities (42%), Financials (42%), and Real Estate (43%) sectors, as these sectors have the lowest percentages of Buy ratings. The Real Estate sector also has the highest percentage of Hold ratings (51%), while the Consumer Staples (12%) and Utilities (11%) sectors also have the highest percentages of Sell ratings.Since September 30, the total number of ratings on S&P 500 companies has increased by 1.0% (to 10,362 from 10,258). The number of Buy ratings has decreased by 1.8% (to 5,227 from 5,324). Three sectors have witnessed an increase in Buy ratings, led by the Information Technology (+4%) sector. Eight sectors have seen a decrease in Buy ratings, led by the Financials (-9%) sector. The number of Hold ratings has increased by 3.2% (to 4,408 from 4,272). Eight sectors have recorded an increase in Hold ratings, led by the Consumer Discretionary (+10%) and Industrials (+9%) sectors. Three sectors have witnessed a decrease in Hold ratings, led by the Energy (-4%) sector. The number of Sell ratings has increased by 9.8% (to 727 from 662). Eight sectors have a recorded an increase in Sell ratings, led by the Communication Services (+42%) and Materials (+33%) sectors. Three sectors have seen a decrease in Sell ratings, led by the Energy (-4%) sector.

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Panicked Chinese mistakenly hoarding iodized salt(March 18, 2011)

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Panicked Chinese mistakenly hoarding iodized salt(March 18, 2011)

China's economic agency told shoppers Thursday to stop panic buying salt, blaming baseless rumors that the iodine in it can stop radiation sickness.The Chinese government has repeatedly said the country's residents will not be exposed to radiation from a nuclear plant in northeastern Japan which engineers are frantically trying to bring under control after it was damaged by last Friday's earthquake and tsunami.But in a sign of increasing public worries about the risks, people across much of China have been buying large amounts of iodized salt, emptying markets of the usually cheap and plentiful product.The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's economic policy agency, said price regulators could investigate and punish price gouging.Disaster sparks demand for potassium iodide"In recent days, some areas have been affected by rumors that have sparked intensive buying of salt, and some lawless merchants have leapt at the opportunity to raise prices," said the NDRC in an emailed statement."Don't believe rumors, don't spread rumors, and don't panic buy," said the notice.The spike in demand may be born of a misunderstanding of reports noting that the thyroid gland is susceptible to radioactive iodine — just one of several types of radiation that could be produced by the crippled reactors — and that potassium iodide tablets can block the radioactive iodine if taken before exposure. In the U.S., demand for potassium iodide has swamped manufacturers or suppliers approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration.Salt containing iodine, however, would not shield against the radiation, medical experts said in newspaper reports on Thursday, adding there was no reason for alarm in China, which is thousands of kilometers away from the reactors.Still, some Chinese residents formed long lines to buy salt, and the state distribution company has vowed to speed up supply.At a Hua Pu Supermarket in Beijing, shoppers bought salt faster than the staff could stock shelves with it.One woman carrying a package of salt was stopped and asked by others where she got it."This bag of salt was given to me by my friend who bought it this morning," said the woman, who declined to give her name. "I heard they queued for a long time, and each person was only allowed to buy five bags."

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Private Company Stock Trading Frenzy: Here's Who's Trading What(Jan 22, 2011)

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Private Company Stock Trading Frenzy: Here's Who's Trading What(Jan 22, 2011)

SecondMarket, the online marketplace for buying private company stock, just released their 2010 data.Naturally, Facebook ranks number 1, making up 39% of all pre-IPO completed transactions.SecondMarket also revealed who's making all the trades, which industries are the most popular to trade, and which private companies are traded most.Want to get buy a piece of Facebook?SecondMarket, the service that lets you buy private company stock, is your way in.But first you must qualify as an "accredited investor."By SEC definition, an accredited investor earns more than $200,000 per year or holds at least $1 million in assets.If you meet those qualifications and you pass SecondMarket's criminal background check, the chances of you getting a chunk of Facebook are still slim.Second Market rep Mark Murphy tells us the average transaction on the service is a whopping $2 million.In addition, most investors are not individuals. They're institutions like hedge funds and VC firms that the private companies choose to let invest in them.If you meet all the requirements to begin trading, the process is relatively simple. You can either purchase stock on SecondMarket's website or through one of their market specialists. Since Facebook makes up 45% of SecondMarket's business, there's a special process for trading its stock.Here's how it works:SecondMarket evaluates seller interest before starting an auction.Next, SecondMarket checks potential buyer interest.Once both parties are set and a share price has been established, the bidding begins. The auction remains open for nine days.At the end of the auction, the highest bidders take the available shares.SecondMarket takes a cut between three and five percent of each transaction. The cost is split evenly between the buyer and seller.The stock is yours. These Facebook auctions take place somewhat regularly, so there's plenty of opportunity.And that's it. If you can afford it, you can own stock in the hottest company everyone wants a piece of.

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

So what can we learn from the Crash of 1929 to avoid a 21st Century Great Depression?(17 September 2008)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

So what can we learn from the Crash of 1929 to avoid a 21st Century Great Depression?(17 September 2008)

By the end of September 1929, the American stock market on New York’s Wall Street was riding the wave of a decade of intoxicating growth.The Roaring Twenties — that era of the Jazz Age, bootleggers and gangsters like Al Capone — had seen millions of ordinary Americans caught up in the excitement of owning shares, and making money.The Dow Jones Industrial Average of leading shares had grown five-fold in the previous five years.As the social historian Cecil Roberts was to put it later: ‘Everyone was playing the market. Stocks soared dizzily.'I found it hard not to be engulfed. I had invested my American earnings in good stocks.'Should I sell for a profit? Everyone said, “Hang on — it’s a rising market.”’On the last day of a visit to New York that September, Roberts went to have his hair cut.As the barber swept the clean white sheet from his shoulders and bent to brush his collar, he said softly: ‘Buy Standard Gas. I’ve doubled. It’s good for another double.’Stunned, Roberts walked upstairs and said to himself: ‘If the hysteria has reached the barber-level, something must soon happen.’ It did.On October 3, the day after Britain’s widely respected Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden, had warned that the Americans had got themselves into a ‘speculative orgy’ on Wall Street, the New York stock market started to fall.Today, almost 80 years later, history seems to be on the verge of repeating itself — with the Dow Jones index of leading shares on Wall Street falling, followed by major stock markets around the world.Back in 1929, as October continued, so the fall in the value of stocks and shares steepened.On Monday, October 21, six million shares swapped hands, the largest number in the history of the exchange.But then, on the morning of Thursday, October 24, 1929, it went into freefall. When the New York Stock Exchange opened there were no buyers, only sellers.The Great Crash had begun. On the floor of the Exchange, there was pandemonium.Watched by none other than Winston Churchill, who was in the United States on a speaking tour and had come to see how his American investments were faring, there was ‘bedlam’ with ‘the jobbers (trying to buy or sell stocks and shares) caught in the middle’.As Selwyn Parker, author of a new book on the Crash puts it: ‘In vain attempts to be heard above the din, they were screaming orders to sell; when that did not work, they hurled their chits at the chalk girls.'Others, transfixed by the plummeting share prices, simply stood where they were in an almost catatonic state.‘What Churchill was watching,’ Parker goes on to say ‘was the collapse of the collective nerve of American shareholders.’On the street, the crowds of onlookers grew ever bigger as rumours of the falls swept New York — with thousands upon thousands of ordinary Americans fearful that they were about to lose everything.By midday police riot squads had to be called to disperse what The New York Times itself called ‘the hysterical crowds’, but they had little or no effect. Rumours spread everywhere — one was that 11 speculators had killed themselves that very morning, though it was not true.One poor workman on the roof of an office building nearby found himself watched by the crowds below — all convinced that he was about to throw himself to the street below.He didn’t, but the legend that one banker did throw himself to his death was to become one of the abiding myths of what became known as ‘Black Thursday’.Almost 13 million shares changed hands on the NYSE that day, the most that had ever done so, and yet the worst of the falls in value were recouped that same afternoon — in the wake of a rescue attempt by leading bankers who had held an emergency meeting at the offices of JP Morgan.Yet the rally didn’t last. By Monday, October 28, the sellers were back, and on Tuesday October 29, the Great Crash finally came to a dreadful conclusion in what The New York Times described as ‘the most disastrous day’ in the American stock market’s history.On that day — ‘Black Tuesday’ — losses approached £4.5 billion ( equivalent to £800 billion today), and more than 16.4million shares changed hands.No matter what the bankers, or wealthy investors like John D. Rockefeller, tried to do to stem the tide of sellers, their efforts were pointless. They were swept aside, as huge blocks of shares were sold, and confidence drained out of the market.Groups of men — ‘with here and there a woman’ in the words of one observer — stood beside the new ‘ticker-tape’ machines, which monitored the price of stocks and shares, watching as their fortunes vanished in front of their eyes.One reporter noted: ‘The crowds about the ticker-tape, like friends around the bedside of a stricken friend, reflected in their faces the story the tape was telling.There were no smiles. There were no tears either. Just the cameraderie of fellow sufferers.’ The comedian Eddie Cantor lost everything, but kept his sense of humour.‘Well, folks,’ he told his radio audience that evening, ‘they got me in the market, just like they got everybody else.'In fact, they’re not calling it the stock market any longer. They’re calling it the stuck market.'Everyone’s stuck. Well, except my uncle. He got a good break. He died in September.’Groucho Marx, star of Duck Soup and Animal Crackers, lost £400,000, while heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey, one of the first multi-millionaire sportsmen, lost £1.5million.Even the man who was later accused of triggering the stock market boom, economist Professor Irving Fisher, lost everything.Just four months earlier, Fisher had told the readers of an article entitled Everybody Ought To Be Rich: ‘If a man saves £7.50 a week, and invests in good common stocks, and allows the dividends and rights to accumulate, at the end of 20 years he will have at least £40,000 and an income from investments of around £200 a month. He will be rich.‘And because income can do that, I am firm in my belief that anyone not only can be rich, but ought to be rich.’Small wonder that the most popular song of 1929 was Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies — with its unforgettable lines: ‘Blue skies smiling at me/Nothing but blue skies, do I see.’Millions of Americans had taken Fisher’s advice, often borrowing the money to do so. And, in another parallel with today’s financial crisis, ordinary people were encouraged to take exceptional risks — risks they did not appreciate, and which they would come to regret.Some had their doubts, but not many. One investor later recalled: I knew something was terribly wrong because I heard bellboys, everybody, talking about the stock market.’But, just like today, many of them were gulled by the slick salesmen of the investment houses and banks.As Parker explains: ‘In the five-year run up to the Crash, gullible investors borrowed wildly to get into the market, and many were systematically duped by Wall Street and the stock market fraternity at large.’After the Crash, one expert in the Department of Commerce estimated that almost half the £25 billion of stocks and shares sold in the United States during the Roaring Twenties was ‘undesirable or worthless’.But the other half clearly reflected the growing American economy — with shares in General Electric, for example, tripling in value in the 18 months before the Crash; while a £5,000 investment in General Motors in 1920 would have produced an astonishing £750,000 by 1929.By the end of 1928 most investors had come to expect incredible gains, and the presidential election campaign that November did nothing to quell the fever.Indeed, the Republican candidate Herbert Hoover, who’d been commerce secretary throughout the 1920s, took to the hustings to announce: ‘We shall soon, with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.’It was to take a generation — and a World War — to see any semblance of prosperity return.The Great Crash of 1929 plunged America, and the rest of the world, into an economic depression that was to last for the next decade.As one commentator memorably explained afterwards: ‘Anyone who bought stocks in mid 1929 and held onto them saw most of his or her adult life pass by before getting back to even.’So why did the Crash — which had been precipitated by government increases in interest rates to cool off the stock market boom — turn into a depression?Simply because of the uncertainty the Crash fuelled.No one knew what consequences of the Crash were going to be — so everyone decided to stop trading until things settled down.Banks stopped lending money. Consumers stopped buying durable goods from shops.The stores, in turn, stopped buying from the manufacturers.Firms, therefore, cut back on production and laid off workers. And all of this fed on itself to make the depression still worse.In the following ten years 13 million Americans lost their jobs, with 12,000 losing their jobs every single working day.Some 20,000 companies went bankrupt, including 1,616 banks, and one in every 20 farmers was evicted from his land.In 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression which continued until the beginning of the war, an astounding 23,000 Americans committed suicide in a single year.And the pain was not restricted to the U.S.Weimar Germany, which had built its foundations in the aftermath of World War I with the help of American loans, found itself struggling with ever mounting debts.This, in turn, helped to usher in the brownshirts of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist party.The impact on American self-confidence was devastating.As the Broadway lyricist Yip Harburg, who lived through those times, explained almost 40 years later: ‘We thought American business was the Rock of Gibraltar.'We were the prosperous nation, and nothing could stop us now. There was a feeling of continuity. If you made it, it was there for ever. Suddenly the big dream exploded’.Another writer, who lived through those days, M. A. Hamilton, said the Great Crash of 1929 shattered the dreams of millions of Americans —and that the average working man ‘found his daily facts reeling and swimming about him, in a nightmare of continuous disappointment’.‘The bottom had fallen out of the market, for good,’ wrote Hamilton. ‘And that market had a horrid connection with his bread and butter, his automobile, and his instalment purchases.'Worst of all, unemployment became a hideous fact and one that lacerated and tore at self-respect.’Suddenly, there were lines of men and women queuing up for free soup from the soup kitchens established by the Salvation Army, or provided by the wealthy men who had not been hurt financially, like the millionaire publisher William Randolph Hearst.And everywhere Americans were struggling to eke out a living.Once-successful businessmen were condemned to selling apples on street corners in New York, and, if they couldn’t afford apples, they offered to shine shoes.By the summer of 1932, according to the police, there were about 7,000 of these ‘shine boys’ making a living on New York’s streets.Just three years before they were almost non-existent and most were boys under 17.The New York Times reported ‘an army of new salesmen, peddling everything from large rubber balls to cheap neckties’, while unemployment also brought back the ‘newsboy’ (often men in their 40s) in increasing numbers.‘He avoids the busy corners, where news-stands are frequent,’ the paper explained. ‘And hawks his papers in the side streets with surprising success.'His best client is the man who is too tired to walk down to the corner for a paper’.The Great Depression was an economic apocalypse that no one could possibly wish to see happen again. But could it?There are worrying parallels. The American economist J. K. Galbraith blamed the Great Depression that followed the Crash on credit growth, as did his British counterpart, Lionel Robbins.And few doubt that it is the credit crunch — as well as the greed among bankers who took unacceptable risks with their clients’ money — that lies at the heart of the present falls in stock markets around the world.Certainly, Selwyn Parker believes this. In the past decade, he writes, ‘ somehow the banks managed to slip the regulators’ leash, distributing credit around the world like so much chaff. Casinos were better regulated than the banking industry.’The result of this credit binge, he adds, is the record levels of personal debt that we are seeing now, which leads, when things start to go wrong, ‘to general belt-tightening, fast-slowing growth and banks hoarding capital — the conditions we have right now’.‘The financial system and people’s material wealth today,’ Parker warns darkly, are much more vulnerable than anybody thought.’As stock markets fall around the world, we can only pray we are not on the brink of another economic apocalypse.But history suggests that the omens are far from good.

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

PetroChina worth $1 trillion ... briefly(Nov. 5, 2007)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

PetroChina worth $1 trillion ... briefly(Nov. 5, 2007)

What the Shanghai stock exchange giveth, Wall Street taketh away.Hours after PetroChina shares almost tripled in value on their first day of trading in Shanghai, they slumped 11 percent in New York after a big investment bank said the stock was overvalued.China’s biggest oil and gas company — the publicly listed unit of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. — became the world’s first company with a $1 trillion market capitalization after its shares debuted Monday in its homeland.The 4 billion new shares surged to 43.96 yuan ($5.90), nearly triple the IPO price of 16.70 yuan ($2.24). The initial public offering raised 66.8 billion yuan ($8.94 billion) — a record for a mainland exchange.The Shanghai shares are meant for domestic investors and are generally off-limits to would-be foreign buyers. Chinese investors likewise have limited access to overseas-traded shares, crimping the leeway for arbitrage between the markets.The buying frenzy in China, though, didn’t translate to Wall Street.PetroChina’s U.S. shares were off sharply Monday, falling $28.56, or 11.2 percent, to $226.50 in afternoon trading.In a research note, Bear Stearns downgraded the shares to underperform, noting they were trading at a 51 percent premium to the investment bank’s new year-end 2008 fair value and target price.“PetroChina shares have risen 45.6 percent over the past month alone,” Bear Stearns said. “Time to take profit.”Adding the value of PetroChina shares traded in Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York, and the 157.9 billion shares held by CNPC, the company’s total market capitalization rose to just over $1 trillion, far surpassing No. 2 Exxon Mobil Corp.’s $488 billion.However, Bear Stearns noted, based on Wall Street consensus forecasts, PetroChina was trading at a 72 percent premium to Exxon Mobil based on a 2008 price-to-earnings valuation. “From an operational perspective, we see little reason for this disparity,” the investment bank said.Indeed, when measured by earnings, Exxon remains a much larger company. Its $9.41 billion in third-quarter net profit, while down 10 percent from a year earlier, nearly matched PetroChina’s net profit of 81.8 billion yuan ($10.8 billion) for the entire first half of the year.Exxon’s oil and gas reserves — a gauge of future profit potential — stood at 22.7 billion barrels by the end of 2006, compared with PetroChina’s 20.5 billion barrels.The Chinese company has seen revenue soar amid surging oil prices but has struggled to boost production from its aging domestic oil fields. Like rival Sinopec, it’s been squeezed by a widening gap between soaring world crude oil prices and state-controlled prices for oil products in the domestic market.But PetroChina’s strong showing was expected all the same. Chinese investors have shown a huge appetite for elite government giants that are seen as proxies for the country’s economic boom.

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Dow soars into history(March 16, 2000)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Dow soars into history(March 16, 2000)

NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The Dow Jones industrial average rose a record 499.19 points Thursday, lifted as money poured into "old economy" stocks out-of-favor for much of the year. The blue-chip euphoria lifted the world's best-known index out of the hole that Wall Street considers a correction, handing the New York Stock Exchange its busiest trading day on record. Investors made heroes out of stocks such as American Express, J.P. Morgan and Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing - all down by double digits in the last three months. The gains came after a batch of tame inflation figures eased Wall Street's worst fears about sharply higher interest rates to come, boosting expectations for strong corporate profits ahead. "The rumors of the Dow's death has been much exaggerated," Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co., told CNN's Street Sweep. Less than two weeks ago a surprise profit warning from Procter & Gamble knocked 375 points off the Dow. That seemed a distant memory Thursday, with the blue chip frenzy lifting 29 of the Dow's 30 stocks and spreading to the Nasdaq composite index, which broke a three-session losing streak. Only Dow member Microsoft, the world's most valuable company, failed to rise. "It's phenomenal," said Charles Payne, head analyst at Wall Street Strategies. "We're breaking all sorts of technical resistance levels like a hot knife through butter." But Goldman Sachs' Abby Joseph Cohen told CNNfn on Moneyline that investors should not look at this phenomenal rise as a trend for the year. (235K WAV or 235K AIFF) The Dow soared 499.19 points, or more than 4.9 percent, to 10,630.60. The gain shattered the previous record, a 380.53-point rise set Sept. 8, 1998. With the day's action, the index is now about 9.3 percent below its all-time high of 11,722 set Jan. 14, pushing it below the 10 percent dip Wall Street deems a correction. Lifted by data The Dow's rise began with the start of trading, when a tame rise in producer price data failed to confirm analysts' worst fears about climbing inflation. Analysts said the news suggests only modest interest rate hikes lie ahead. "I don't see (the economy) overheating," Wall Street Strategies' Payne said. "We've got strong growth and controlled growth. "There still isn't any clear-cut sign of inflation." The Nasdaq, meanwhile, reversed a 127-point loss earlier in the session, rising 134.66, or 2.9 percent, to 4,717.76. That broke three-sessions of double-digit losses.Charles Lemonides, chief investment officer at M&R capital, told CNNfn that the day's action could be the beginning of a broad market advance, countering the narrow gains seen only by the Nasdaq. The day's action supported that. The broader S&P 500 catapulted 64.66, or 4.7 percent, to 1,456.63. And more stocks rose than fell. Advancers on the New York Stock Exchange swamped decliners 2,414 to 410 as trading volume topped 1.48 billion shares, a record. Nasdaq winners beat losers 2,259 to 2,004 with more than 2 billion shares changing hands. In other markets, the dollar fell against the euro and was little changed versus the yen. Treasury securities rose. Dow flexes muscles The Dow's jump of more than 800 points in the last two sessions comes as investors fish for some of the cheapest of blue-chip stocks. Among the big drivers, American Express (AXP: Research, Estimates) rocketed 10-7/8 to 143-3/4, J.P. Morgan (JPM: Research, Estimates) surged 7-1/8 to 124-5/8 and Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing (MMM: Research, Estimates) catapulted 5-9/16 to 88-1/16. "A lot of these stocks were much higher a year ago than they are today," Ned Riley, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors, told CNN's In the Money. "Clearly, the bottom-fishing issue is important and real." Still, Paul Rabbitt, president of Rabbitt Analytics, told CNNfn's Talking Stocks he sees the Nasdaq resuming its lead as investors chase the highest growth tech companies. (408K WAV) (408K AIFF). Even after the day's action, the Dow is still down 7.5 percent this year while the Nasdaq is up 15.9 percent in 2000. But on Thursday, Nasdaq leaders surged alongside old economy stalwarts. Oracle (ORCL: Research, Estimates) jumped 3-5/8 to 81-15/16, Intel (INTC: Research, Estimates) rose 4-7/8 to 125-1/16, and JDS Uniphase (JDSU: Research, Estimates) rocketed 10-11/16 to 129-7/16. But Microsoft (MSFT: Research, Estimates), failed to rise, ending unchanged at 95-3/8. Inflation-friendly data Blue-chip stocks found support after the latest batch of economic indicators suggested inflation remains tame enough to keep the Federal Reserve from aggressively tightening credit, boosting expectations for strong corporate profits. While producer prices posted their biggest monthly jump in more than nine years in February, the core rate, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, advanced at a more moderate pace of rose 0.3 percent. "Inflation appears to be muted," said Alan Ackerman, senior vice president at Fahnestock & Co. Separately, the Commerce Department reported that housing starts rose 1.3 percent to a 1.78 million-unit rate in February, suggesting the housing market remains strong, undeterred by the Fed's four rate hikes since June. Finally, the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to 262,000 for the week ended March 11, the Labor Department said.

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight(Sept. 18, 2008)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight(Sept. 18, 2008)

The financial crisis that began 13 months ago has entered a new, far more serious phase.Lingering hopes that the damage could be contained to a handful of financial institutions that made bad bets on mortgages have evaporated. New fault lines are emerging beyond the original problem -- troubled subprime mortgages -- in areas like credit-default swaps, the credit insurance contracts sold by American International Group Inc. and others. There's also a growing sense of wariness about the health of trading partners.The consequences for companies and chief executives who tarry -- hoping for better times in which to raise capital, sell assets or acknowledge losses -- are now clear and brutal, as falling share prices and fearful lenders send troubled companies into ever-deeper holes. This weekend, such a realization led John Thain to sell the century-old Merrill Lynch & Co. to Bank of America Corp. Each episode seems to bring government intervention that is more extensive and expensive than the previous one, and carries greater risk of unintended consequences.Expectations for a quick end to the crisis are fading fast. "I think it's going to last a lot longer than perhaps we would have anticipated," Anne Mulcahy, chief executive of Xerox Corp. , said Wednesday."This has been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. There is no question about it," said Mark Gertler, a New York University economist who worked with fellow academic Ben Bernanke, now the Federal Reserve chairman, to explain how financial turmoil can infect the overall economy. "But at the same time we have the policy mechanisms in place fighting it, which is something we didn't have during the Great Depression."Spreading DiseaseThe U.S. financial system resembles a patient in intensive care. The body is trying to fight off a disease that is spreading, and as it does so, the body convulses, settles for a time and then convulses again. The illness seems to be overwhelming the self-healing tendencies of markets. The doctors in charge are resorting to ever-more invasive treatment, and are now experimenting with remedies that have never before been applied. Fed Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, walking into a hastily arranged meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday night to brief them on the government's unprecedented rescue of AIG, looked like exhausted surgeons delivering grim news to the family.Fed and Treasury officials have identified the disease. It's called deleveraging, or the unwinding of debt. During the credit boom, financial institutions and American households took on too much debt. Between 2002 and 2006, household borrowing grew at an average annual rate of 11%, far outpacing overall economic growth. Borrowing by financial institutions grew by a 10% annualized rate. Now many of those borrowers can't pay back the loans, a problem that is exacerbated by the collapse in housing prices. They need to reduce their dependence on borrowed money, a painful and drawn-out process that can choke off credit and economic growth.At least three things need to happen to bring the deleveraging process to an end, and they're hard to do at once. Financial institutions and others need to fess up to their mistakes by selling or writing down the value of distressed assets they bought with borrowed money. They need to pay off debt. Finally, they need to rebuild their capital cushions, which have been eroded by losses on those distressed assets.But many of the distressed assets are hard to value and there are few if any buyers. Deleveraging also feeds on itself in a way that can create a downward spiral: Trying to sell assets pushes down the assets' prices, which makes them harder to sell and leads firms to try to sell more assets. That, in turn, suppresses these firms' share prices and makes it harder for them to sell new shares to raise capital. Mr. Bernanke, as an academic, dubbed this self-feeding loop a "financial accelerator.""Many of the CEO types weren't willing...to take these losses, and say, 'I accept the fact that I'm selling these way below fundamental value,'" said Anil Kashyap, a University of Chicago Business School economics professor. "The ones that had the biggest exposure, they've all died."Deleveraging started with securities tied to subprime mortgages, where defaults started rising rapidly in 2006. But the deleveraging process has now spread well beyond, to commercial real estate and auto loans to the short-term commitments on which investment banks rely to fund themselves. In the first quarter, financial-sector borrowing slowed to a 5.1% growth rate, about half of the average from 2002 to 2007. Household borrowing has slowed even more, to a 3.5% pace.Not EnoughGoldman Sachs Group Inc. economist Jan Hatzius estimates that in the past year, financial institutions around the world have already written down $408 billion worth of assets and raised $367 billion worth of capital.But that doesn't appear to be enough. Every time financial firms and investors suggest that they've written assets down enough and raised enough new capital, a new wave of selling triggers a reevaluation, propelling the crisis into new territory. Residential mortgage losses alone could hit $636 billion by 2012, Goldman estimates, triggering widespread retrenchment in bank lending. That could shave 1.8 percentage points a year off economic growth in 2008 and 2009 -- the equivalent of $250 billion in lost goods and services each year."This is a deleveraging like nothing we've ever seen before," said Robert Glauber, now a professor of Harvard's government and law schools who came to Washington in 1989 to help organize the savings and loan cleanup of the early 1990s. "The S&L losses to the government were small compared to this."Hedge funds could be among the next problem areas. Many rely on borrowed money to amplify their returns. With banks under pressure, many hedge funds are less able to borrow this money now, pressuring returns. Meanwhile, there are growing indications that fewer investors are shifting into hedge funds while others are pulling out. Fund investors are dealing with their own problems: Many have taken out loans to make their investments and are finding it more difficult now to borrow.That all makes it likely that more hedge funds will shutter in the months ahead, forcing them to sell their investments, further weighing on the market.Debt-driven financial traumas have a long history, from the Great Depression to the S&L crisis to the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. Neither economists nor policymakers have easy solutions. Cutting interest rates and writing stimulus checks to families can help -- and may have prevented or delayed a deep recession. But, at least in this instance, they don't suffice.In such circumstances, governments almost invariably experiment with solutions with varying degrees of success. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt unleashed an alphabet soup of new agencies and a host of new regulations in the aftermath of the market crash of 1929. In the 1990s, Japan embarked on a decade of often-wasteful government spending to counter the aftereffects of a bursting bubble. President George H.W. Bush and Congress created the Resolution Trust Corp. to take and sell the assets of failed thrifts. Hong Kong's free-market government went on a massive stock-buying spree in 1998, buying up shares of every company listed in the benchmark Hang Seng index. It ended up packaging them into an exchange-traded fund and making money.Taking Out the PlaybookToday, Mr. Bernanke is taking out his playbook, said NYU economist Mr. Gertler, "and rewriting it as we go."Merrill Lynch & Co.'s emergency sale to Bank of America Corp. last weekend was an example of the perniciousness and unpredictability of deleveraging. In the past year, Merrill had hired a new chief executive, written off $41.4 billion in assets and raised $21 billion in equity capital.But Merrill couldn't keep up. The more it raised, the more it was forced to write off. When Merrill CEO John Thain attended a meeting with the New York Fed and other Wall Street executives last week, he saw that Merrill was the next most vulnerable brokerage firm. "We watched Bear and Lehman. We knew we could be next," said one Merrill executive. Fearful that its lenders would shut the firm off, he sold to Bank of America.This crisis is complicated by innovative financial instruments that Wall Street created and distributed. They're making it harder for officials and Wall Street executives to know where the next set of risks is hiding and also contributing to the crisis's spreading impact.Swaps GameThe latest trouble spot is an area called credit-default swaps, which are private contracts that let firms trade bets on whether a borrower is going to default. When a default occurs, one party pays off the other. The value of the swaps rise and fall as the market reassesses the risk that a company won't be able to honor its obligations. Firms use these instruments both as insurance -- to hedge their exposures to risk -- and to wager on the health of other companies. There are now credit-default swaps on more than $62 trillion in debt, up from about $144 billion a decade ago.One of the big new players in the swaps game was AIG, the world's largest insurer and a major seller of credit-default swaps to financial institutions and companies. When the credit markets were booming, many firms bought these instruments from AIG, believing the insurance giant's strong credit ratings and large balance sheet could provide a shield against bond and loan defaults. AIG believed the risk of default was low on many securities it insured.As of June 30, an AIG unit had written credit-default swaps on more than $446 billion in credit assets, including mortgage securities, corporate loans and complex structured products. Last year, when rising subprime-mortgage delinquencies damaged the value of many securities AIG had insured, the firm was forced to book large write-downs on its derivative positions. That spooked investors, who reacted by dumping its shares, making it harder for AIG to raise the capital it increasingly needed.One pleasant mystery is why the crisis hasn't hit the economy harder -- at least so far. "This financial crisis hasn't yet translated into fewer...companies starting up, less research and development, less marketing," Ivan Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said Wednesday. "We haven't seen that yet. I'm sure every company is keeping their eyes on it."At 6.1%, the unemployment rate remains well below the peak of 7.8% in 1992, amid the S&L crisis.In part, that's because government has reacted aggressively. The Fed's classic mistake that led to the Great Depression was that it tightened monetary policy when it should have eased. Mr. Bernanke didn't repeat that error. And Congress moved more swiftly to approve fiscal stimulus than most Washington veterans thought possible.In part, the broader economy has held mostly steady because exports have been so strong at just the right moment, a reminder of the global economy's importance to the U.S. And in part, it's because the U.S. economy is demonstrating impressive resilience, as information technology allows executives to react more quickly to emerging problems and -- to the discomfort of workers -- companies are quicker to adjust wages, hiring and work hours when the economy softens.But the risk remains that Wall Street's woes will spread to Main Street, as credit tightens for consumers and business. Already, U.S. auto makers have been forced to tighten the terms on their leasing programs, or abandon writing leases themselves altogether, because of problems in their finance units. Goldman Sachs economists' optimistic scenario is a couple years of mild recession or painfully slow economy growth.

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

What's wrong with the debt ceiling deal(August 2, 2011)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

What's wrong with the debt ceiling deal(August 2, 2011)

The debt ceiling deal President Obama enacted Tuesday cuts deficits and lets the country avert default. But it is getting very muted applause from serious fiscal experts -- the ones who actually understand the federal budget."No one should pretend that they have solved anything other than an artificial political crisis," said Bob Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan deficit watchdog group.Bixby said he was watching the brokering of the final deal with "fixed horror."Here's what's been most maddening for hawks: For all the energy spent and bad blood created on the road to resolving that artificial crisis there's not nearly enough to show for it.Yes, the final deal may reduce deficits by at least $2.1 trillion over 10 years.But how those savings will be achieved is somewhat misguided, hawks say.The bill relies too heavily on cuts to discretionary spending, which is not the major driver of the country's long-term deficits. And it all but ignores the need to reform entitlements and raise more revenue -- both of which are key ingredients to improving the country's long-term solvency.Debt ceiling: What the deal will doCredit rating agency Fitch underscored that point Tuesday."While the agreement is clearly a step in the right direction, the United States ... must also confront tough choices on tax and spending against a weak economic backdrop if ... government debt is to be cut to safer levels."In theory, the special bipartisan congressional committee that the legislation creates could take up both entitlement and tax reform. But given the partisan bitterness on both those issues, the jury's out on whether the committee -- made up of 12 members from the House and Senate -- can move past that."I'd be surprised if the leadership on either side would appoint anyone who would compromise," said Pete Davis, a longtime Hill staffer who now runs Davis Capital Investment Ideas. "Deadlock is much more likely."But even if the committee surprises the pessimists and delivers a comprehensive debt reduction framework, there's no guarantee Congress will enact it.Lastly, the size of the deal is less than what hawks were pushing for. A $4 trillion "grand bargain" is what budget experts say is the minimum needed to start hitting the brakes on growth in the country's debt.The fact that negotiators were working toward such an agreement only to step back from it makes the final deal all the more frustrating."We have not reached the promised land," Erskine Bowles and Senator Alan Simpson, the co-chairs of President Obama's bipartisan debt commission, said in a statement. "The plan doesn't do enough to stabilize our debt, nor does it make any meaningful structural reforms to address our nation's long-term fiscal problems."That means Congress gets to have this whole rancorous debate all over again -- and again -- until they get it right.

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Trader gets two years for TARP fraud(Jul 23 2014)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Trader gets two years for TARP fraud(Jul 23 2014)

A former Jefferies Group managing director convicted of defrauding investors who traded mortgage bonds through a government program established after the 2008 financial crisis was sentenced on Wednesday to two years in prison.Jesse Litvak, 39, was convicted on March 7 on all 15 counts, including 10 counts of securities fraud and one count of fraud under the federal bailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).Litvak was the first person charged under a 2009 law banning major fraud against the United States through TARP.Litvak, a married father of two, was sentenced by Chief Judge Janet Hall of the U.S. District Court in New Haven, Connecticut, who presided over his jury trial. Hall also fined him $1.75 million.“I do not view you as singled out,″ the judge told Litvak before pronouncing sentence. “You lied. Maybe that’s what people do every day on Wall Street, but that still doesn’t make it legal.″⁣Litvak’s conviction was seen as a boost for the U.S. Department of Justice, which has been criticized for not prosecuting enough people on Wall Street over misconduct before, during and after the financial crisis.Prosecutors had accused Litvak of lying to customers such as AllianceBernstein Holding about the prices of mortgage-backed securities from 2009 to 2011, generating more than $2 million for Jefferies and boosting his own pay prospects.Litvak allegedly deceived customers by inflating prices, concealing what Jefferies paid for bonds, and inventing sellers.Prosecutors said cheated investors included participants in the Public-Private Investment Program, a TARP initiative designed to restart the mortgage debt market.Litvak countered that his customers were professional investors who could tell whether prices were fair, and that his activities were commonplace in the industry.Read More Seven arrested in alleged penny stock pump-and-dumpProsecutors asked for a nine-year sentence for Litvak and a $5 million fine. Litvak’s lawyers sought a term of no more than 14 months.Jefferies, a unit of Leucadia National, agreed on March 12 to enter a nonprosecution agreement and pay $25 million to settle criminal and civil probes into its alleged failure to supervise Litvak and other traders.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Why Is the Stock Market So Volatile in October?( 28 September 2021)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Why Is the Stock Market So Volatile in October?( 28 September 2021)

Over the past twenty years, market experts have observed that October tends to be the month of the year with the greatest volatility. Companies traded on the stock market tend to see the sharpest jumps and steepest drops in share value during the month of October.Some of the global economy’s most traumatic events have occurred during the tenth month of the year; from the Crash of 1929 that ushered in the Great Depression to 1987’s ‘Black Monday’, generation-defining market drops seem to be concentrated in October.When one calculates the standard deviation of daily share price gyrations since the Dow Jones Industrial Index (USA 30 - Wall Street) was created in 1896, it can be shown that volatility for the index is 38% higher than average in October. Another method of calculating monthly ups and downs on the stock market is the VIX Volatility Index (CBOE Volatility Index Futures), often referred to as the ‘Fear Index’. The VIX uses the same method used to calculate options valuations to predict expected market volatility on the S&P 500 (USA 500) for a given month. The VIX hit its record high in October 2008, during the height of the global financial crisis. Furthermore, since 1928, the S&P 500 has seen an average 8.30% difference between its closing high and low in October.In recent years, predictions of market volatility have consistently been borne out. In October of 2020, global tech giants Amazon (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL) both posted jumps in share value by over 10% while the STOXX Europe 50 index fell by 10%. The preceding October, the price of Natural Gas (NG) rose by over 25% over the course of the month. In October of 2018, both NASDAQ (NDAQ) and Oil (CL) experienced double-digit drops.Market watchers have repeatedly tried to formulate explanations for October’s reliable tumultuousness. Some theorise that the U.S. government could be influencing the market, as its fiscal year ends on October 1st, and the incoming Chairman of the Federal Reserve is announced every four years in October. Others attribute market volatility to traders’ lifestyles, as many return from their summer vacations after Labor Day and begin to make serious trades, leading to a peak in October. Further explanations connect this yearly phenomenon to mutual funds making fiscal year-end trades before Halloween, to third-quarter earnings reports, or to the U.S. election cycle. However, according to some economists, the most likely explanation is more mundane. October’s volatility may simply be the result of an underlying seasonal business cycle that tends to end in the early autumn. According to Prof. Terry Marsh of UC, Berkeley, there is a high probability that the market jumps and falls that tend to characterise the tenth month of the year could just be a data fluke, without any compelling causative factors. In conclusion, although October’s market volatility has come to be an expected seasonal occurrence in stock trading, traders may wish to stay wary of any convenient explanations for the phenomenon when making their buying and selling decisions.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Wall Street ends awful month with a rally(Nov. 3, 2008)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Wall Street ends awful month with a rally(Nov. 3, 2008)

The stock market closed out a horrendous October, its worst month in 21 years, with a big advance Friday as more investors took chances on stocks turned into bargains by waves of intense selling. The session’s advance — which gave the market its first back-to-back gains in more than a month — fed hopes that Wall Street has indeed found a bottom.The Dow Jones industrials rose 144 points on the day but ended the month down 14.1 percent, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 16.9 percent during October as the stock market fell victim to investors’ anguish over frozen credit markets and what looked like an inevitable recession.But the month did end on a far more upbeat note than anyone might have expected at the height of investors’ despair just weeks ago. The Dow was up 11.3 percent for the week, its best weekly performance in 34 years, while the S&P 500 index rose 10.5 percent — a sign of stability that followed a growing sense that the series of government moves to unlock the credit markets would indeed help the economy move toward recovery.Investors who have become used to bad economic news dealt calmly Friday with data showing a drop in consumer spending. Another reason for the advance: Mutual funds that had dumped stocks furiously before the end of their fiscal year on Friday were finished with their selling.While the market capped a terrible month with a strong week, it likely will need to put the presidential election next week behind it and focus on the October employment report due Friday before committing to a direction. The jobs report should provide some insight into how long and how severe the economic downturn could be.The market is “settling into a little bit of a holding pattern” ahead of the election and jobs report, said Craig Peckham, market strategist at Jefferies & Co. “The fear level has clearly subsided, but there’s still a pervasive tone of unease.”On Friday, the Dow rose 144.32, or 1.57 percent, to 9,325.01 after rising as much as 274 and falling 62.Broader stock indicators also advanced. The S&P 500 index rose 14.66, or 1.54 percent, to 968.75, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 22.43, or 1.32 percent, to 1,720.95.The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 23.34, or 4.54 percent, to 537.52.Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by about 5 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to a moderate 6.23 billion shares compared with 6.06 billion shares traded Thursday.Wall Street’s fear gauge, the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, fell below 60 on Friday, its first close below that mark in more than a week. The VIX, which normally trades below 50, tracks options activity for the companies that make up the S&P 500.Friday’s session saw advances by financial, industrial and consumer discretionary names. Financial stocks had been beaten down earlier in the month amid worries about the effects of the frozen credit markets. JP Morgan Chase & Co. rose 9.7 percent, while freight railroad Union Pacific Corp. rose 4.9 percent and J.C. Penney Co. jumped 11.3 percent.The Dow’s 11.3 percent gain for the week — mostly from an 889-point surge on Tuesday ahead of the Federal Reserve’s second interest rate cut of the month on Wednesday — gave the blue chips their best weekly performance since Oct. 11, 1974.Despite a stronger finish to the month, the Dow still remains down 29.7 percent from its Oct. 9, 2007, record close of 14,164.53. It has lost 18.4 percent since the Sept. 15 bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the event led to the near-paralysis of the credit markets and a series of dramatic government steps aimed at stabilizing a faltering economy.The S&P 500 index is down 38.1 percent from its October 2007 peak, while the Nasdaq is down 39.8 percent.The market’s stats during the month of October were unnerving:Paper losses in U.S. stocks came to $2.5 trillion for the month, according to the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index, which represents nearly all stocks traded in America. The 17.7 percent decline was the worst since the 23 percent drop in October 1987 — the month of the Black Monday crash.The Dow and S&P 500 had their biggest monthly percentage drops since October 1987.During the week of Oct. 10, the Dow plunged 1,874.19 points, or 18.2 percent, to finish at 8,451.19, its lowest close since April 2003. The week’s decline at the time accounted for half of the blue chips’ losses for the entire year.The Dow fell for eight straight sessions — the longest losing streak since the eight days of declines following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, when the blue chips lost 1,038.12, or 10.8 percent. During this stretch, the Dow lost a staggering 2,400 points, or 22.1 percent.The market’s volatility was so intense that there were just three days during the month that the Dow didn’t rise or fall in triple digits. The Dow set new records for one-day point gains, 936.42 and 889.35, and for one-day point losses, 777.68 and 733.08.The Dow’s average point swing in the Dow was 593.75 points, more than twice the average this year. The largest point swing 1,018.77 occurred Oct. 10.The stock market began the month anguishing over the House of Representative’s rejection of the government’s plan to bail out the nation’s financial system — a program created after the freezing-up of the credit markets following Lehman’s failure. But the ultimate passage of the plan gave the market no lasting joy — it was overshadowed by intense fears of a prolonged and deep recession, and the volatility and heavy selling that marked the month continued.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Wall Street’s fear gauge closes at highest level ever, surpassing even financial crisis peak(Mar 16 2020)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Wall Street’s fear gauge closes at highest level ever, surpassing even financial crisis peak(Mar 16 2020)

A measure of fear in stocks just topped the levels during the financial crisis more than a decade ago.The Cboe Volatility Index, known as the VIX, surged nearly 25 points, or almost 43%, to close at a record high of 82.69, surpassing the peak level of 80.74 on Nov. 21 2008. The VIX, which tracks the 30-day implied volatility of the S&P 500, more than doubled in March alone. The index looks at prices of options on the S&P 500 to track the level of fear on Wall Street.“It’s now apparent that we’re in the depths of the Covid-19 financial crisis of 2020, with much left to be written,” Jon Hill, BMO’s rates strategist, said in a note on Monday.Stocks suffered a brutal sell-off Monday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average tanking nearly 3,000 points, posting its worst day since the “Black Monday” market crash in 1987. The S&P 500 dropped 12%, — hitting its lowest level since December 2018.Investors have been dumping stocks amid intensifying fears that the fast-spreading coronavirus would disrupt global supply chains and damage the world economy significantly. The market took a turn for the worse right before Monday’s close after President Donald Trump said the worst of the outbreak could last until August. He also said the U.S. “may be” heading into a recession.Part of the reason for this level of volatility is because there’s so much uncertainty around the length of the outbreak and its economic impact, according to Bill Miller, founder of Miller Value Partners.“It reflects the uncertainty and potential impact of that range of outcomes,” Miller said in a note Monday. “When the market thinks the authorities don’t get it ... the market reflects that immediately. When it believes proactive measures are being taken — Trump’s remarks [Friday] — that is quickly evident in the market’s reaction.”Trump on Friday declared a national emergency and detailed plans to battle the outbreak, including ramped-up testing.Monday’s bloodbath came even after the Federal Reserve’s emergency move to ease lending aggressively. The central bank on Sunday shockingly cut rates by 125 basis points to a target range of 0% to 0.25% and launched a massive $700 billion quantitative easing program to offset the negative impact from the coronavirus.

Neutral

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Fear Gauge Jumps to Highest Level Since Financial Crisis(March 9, 2020)

Neutral

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Fear Gauge Jumps to Highest Level Since Financial Crisis(March 9, 2020)

Investors are gearing up for a prolonged period of volatility after two of the most punishing weeks for U.S. stocks in recent memory.The 11-year bull market is facing one of its biggest tests yet, rocked by the spreading coronavirus and falling oil prices. The market tumult has sent the S&P 500 down 18.9% from its record through Monday.Many investors are expecting the turmoil to continue.The Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, jumped to about 62 in trading Monday, its highest intraday level since 2008 during the financial crisis, according to Dow Jones Market Data. It closed a 54.46, its highest settle value since 2009. The gauge is based on options prices on the S&P 500 and tends to rise when markets are falling.The rise in the VIX coincides with heavy selling in the stock market early Monday, continuing a painful stretch on Wall Street as falling oil prices weighed on markets. Trading was halted shortly after the opening bell as the S&P 500 lost 7.6%, its biggest one-day decline since Dec. 1, 2008.The VIX has jumped higher recently after a period of calm that had brought major U.S. indexes to fresh records in February.That changed abruptly, and traders have rapidly rejiggered their outlooks for how long the uncertainty in markets can persist. Futures tracking the VIX from March to September of this year have also lurched higher, FactSet data show. It is a sign that many are bracing for the turbulence to last for months and are trying to hedge for even bigger falls in the stock market.“The volatility market is telling us that investors are panicked and disoriented,” said Matt Rowe, chief investment officer at Headwaters Volatility. “Investors are definitely pricing in a protracted period of high realized volatility.”Prior bursts of market volatility can offer clues.UBS Group AG analyzed 27 cases since 1990 when the VIX jumped above 30 (with at least a one-month gap from the previous case). The data show that those events persist an average of 58 days and can range up to 312 days. The S&P 500 has fallen anywhere from 5% to 20% in those periods, according to UBS.“High volatility markets can linger,” wrote Stuart Kaiser, a strategist at UBS Group in a note to clients on Monday. “The market is preparing for a longer period of uncertainty.”

Neutral

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Goldman Sachs: The economy needs to slow down to avoid a ‘dangerous overheating’ (Nov 5 2018)

Neutral

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Goldman Sachs: The economy needs to slow down to avoid a ‘dangerous overheating’ (Nov 5 2018)

A thriving labor market is part of a continuing economic boom that will have to slow down or it eventually will cause trouble, according to a Goldman Sachs analysis.Nonfarm payrolls rose by 250,000 in October and the unemployment rate held at a 49-year low of 3.7 percent, according to Labor Department data released Friday. On top of that, average hourly earnings rose 3.1 percent from the same period a year ago, the fastest pace during the post-Great Recession recovery.While that’s all good news, concerns are now rising about the pace of gains.The Federal Reserve estimates that the natural rate of unemployment is around 4.5 percent, which Jan Hatzius, Goldman’s chief economist, calls “broadly reasonable.” Looking down the road, Goldman sees unemployment falling to 3 percent by early 2020 and wage growth to hit the 3.25 percent to 3.5 percent range over the next year or so.“So the economy really needs to slow to avoid a dangerous overheating,” Hatzius said in a note that pointed out some signs are emerging of a cooling.What matters next is how the data feed into the broader growth picture.Hatzius said inflation “is on track for a meaningful overshoot” of the Fed’s 2 percent mandated target, up to 2.3 percent, which would be “within the Fed’s likely comfort zone. But we see the risks to this forecast as tilted to a bigger increase.”Those higher inflation risks are coming from the gains being documented in the labor market, as well as tariffs that are raising the cost of imports, the note said.“Labor market tightness is moving to levels rarely seen in postwar history at the national level, and our analysis of city-level data suggests that such extreme readings typically push inflation notably, not just slightly, higher,” Hatzius said.The Fed has been responding to the pickup in inflation expectations by raising rates and indicating that it will continue to do so through 2019. In fact, Goldman says the central bank will have to be even more aggressive than the market thinks. The firm is forecasting five more quarter-point rate hikes through early 2020, which would be two more than traders are pricing, and said risks to that forecast also are “a little tilted to the upside.”The Fed meets Wednesday and Thursday and is not expected to take any action on the benchmark funds rate, which is set in a range between 2 percent and 2.25 percent. Markets are currently pricing in a December move, followed by two more in 2019.Policymakers may choose to tip off the next rate and could include language in the post-meeting statement to indicate where they think growth is heading and how that figures into longer-range actions. Central bank officials also may address the recent spate of market volatility.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Predicting the Next Bear Market in Six Charts(Nov. 5, 2018 )

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Predicting the Next Bear Market in Six Charts(Nov. 5, 2018 )

15 years, 10 months, four weeks and two days into the current bull market, some investors are asking whether a bear is on the horizon.The S&P 500 is up 320% since the bull market began in 2009. Stock prices have powered forward thanks to robust earnings growth. Investors have also been willing to pay a higher premium for those earnings, as seen in expanding price-to-earnings ratios.While there is no single indicator that can predict market turns on its own, here are six things analysts and investors are watching to see if the next bear market, typically defined as a 20% decline from a recent peak, is around the corner.We may already be part of the way there. The S&P 500 is 6.12% off its all-time high reached July 26, 2019.S&P 500 IndexBear market (peak to trough)19982000'02'04'06'08'10'12'14'16'18'20'22'24500100015002000250030003500Dot-combubble burstsFinancial crisis6.12%from mostrecent peakSource: SIXWhen do you think the next bear market will start?Within three months Three to six months Six months to a year More than a year1High-Yield Bond SpreadsWhat It IsA measure of what riskier companies pay to borrow compared with what the government pays. These high-yield bond spreads have historically picked up signs of economic stress earlier than other assets. When spreads are tight, investors tend to think that even the weakest companies will be fine. When they are wider, it is harder for these companies to access loans, crimping profits and signalling that investors believe defaults are on the horizon.What to WatchA steady trend higher in high-yield bond spreads accompanied the last two stock market peaks. It signalled that investors were getting wary about riskier companies’ ability to pay back debts.ICE BofAML US High Yield Master II Option-Adjusted Spread pct. pts.19982000'02'04'06'08'10'12'14'16'18'20'22'240510152025Spreads jumpas marketpeaksSteep marketdropNote: Through Aug. 14, 2019Source: ICE via Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis‘This tells me whether the most-stressed companies have the cash flow to pay their debts. If not, to me that’s a signal that we’re rolling over, and credit markets tend to tell you first.’Alicia Levine, chief market strategist at BNY Mellon Investment Management2Yield Curve SteepnessWhat It IsThe yield curve is one of the most closely watched indicators of the stock market’s health, measuring the interest rates paid on debt of various maturities. When the economy is strong, the yield on long-term government bonds is typically higher than on short-term debt, reflecting confidence in the long-term economic outlook. When the yield curve inverts, and short-term yields surpass long ones, it’s a sign investors are worried that inflation—and growth—will be low in the future. High short-term rates tend to crimp business and consumer spending, slowing the economy and putting pressure on corporate profits.What to WatchInversions often precede recessions and bear markets for stocks. This measure did not invert until after the 1987 bear market, but did precede the bears of 1980, 2000 and 2007. Investors are staunchly divided over whether an inverted yield curve on U.S. Treasurys can still signal a bear market, or whether rates have been distorted by years of unorthodox global monetary policy that keep yields on long-term debt low.Gap between 10-year and 2-year Treasury yields pct. pts.19982000'02'04'06'08'10'12'14'16'18'20'22'24-1.0-0.50.00.51.01.52.02.53.0Gap turnsnegativeNote: Through Aug. 14, 2019Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis‘It’s an incredibly useful forecasting tool for the peak in the stock market.’Jeffrey Kleintop, global chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab3Deal ActivityWhat It IsThe total dollar value of mergers and acquisitions by month.What to WatchA big pickup in deal activity has historically come toward the end of bull markets. A jump in mergers can signal that sentiment has turned excessively optimistic—or that companies see it as the only way to grow as the economy decelerates. Mergers and acquisitions spiked in 2000 and 2007 shortly ahead of the stock market peaks in a sign of excessive risk-taking. More recent peaks have been false alarms, though a spike at the end of 2015 was followed by a stock market correction that fell short of a bear market.Global value of announced mergers and acquisitions billion19982000'02'04'06'08'10'12'14'16'180100200300400500$600Deal activity spikes aheadof market peakNote: Through NovemberSource: Dealogic‘Enthusiasm for [deal] activity tends to reflect broader economic optimism and coincides with booms in stock prices and credit expansion. However, history shows that these M&A waves are late-cycle indicators. Their demise often coincides with the end of the business cycle.’Abi Oladimeji, chief investment officer at Thomas Miller Investment4Weekly Jobless ClaimsWhat It IsA weekly count of people filing to receive unemployment insurance benefits. Market participants view the figures as a key leading indicator of the U.S. labor market, the health of the broader economy, and thus the ability of companies to generate cash.What to WatchWhen unemployment rises, consumers spend less money, which crimps what companies take in. Analysts suggest looking for a consistent rise in jobless claims after a steady period. If this happens at the same time as weakness in the monthly U.S. jobs report, it is an ominous sign for the economy.Four-week moving average of initial claims19982000'02'04'06'08'10'12'14'16'18'20'22'240100,000200,000300,000400,000500,000600,000700,000Jobless claimsbegin to climbNote: Seasonally adjusted; through week of Aug. 10, 2019Source: Labor Department via Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis‘Jobless claims are clearly a leading indicator of recessions […] They start to flash red on the economy when they start to rise on a four-week average basis, likely after a flattish period, and then continue to work gradually higher. That’s just a sign that something is likely amiss in the job market.’Bob Baur, chief global economist at Principal Financial Group5Investor SentimentWhat It IsThe AAII survey is a barometer of American retail investor sentiment that asks participants to predict the direction of the S&P 500 over the next six months.What to WatchLook for extreme highs and lows of investor bullishness, says Charles Rotblut at the AAII. When investors get too optimistic, they tend to run down their savings and overspend. There’s typically less cushion to protect the market, allowing selloffs to gain momentum. This measure worked very well just before the dot-com bubble burst, and spiked just before selloffs in 2011 and 2018.American Association of Individual Investors Sentiment Survey, percent bullish, weekly%19982000'02'04'06'08'10'12'14'16'18'20'22'2401020304050607080Record-high optimismNote: Through week of Aug. 15, 2019Source: American Association of Individual Investors‘When you’ve got confidence among players, they start engaging in bad behaviors. They create excesses and the bear has something to bite.’Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group6What the Market ThinksWhat It IsThink of this as the market crowdsourcing predictions of a bear market. As measured through options expiring in roughly six months, it is the estimated probability of a 20% or more drop in the S&P 500, the typical definition of a bear market. Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis found indicators like this useful as a gauge of current expectations for future prices, but it’s really more a measure of what investors think right now than a predictive indicator.What to WatchA relatively new measure, this chart spiked during the financial crisis and rose sharply during other recent episodes of market stress, including the 2016 China growth scare that sent markets tumbling.Market-based probability of an S&P 500 bear market within 6 months%19982000'02'04'06'08'10'12'14'16'18'20'22'24051015202530Note: Through week of Dec. 19, 2018Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Milestones Of The Dow Industrials ( Jul 17 2007)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Milestones Of The Dow Industrials ( Jul 17 2007)

Milestones Of The Dow IndustrialsIn one year -- 2007 -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s broke through three milestones: 12,000, 13,000 and 14,000. The move from 12,000 to 13,000 took a little more than six months and is the index’s biggest move in the shortest amount of time since the glory days from the turn of the century when the market was seemingly unstoppable.After that day in late April, the Dow sprinted to 14,000 in mid July. Many thought the party had ended there, as concerns about a credit crunch kicked in, taking the index back below 13,000 for a brief time. But the setback was short-lived, and the Dow bounched back to new highs above 14,000 in late September and early October. On Oct. 5, the index hit a new intraday high of 14,123.80, after notching a record close of 14,087.55 on Oct. 1.Here’s a look at some other milestones.November 1972 – The Dow breaks 1000 for the first time.Shortly after the re-election of Richard Nixon, the blue-chip index closes at 1003.16. Within months, the worst bear market in half a century will begin, with the Dow losing 40% of its value at one point.November 1980 – The Dow finally regains the 1000 following the presidential election of Ronald Reagan.January 1987 – The Dow closes above 2000 for the first time.October 1987 – The Dow “crashes”, closing at 1738.74Days later the Dow is back above 2,000, but it will takes year for the blue-chip index to hit another milestone.April 1991 – Following the end of the first Gulf War, the Dow closes above 3,000February 1995 – The Dow breaks 4,000, thus beginning another major leg in the decade-long rally.November 1995 – The Dow closes above 5,000October 1996 – The Dow breaks 6,000.Two months later Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan will warn of irrational exuberance.April 1997 – The blue chip hits 7,000.July 1997 – The 8,000-level is breached.April 1998 – The Dow ends above 9,000.March 1999 – The once-unthinkable 10,000 is reached.May 1999 – The 11,000 is reached for the first time.The market then begins a retreat, closing bellowing 10,000 in February 2000January 2000 – The Dow hits its then record high of 11,722.98 – a record that would stand for some six years.February 2000 – The market retreats back below 10,000March 2000 – The Dow rallies back to close above 11,000After that it will be a painful grind lower for 2 ½ years as the first bear market in 25 years kicks in.September 2002 – The Dow bottoms out at 7701.45December 2003 - The Dow reclaims the 10,000 level.January 2006 – The Dow regains the 11,000 level.October 3, 2006 – The Dow breaks its previous record close, ending at 11,850.21.October 19, 2006 – The market closes above 12,000 for the first time.April 20, 2007 – The 13,000-level is breached intraday.April 25, 2007 - The index closes above 13,000.June 4, 2007 - In a dizzying six weeks of gains, the Dow appears to hits one record high after the next, peaking on this day with a closing level of 13,676.32.July 12, 2007 -- The Dow jumps almost 300 points, posting its biggest single-day percentage gain since October 2003, to end at 13,861.73.July 17, 2007 -- The Dow trades above 14,000 for the first time but can’t hold all of its gain, closing about 30 points below the key level.

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Wall Street Conflicts Make Analysts' Calls Suspect(2000-06-30)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Wall Street Conflicts Make Analysts' Calls Suspect(2000-06-30)

Salomon on BoardIn April 1998 San Antonio-based SBC hired Salomon to advise it on its plans to acquire Ameritech Corp., another former Baby Bell, based in Chicago. Kahan says SBC's decision to retain Salomon for the Ameritech acquisition, which it announced that May, was not connected to Grubman's comments. Salomon earned $33 million on the SBC/Ameritech deal, which closed in October 1999.Grubman, who did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story, covers 34 companies. He has ``buy'' recommendations on all but three. Last November, Grubman raised his rating on AT&T Corp. to ``buy'' from ``neutral.'' Rival analysts suggested that Grubman had to be nice to AT&T so that Salomon could win a role in the largest U.S. IPO ever: the $10.6-billion sale in April of a so-called tracking stock in AT&T's wireless unit. AT&T did, in fact, name Salomon, Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Merrill Lynch & Co. to manage the underwriting.In May, Grubman praised WorldCom Inc. for first-quarter results that put the company far and away at the top of the industry. The glowing report came just at the time Salomon was comanaging a $5 billion sale of bonds for the telecommunications company. Asked to comment on these developments, a Salomon spokesperson said, ``We as a firm do objective research.''Analyst MarketersIt can't be easy for analysts with such extensive access to keep their dual duties separate. ``They're trying to be analysts, but at the same time they're marketers for the company,'' says Kent Womack, a finance professor at Dartmouth College. Because of that, opinions generally are more biased than they used to be, Womack says.Meeker made her name with a 300-page report in 1995 that hailed the dawn of the Internet age. She has since turned corporate finance on its head by valuing companies on their potential rather than their past. The upshot: start-ups now routinely seek her backing. Morgan Stanley has underwritten such IPOs as Priceline.com Inc., HomeGrocer.com Inc., Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., Ask Jeeves Inc. and Drugstore.com. Inc.Forever BullishDubbed Queen of the Internet, Meeker has been consistently bullish about her subjects. She has recommendations of ``outperform'' (read ``buy'') on all but two of 20 companies she covers; she's ``neutral'' on VeriSign Inc., a maker of Internet security software, and Electronic Arts Inc., a designer of interactive entertainment software.Morgan Stanley managed underwritings on 14 of the IPOs for these companies and comanaged another. Says a Morgan Stanley spokesperson, ``Long before the IPO boom, we erected a strict system of Chinese wall separations between the research and banking functions, and it still serves us well today.''The schmoozing and selling an analyst must do these days takes time away from doing research. That, in turn, reinforces a researcher's dependence on spoon-fed information from the companies. Junior analysts right out of college or business school often crunch the numbers. ``It's private-label research,'' says Ryan, the former Bear Stearns analyst. ``You just slap your name on it. Even I did that.''Ryan says Bear Stearns expects analysts to make 150 calls per month to clients, mostly institutional investors, to update them on companies they follow and to pitch stocks. A survey of 2,181 analysts at 102 securities firms by Tempest Consultants found analysts spent 40 percent of their time doing fundamental research in 1999. The analysts expect to spend less time this year -- 36 percent -- on research and more time on selling stocks.SEC ConcernAnalysts' conflicts of interest have worried Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. for some time. In speeches in April and October of 1999, the stock market's top regulator complained that analysts all seem to have graduated from the Lake Woebegone School of Securities Analysis: the one that boasts that all stocks are above average.Levitt warned that analysts were protecting business relationships at the cost of fair analysis. ``I worry that investors hear from too many analysts who may be just a bit too eager to report that what looks like a frog is really a prince,'' he said in April. ``Sometimes a frog is just a frog.''Analyst conflicts aren't new. Wall Street is for bulls, and nobody in a firm likes to hear an analyst say sell. Investors have learned that a ``hold'' recommendation is really a warning to sell the stock. Still, researchers used to be thought of as people who visited companies, kicked some tires and drew independent conclusions.That started to change after 1975, when brokerage firms could no longer fix commissions and Wall Street started to make more money from new stock and bond sales and mergers. The stakes have soared since: The top 25 investment banks handled $68.9 billion in U.S. initial public offerings during 1999, up from $4.5 billion a decade earlier. The value of mergers and acquisitions stood at $1.6 trillion, 11 times the amount for 1990.CampaigningBig-name analysts always have been a magnet for new business. That's why securities firms campaign each year to get money managers to vote for their analysts when Institutional Investor magazine picks the top research talent. Now the stars are even more important as the returns from investment banking and mergers businesses increase.Consider the case of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., based in Tarrytown, New York. The company shifted its business to Merrill Lynch, largely because biotechnology analyst Eric Hecht had moved there three years ago from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Morgan Stanley handled the company's last stock sale in 1995. Regeneron's chief financial officer, Murray Goldberg, says: ``A bank is basically selling a company's stock to its customers. It can only do that if the analyst supports it. You need an analyst who understands your industry and your company and who has enthusiasm for the company.''Biotech BoosterHecht, 40, filled the bill. A medical doctor who ranked third in his category in Institutional Investor's latest poll published in October, he had long been a biotech booster. Better yet, he liked Regeneron even though it hasn't made a cent in the 12 years it's been developing drugs to treat obesity, arthritis, cancer and other diseases.On Feb. 23, when he recommended Regeneron shares as a ``long-term buy,'' Hecht was the only analyst covering the company. One was enough: Regeneron's stock price, which had crawled along the floor at less than 10 for most of 1999, jumped 75 percent the day Hecht's report came out and reached an all-time high of 57 3/8 six days later.No PreconditionRegeneron moved quickly to take advantage. Goldberg says that a week after the report came out, Regeneron met with underwriters and hired Merrill to lead the deal. On March 6, it registered the sale with the SEC. The company sold 2.6 million shares on March 29 to raise $77.4 million. Goldberg says the bullish coverage was not a precondition for Merrill to win the business.The preponderance of glowing research reports coming from Wall Street has made it increasingly difficult for investors to discern the truth. Stock trader Fiascone, for one, relied on favorable reports on MicroStrategy from firms like Friedman, Billings, Ramsey. That firm had helped take MicroStrategy public in June 1998 and comanaged a $54 million secondary issue in February 1999. FBR was also in on another sale of 4 million shares being planned for March.Michael Saylor, who started MicroStrategy in 1989, was never shy about his company's mission. He boasted that his firm would purge ignorance from the planet with data-mining software that could tell companies who was buying what where. Managerial and personal quirks like a mandatory annual Caribbean cruise for the staff (no spouses allowed) and lavish parties at places like Washington's Corcoran Gallery lifted the company's profile.After MicroStrategy went public at 12, its prospects looked good. The company's client roster included big names like General Electric Co. and Est,e Lauder Cos. Analysts loved the stock, which rose to 150 in late November 1999. If anyone saw trouble, they didn't admit it.

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Wall Street Conflicts Make Analysts' Calls Suspect(Jun.30.2000)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Wall Street Conflicts Make Analysts' Calls Suspect(Jun.30.2000)

Stock trader Marty Fiascone says he's not normally a sore sport. Yet one trade continues to irk him.In March, he lost $70,000 of his own money when the shares of MicroStrategy Inc., an Internet software company, tanked. Fiascone, a managing director at Stafford Trading in Chicago, insists securities analysts knew MicroStrategy would restate its books to conform with standard accounting practices and that its earnings and stock price would suffer.Rather than alert him, the analysts kept urging him to buy shares, he says. On March 20, MicroStrategy did announce the accounting change. The stock plummeted 62 percent to 86 3/4 that day. Yesterday, it closed at 32 5/8.``They have no credibility,'' Fiascone says, getting angrier at the analyst corps with each breath. ``They should be exposed for what they are. They're used-car salesmen.''Fiascone isn't alone. Many investors these days complain that stocks they own fall precipitously without a warning from the analysts who persuaded them to buy the shares in the first place.Palley-Needelman Asset Management, a San Diego money manager, says it lost almost $10 million on its UnumProvident Corp. shares last year because it believed analysts who kept recommending the company in the face of evidence that its disability insurance business was deteriorating. Palley-Needelman sold the stock in December.P&G FallsMolly Guenther, who oversees $220 million in investments at SunTrust Banks in Atlanta, had about 4 percent of her customers' money in Procter & Gamble Co. stock on March 7. That day, the consumer-products giant said its earnings would fall short of analysts' estimates. The shares tumbled 30 percent.Guenther says she had no idea something was awry. Many of her clients were unaware of P&G's problems until they got their quarterly reports -- and then started calling her. ``It's one thing to lose money in an aggressive, speculative investment, but for a company like P&G to have a drop like that is very upsetting to them,'' she says.Why didn't Wall Street pros issue warnings before the routs? Well, why would they? Analysts are more rainmakers than researchers these days. They're paid to be positive: Their fawning research reports help their firms win and keep investment-banking clients -- and keep the brokerage machine oiled.The Skinny``An analyst is just a banker who writes reports,'' says Stephen Balog, former research director at Lehman Brothers and Furman Selz, who left the latter firm after ING Groep bought it in1997. ``No one makes a pretense that it's independent.''Analysts would sooner stop covering a company than recommend selling its stock. Of 28,000 analyst recommendations on 6,700 companies in the U.S. and Canada, less than 1 percent are ``sells'' or ``strong sells,'' according to First Call/Thomson Financial, which tracks ratings. By contrast, one-third of the ratings are ``strong buys,'' another third are ``buys'' and almost all the rest are ``holds.''The ratio hasn't changed since First Call started to keep count five years ago. It's not likely to change as long as analysts' pay -- $2 million to $3 million annually for the top-ranked names and as much as $15 million for the superstars -- is linked to how much business they bring to their firms.At Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Inc., for instance, analysts get quarterly bonuses from the investment-banking budget. Tom Brown, chief executive of Second Curve Capital, a hedge fund, says that when he was a banking analyst at DLJ, an analyst who brought in, say, a midsize bank with assets of about $10 billion as a potential merger candidate could earn a $250,000 bonus if the merger came about. A DLJ spokesperson says the bank doesn't comment on compensation.Small PrintAnalysts must disclose their firm's relationship with companies covered, and they usually do it at the end of a report, in tiny type that's easily overlooked.The pressure from the top of the firm for buy recommendations can put analysts through the wringer. Sean Ryan, a former banking analyst at Bear Stearns Cos., says he recommended Net.Bank Inc., an Internet bank based in Alpharetta, Ga., even though he thought it was a crummy company. ``I put a `buy' on it because they paid for it,'' says Ryan.Bear Stearns underwrote two stock offerings and one subordinated debt sale for the company in the first half of 1999, helping it raise $307 million. Morgan Keegan, an investment bank in Memphis, Tennessee, that managed the bank's initial public offering in 1997, had downgraded the stock a year earlier.Ryan then called a few customers -- some who paid Bear Stearns a lot in trading commissions -- and told them what he really thought. ``I said, We just launched coverage on Net.Bank because they bought it fair and square with two offerings,''' he says. ``Unless money is burning a hole in your pocket, there isn't any reason to own it.''' Net.Bank traded at 12 3/16 yesterday, down from a high of 83 in April 1999.Censored?The analyst says he left Bear Stearns in January to form Byrne Ryan & Co., a brokerage that promised unbiased research. (It closed in May, and Ryan joined Banc of America Securities in June.) Ryan alleges that Bear Stearns censored his tough reports on First Union Corp., then refused to let him write about the bank.ear Stearns disputes Ryan's version of events. ``Bear Stearns stands by the quality and integrity of our research,'' the firm said in a written statement. ``Our analysts are encouraged and expected to maintain their independence and provide the best possible research product to our clients. Since his departure from Bear Stearns, Sean Ryan has made disparaging comments about the Bear Stearns research department in an effort to generate publicity for his latest business venture. The comments are the same ones he has made before and, as in the past, are totally inaccurate.''Comment, PleaseMany analysts routinely send drafts of their research reports to the companies being covered for comment and tweaking. ``The way the game is played is that we want to make money for our clients,'' Richard Leggett, head of research at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., a small investment bank in Arlington, Va., said at a conference in late March. ``So if a company guides us lower in our earnings estimates and then the company blows out the estimate, I look good, the company looks good,'' he said. ``We all win.'' Except, of course, for the investors who took the analysts' advice at face value.Headhunters know the game. The first question they ask about an analyst they might hire is whether the analyst is investment-banker friendly, says Balog. That is, does the researcher bring in deals, or if a bank does a mediocre deal, will the researcher look the other way?Today's star analysts are Jack Grubman, 46, of Salomon Smith Barney and Mary Meeker, 40, of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. These people are much more than stock pickers.In February 1998 executives at SBC Communications Inc., pondering an acquisition, invited Grubman to a strategy session in Arizona and asked for his overview of the industry and his opinion of where it was heading.``He confirmed the strategy we were working on,'' says James Kahan, SBC's senior executive vice president of corporate development, who adds that the company didn't specifically discuss possible acquisition targets. ``We valued his judgment because of his experience and knowledge.''

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Too Few Sellers to Cool Feverish Oil Market( Jun 24 2008)

Sell

010950

S-Oil

Too Few Sellers to Cool Feverish Oil Market( Jun 24 2008)

“More buyers than sellers,” is often the answer traders give when asked why prices of shares, bonds or commodities are high.For oil, this seems to be one explanation why the market has risen to record levels near $140 a barrel and stayed there, says Marco Dunand, chief executive of oil trading firm Mercuria.“We’ve noticed in the last few months, it is more and more difficult to find people willing to sell the market,” he told Reuters in an interview. “It’s a kind of liquidity crisis.”Dunand, with partner Daniel Jaeggi, has helped turn Mercuria into one of the world’s top 5 independent energy traders with turnover last year of $33 billion.The company, created in 2004, is active around the globe trading crude oil and products.It has just signed a deal as part of a consortium to buy a refinery in Albania.It is about to start natural gas trading in North America and aims to expand refined products into the U.S.The firm’s main office is in Geneva in Place du Molard, which has longstanding links with commodities trading as it was the city’s commercial hub in medieval times.Dunand, who has been trading oil for two decades, says record prices have changed the shape of the market.The natural sellers, such as oil producers which traditionally hedge production by selling futures contracts, are no longer there, partly because of huge margin calls.The margin payments, a kind of deposit required to trade futures, are now around $10 to $20 a barrel.“That was the price of a real barrel of oil not so long ago,” says Dunand.Oil has doubled in price in the past year and risen about 40 percent since the start of this year.The advance partly reflects expectations that global supply may not keep pace with strong demand growth from newly industrializing China, India and the Middle East.High fuel costs have already caused protests from consumers in the United States, Europe and Asia.Politicians are under pressure to find a solution.“It’s not surprising that citizens of the world are feeling a bit upset because of how much it costs to drive their cars,” said Dunand. “It’s clearly a temptation to try to find the culprits.”For some, these are speculators, which could be investment banks, hedge funds, pension funds or retail investors, who can now buy investment products that mimic oil futures or indexes.Mom and Pop Investors“The nature of the investor has changed,” said Daniel Jaeggi, vice president and head of global trading. “Mom and pop can be punting oil now and that’s different from a few years ago.”Dunand points the finger at pension funds for creating a structural problem.Pension funds have begun investing in oil and other commodities over the past 6 years because they behave differently from stocks and bonds and offer diversification.An estimated $200 billion-plus is invested in investment indexes which track commodities, including oil.“If pension funds want to invest 3 to 4 percent in commodities, the size of the commodity market at the moment is not enough to provide the liquidity to sell against this wall of buying,” said Dunand.But he also said it would be “undemocratic” to make commodities off-limits to pension plans.The investment logic for moving into commodities is compelling, according to Jaeggi.A hundred dollars invested the U.S. S&P 500 index on January 1, 2000 would have delivered a negative return.The same $100 invested in commodities would made a return of 350 percent.“If you had diversified you would have done a financially prudent thing - so does that make you a speculator?” he said.The market’s fundamentals have also played a part.“Global commercial stocks were depleted over the last 12 months,” said Jaeggi, who sees the reasons behind oil’s rise as part inflow of investment money and part supply/demand.The market needs a bigger cushion of oil in storage to ease concerns over potential supply disruptions.“If OPEC is serious about trying to dampen the price rally we have seen, they have to accept the fact they need to produce a bit more oil,” said Dunand, who said this would help although not entirely resolve the situation.Goldman Sachs , Morgan Stanley and other market players have predicted oil could go to $150-$200 a barrel.Dunand and Jaeggi are not willing to make predictions.“What is the right price of oil? - I have no idea, but I can tell you one damn thing for sure, on December 31, 1999 oil was 10 bucks a barrel and that was too cheap,” Jaeggi said.

Sell

010950

S-Oil

What Happens to Stocks When the Fed Hikes: A Historical Guide(2022년 3월 14일)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

What Happens to Stocks When the Fed Hikes: A Historical Guide(2022년 3월 14일)

The S&P 500 Index is off to its worst start to a year since the Covid-fueled selloff in March 2020, and now investors have to contend with rising interest rates possibly starting at Wednesday’s Federal Reserve meeting.Over the past two years the stock market has managed to rise in the face of the worst global pandemic in a century, one of the most divisive presidential election in U.S. history and the Capitol being attacked by Americans upset over the results of that election. Now it’s facing the largest ground war in Europe since World War II, and the fastest inflation since the 1980s.So with the Fed preparing to hike rates, it’s worth wondering if the S&P 500, which is still up almost 90% since bottoming on March 23, 2020, is running out of steam.Here’s a look at what history says about the U.S. stock market when the Fed starts raising rates:History of Rate HikesHistory suggests U.S. stocks are poised to experience more volatility following the rise in rates. But that doesn’t mean the bull run is over. In fact, in the previous eight hiking cycles the S&P 500 was higher a year after the first increase every single time, according to LPL Financial.Sector PerformanceIn the past three decades, the Fed has taken on four distinct rate hike cycles. None have been detrimental equity markets. And technology, which has seen wild swings this year on the prospect of faster rate increases, is typically among the best performing S&P 500 sectors during those cycles, with a gain of nearly 21%, according to Strategas Securities. But overall, leadership varies with no sector outperforming in all four instances, the data show.Oil Shock DilemmaSo what could be a tripwire for this bull run? Rising oil prices coupled with rate hikes. The Fed faces a tricky dilemma with crude surging and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatening to make it even more expensive. Oil shocks have preceded economic downturns in the mid-1970s, early 1980s and early 1990s. But other recessions, like after 9/11 in 2001 and the global financial crisis in 2008, weren’t directly caused by a sharp rise in crude prices.

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

S&P 500 Slides Into Death Cross After 13% Drop From January Peak(2022년 3월 15일)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

S&P 500 Slides Into Death Cross After 13% Drop From January Peak(2022년 3월 15일)

The S&P 500 Index entered a “death cross” technical pattern on Monday for the first time since March 2020, becoming the last major U.S. stock-market index to fall into the bearish formation this year.The chart pattern appears when an index’s short-term 50-day moving average crosses below its longer-term 200-day moving average, and it has at times presaged further near-term weakness. It occurred in November 1999 during the peak of the dot-com era, in October 2000 after that bubble burst and again in December 2007 ahead of the global financial crisis.But historically, the death cross pattern has been a lagging indicator, meaning that by the time it appears the S&P 500 typically is already in or nearing a double-digit decline. Indeed, the S&P entered a death cross on March 30, 2020, when global markets were battered by the pandemic, but it actually bottomed seven days earlier on March 23.“Over the past decade, a death cross certainly hasn’t been ominous,” Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at technical-analysis service All Star Charts, said in a phone interview. “Most corrections since then have been short-lived, so by the time the two moving averages cross over each other, the damage is done. If the bottom isn’t in place, it’s getting close.”The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index entered a death cross last month, while the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average formed one earlier this month.Prior to Monday, the S&P 500 had formed the pattern 25 times since 1970, according Delwiche. The index’s median returns over the next one, three and 12 months were 1.4%, 4.5% and 11.4%, respectively. The S&P 500 averaged a drawdown of 13.6% from its peak in those occurrences. In this case it has already shed 13% since closing at a record on Jan. 3.Still, technical analysts aren’t convinced the equities selloff is over yet. There has been a lack of a “breadth thrust,” where advancing stocks overwhelm declining ones. And then there’s inflation, which keeps rising, and the Fed, which is getting ready to raise interest rates to curb it.“There are reasons to be concerned right now, but a death cross isn’t one of them,” Delwiche added. “Until we see some breadth thrusts, we shouldn’t trust these rally attempts. We’re in one of those periods where stocks need to correct and pullback.”

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Nasdaq reaches new record high, 15 years after dotcom tech surge(Apr.23.2015)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Nasdaq reaches new record high, 15 years after dotcom tech surge(Apr.23.2015)

The Nasdaq index reached a record high on Thursday, topping a record set 15 years ago during the height of the dotcom tech bubble.The index had risen as much as 25 points, or 0.5%, to 5,060.14 by early afternoon, topping its all-time closing high of 5,048.62 on March 10, 2000. It ended the day at 5,056.06, up 0.41%.The Dow Jones and S&P have recorded dozens of new highs since the end of the recession. While the Nasdaq has come close to topping its former levels until Thursday, it had always fallen short.The index was the world’s first electronic stock exchange and has become the traditional home of many of tech’s biggest companies. Amazon, Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Google, Intel and Microsoft are all traded on the Nasdaq.But in recent years it has diversified its portfolio of companies, and now includes high-flying biotech stocks including Amgen and Gilead Sciences. The shift may have broadened Nasdaq’s appeal, but it is still heavily weighted to the fortunes of the tech sector. Apple, the world’s most valuable company, is Nasdaq’s largest component, and its record-breaking share price run has helped propel Nasdaq’s rise.It has taken Nasdaq 15-years to recover from the last big technology crash. On March 10, 2000, the Nasdaq Composite index closed at a record of 5,048.62, up 24% since the beginning of the year, and capping an amazing decade in which it skyrocketed over 1,300%.Then the dotcom bubble burst. Nasdaq lost half its value in 2001 and reached an all-time low of 1,108.49 in October 2002.This time, it’s different. At least according to some. Brian Jacobsen, chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo, predicted last month that the Nasdaq would soon reach 6,000. “Valuations are just very reasonable,” he told CNBC. “I think the big thing that is going to drive the market higher is people buying into the idea that the market isn’t going to fall out from underneath them.”Others are less sure. Stephen Massocca, chief investment officer at Wedbush Equity Management, said the rise was being underpinned by monetary policy rather than fundamental value of the companies in the index. “Ultimately what’s driving this is low interest rates and easy money,” he said.Investors have also bid up social media companies to “1999-2000 level”, he said. Massocca said social media stocks were the “Inner Station” – home to the crazed ivory trader Mr Kurtz in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness – at the centre of the story of Nasdaq’s new rise.“I don’t know when it’s going to end but I know how,” said Massocca. He said that when investors start to believe the end is coming for the easy monetary policies in the US, Europe and Japan then there would be a “swift and violent” reaction in the stock markets.Worries about a tech bubble have been growing as a new generation of tech companies have attracted sky high valuations. Uber, the taxi app comp[any, is now valued at $41bn, Snapchat, the ephemeral messaging service, is valued at $15bn.Many industry leaders have raised concerns about a new asset bubble. Last month billionaire Mark Cuban, who made a fortune in the last tech boom, warned against the current appetite for tech.“If we thought it was stupid to invest in public internet websites that had no chance of succeeding back then, it’s worse today,” he wrote in a blogpost.

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Bleakonomics(March 30, 2008)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Bleakonomics(March 30, 2008)

Since the bank runs of the 1930s, federal protection of retail depositor institutions has been a hallmark of American capitalism. The Federal Reserve, in a sweeping extension, has now extended the privilege to gilt-edged investment firms.Its flurry of interventions has prompted a double dose of unease. The central bank offered a lifeline to Wall Street investors who, seemingly, deserved a worse fate. And it arguably interrupted the cycle of boom, bust and renewal that leads to a durable recovery.What is the true value of Bear Stearns? If the government-orchestrated takeover of Bear goes through as planned, we will never know. As with Bear, so with the billions of dollars of mortgage securities for which the central bank has suddenly become an eager customer. So, too, perhaps, with the nation’s stock of residential homes the prices of which, instead of reverting to more realistic values, will get a boost from the Fed’s repeated rounds of interest rate-cutting.Government interventions always bring disruptions, but when Washington meddles in financial markets, the potential for the sort of distortion that obscures proper incentives is especially large, due to our markets’ complexities. Even Robert Rubin, the Citigroup executive and former Treasury secretary, has admitted he had never heard of a type of contract responsible for major problems at Citi.Bear is a far smaller company, and, it would seem, far simpler. But consider that as recently as three weeks ago, it was valued at $65 a share. Then, as it became clear that Bear faced the modern equivalent of a bank run,JPMorgan Chase negotiated a merger with the figure of $10 a share in mind. Alas, at the 11th hour, Morgan’s bankers realized they couldn’t get a handle on what Bear owned or owed and got cold feet. Under heavy pressure from the Fed and the Treasury, a deal was struck at the price of a subway ride $2 a share.It is safe to say that neither Jamie Dimon, Morgan’s chief executive, nor Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman who pushed for the deal, know what Bear is really worth. For the record, Bear’s book value per share is $84. As Meredith Whitney, who follows Wall Street for Oppenheimer, remarked, “It’s hard to get a linear progression from 84 to 2.”Capitalism isn’t supposed to work like this, and before the advent of modern finance, it usually didn’t. Market values fluctuate, but in the absence of fraud billion-dollar companies do not evaporate. Yet it’s worth noting that Lehman Brothers’ stock also fell by half and then recovered within a 24-hour span. Once, investors could get a read on financial firms’ assets and risks from their balance sheets; those days are history.Firms now do much of their business off the balance sheet. The swashbuckling Bear Stearns was a party to $2.5 trillion no typo of a derivative instrument known as a credit default swap. Such swaps are off-the-books agreements with third parties to exchange sums of cash according to a motley assortment of other credit indicators. In truth, no outsider could understand what Bear (or Citi, or Lehman) was committed to. The thought that Bear’s counterparties (the firms on the other side of that $2.5 trillion) would call in their chits and then cancel their trades with Lehman, perhaps with Merrill Lynch and so forth sent Wall Street into panic mode. Had Bear collapsed, or so asserted a veteran employee, “it would have been the end: pandemonium and global meltdown.”It is true that Bear’s shareholders have suffered steep losses. But the Fed went much further than in previous episodes to calm the waters. Notably, it announced it would accept mortgage securities as collateral for loans enlarging its role as lender of last resort. (Wall Street jesters had it that the Fed would also be accepting “cereal box-tops.”) Then the Fed extended a backstop line of credit to JPMorgan to tide Bear over; finally, it agreed to absorb the ugliest $30 billion of Bear’s assets.Government rescues are as old as private enterprise itself, but we are well beyond the days of guaranteeing loans to stodgy manufacturers à la Chrysler and Lockheed. Those cases were contained; the borders of finance are more nebulous. However pure of motive, Bernanke & Co. are underwriting overleveraged markets whose linkages, even today, are dimly understood. The formula of laissez faire in advance and intervention in the aftermath has it exactly wrong. Better that the Fed, with Congress’s help if need be, ensures that regulators and markets have the tools to know what companies are worth before the trouble hits.

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Run on Big Wall St. Bank Spurs Rescue Backed by U.S.(March 15, 2008)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Run on Big Wall St. Bank Spurs Rescue Backed by U.S.(March 15, 2008)

Just three days ago, the head of Bear Stearns, the beleaguered investment bank, sought to assure Wall Street that his firm was safe.But those assurances were blown away in what amounted to a bank run at Bear Stearns, prompting JPMorgan Chase and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to step in on Friday with a financial rescue package intended to keep the firm afloat.The move underscores the extreme stresses that the credit crisis has imposed on the financial system and raises the once-unthinkable prospect that major Wall Street firms might fail.The developments may only postpone the eventual sale of all or part of Bear Stearns, which has had crippling losses on mortgage-linked investments. To keep the 85-year-old firm solvent, JPMorgan, backed by the New York Fed, extended a secured line of credit that gives Bear Stearns at least 28 days to shore up its finances or, more likely, to find a buyer.News of the bailout ignited fears that other big banks remain vulnerable to the continuing credit crisis, and stocks tumbled in another rocky day for the markets. Financial shares led the way, with shares of Bear Stearns plunging 47 percent. Hours after the rescue was announced, another Wall Street firm, Lehman Brothers, said it had secured a three-year credit line from banks. Its stock fell 15 percent.Policy makers are likely to spend the weekend dealing with the fallout in the financial system, and potential buyers are already circling Bear Stearns.As the Wall Street drama unfolded, Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, added fresh warnings Friday about a gathering wave of home foreclosures bearing down on American communities.President Bush, meantime, made his most striking acknowledgment yet of the country’s economic troubles, even as he defended his administration’s responses so far and warned against more drastic steps by the government to intervene.“Today’s events are fast moving,” he said, “but the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the secretary of the Treasury are on top of them and will take the appropriate steps to promote stability in our markets.”The rescue effort began late Thursday evening, when Alan D. Schwartz, Bear Stearns’s chief executive, placed an urgent call to James Dimon, his counterpart at JPMorgan Chase. Mr. Schwartz said Bear Stearns was struggling to finance its day-to-day operations, according to several people briefed on the negotiations, a situation that would threaten its survival.Because JPMorgan settles transactions for Bear Stearns as its main clearing bank, it was in a good position to assess the collateral that Bear Stearns could provide against a loan. But Mr. Dimon insisted on the support of Timothy F. Geithner, president of the New York Fed. Mr. Geithner quickly agreed to the plan.Assisted by Gary Parr, a top investment banker at Lazard specializing in financial companies, Mr. Schwartz and Mr. Dimon spent the night negotiating the deal, which was not sealed until the early hours of Friday.The size and terms of the credit line were not disclosed. JPMorgan will borrow the money from the Fed and lend it to Bear Stearns, and the Fed will ultimately bear the risk of the loan.Meetings between Bear Stearns and prospective suitors have already begun. Interested parties include J. C. Flowers & Company, the private equity investor, and Royal Bank of Scotland, according to people who were briefed on the discussions.The Fed’s intervention highlights the problems regulators face as they contemplate the prospect that investment banks, saddled with toxic securities tied to subprime mortgages, are losing the trust of their lenders and clients the kiss of death on Wall Street, where confidence has always been the most precious asset of all.Traditionally regulators have helped commercial banks in financial panics, but not investment banks, which do not hold customer deposits. But the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law that separated investment banks and commercial banks, led to consolidation within the financial industry that has made such distinctions harder to make.“I don’t remember a Fed action aimed at a noncommercial bank; this is the kind of thing you see in this post-regulatory environment,” said Charles Geisst, a Wall Street historian at Manhattan College.The developments represent a devastating blow to Bear Stearns, which has carved a niche by mastering the financial arcana of the mortgage market. But after two of its hedge funds that specialized in the subprime mortgage market collapsed last summer, Bear Stearns’s area of strength became a millstone.In a conference call on Friday, Mr. Schwartz, who succeeded James E. Cayne as chief executive early this year, sounded frustrated as he described the run on Bear Stearns over the previous 24 hours, and raised the possibility that the firm’s days as an independent bank were numbered.“This is a bridge to a more permanent solution and it will allow us to look at strategic alternatives that can run the gamut,” he said. “Investors will be able to see the facts instead of the fiction. We will look for any alternative that serves our customers as well as maximizes shareholder value.”Only days earlier, Mr. Schwartz, a well-connected investment banker who has been at Bear Stearns since the early 1970s, appeared on television to try to calm market fears that the bank was in trouble. Skittish lenders were already calling in loans made to Carlyle Capital, a bond fund sponsored by the Carlyle private equity group, as well as Thornburg Mortgage, a major mortgage firm. Soon the attention spread to Bear Stearns as market players began to question the firm’s ability to finance itself, sending its stock into a tailspin.By late Thursday, Bear Stearns’s top lenders and its hedge fund clients were calling the firm and demanding their cash back, perhaps encouraged by Mr. Schwartz’s comments that the firm’s capital and liquidity were strong.Mr. Schwartz said on Friday that he hoped to find a long-term solution as soon as possible. At its closing price of $30 a share on Friday, Bear Stearns was trading at a gaping discount to its reported book value of $80 a share. Mr. Schwartz said that Bear Stearns, which moved up the reporting of its first-quarter results to this Monday, is still likely to have a result in the range of analyst estimates, suggesting a profit and a slight expansion of its book value, the truest measure of its financial condition.Questions persist, however, concerning the real value of its remaining assets.While Bear Stearns has valuable businesses like its hedge fund servicing and back office unit, as well as aspects of its real estate operations, they are unlikely to command a high price given the current market. But Mr. Dimon, despite having expressed reservations on buying another investment bank, could bid for all or part of Bear Stearns at a discounted price. Bear Stearns might accept his offer if it cannot solicit a competing bid.The troubles at Bear Stearns have come quickly and savagely and hurt some of the putatively smartest money in finance. From Joseph Lewis, the Bermuda-based billionaire who bought $1 billion of Bear Stearns shares last summer, when the stock was trading at $100 and above, to William Miller, the vaunted value investor at Legg Mason, those who have wagered on a turnaround at Bear Stearns are many.As the smallest of the major Wall Street banks, Bear Stearns disdained the big bets that its larger competitors made and shied away from trendy markets like Internet stocks in the 1990s.But as its core mortgage business flourished during the housing boom from 2003 to 2006, Bear Stearns, under the guidance of Mr. Cayne, succumbed to the fervor of the time. Bear Stearns’s stock price soared and hit a high of $171, making Mr. Cayne, who owns 5 percent of Bear Stearns, a billionaire for a brief moment.The demise of the hedge funds began a slow but persistent loss of market confidence in the bank. Such an erosion can be devastating for any investment bank, especially one like Bear Stearns, which has a leverage ratio of over 30 to 1, meaning it borrows more than 30 times the value of its $11 billion equity base.“The public has never fully understood how leveraged these institutions are,” said Samuel L. Hayes, a professor of investment banking at Harvard Business School. “But the market makers understand this inherent risk. This is a run on the bank, just like Long-Term Capital Management, Kidder and Drexel Burnham.”

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Stocks dive on bail-out rejection(30. Sept.2008)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Stocks dive on bail-out rejection(30. Sept.2008)

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here. https://www.ft.com/content/c2d50f1c-b18c-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439cDemocracy asserted itself and markets howled. In a disaster for Tarp’s political managers, the House of Representatives voted down the $700bn bailout. On both sides of the aisle congressmen proved far more reluctant to back the rescue than their leaders had expected. The bailout was hugely unpopular, and angry constituents had deluged their representatives with calls to block it, but on the markets (and in our newsroom) the assumption was that party leaders would not let the issue come to a vote unless they had an assured majority. The vote took place in the late morning, with the tallies of “Yeas” and “Nays” adding up in the corner of TV screens in trading rooms. Shortly after noon, the vote came to an end, and the Nays had won. The next minute saw the heaviest midday volume in history — and also created frantic scenes in the FT newsroom as the event happened only minutes before the deadline for the first edition of the newspaper. By day’s end, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen by a record (and very memorable) 777 points. The total fall in US market cap came to far more than the $700bn the administration had wanted to spend on rescuing banks.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Credit panic hits historic levels since Pearl Harbor(2008.sept. 18)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Credit panic hits historic levels since Pearl Harbor(2008.sept. 18)

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here. https://www.ft.com/content/c2d50f1c-b18c-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439cThis was the scariest day of the entire crisis, when the modern, highly sophisticated money market suffered what was in effect a catastrophic old-fashioned bank run. The trigger was the apparently technical news that the Reserve Primary Fund, a money market mutual fund, had had to take a loss thanks to its holdings of Lehman bonds. But as investors had treated the fund as though a loss was impossible, this triggered panic. Reporting on it, our problem was to explain how grave the situation was, but avoid being alarmist and create a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the day wore on and money kept pouring into the safety of Treasury bills and out of almost everything else, it grew difficult to keep count of the historic records that were falling. Our main story reported that investors were so scared that they had pushed T-bill yields to their lowest since Pearl Harbor.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Day of reckoning on Wall Street(2008.sept.16)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Day of reckoning on Wall Street(2008.sept.16)

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here. https://www.ft.com/content/c2d50f1c-b18c-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439cThis is how we reported the day that Lehman went bust. The importance of the moment was obvious at the time. The credit crisis had been grinding on for more than a year, but by September 2008 US stocks were scarcely 20 per cent below their peak. That yardstick misled many into believing the crisis was nothing compared to the dotcom bust of 2000. Lehman was a huge deal, of course. But we also had to cram in the fire sale of Merrill Lynch, and the desperate straits for AIG, which was seeking a bailout after unwisely guaranteeing much of the credit that had gone bad. That is why the word “Lehman” does not hit you. It may seem obvious now that the market would fall on this news; but investors had assumed that there would be a rescue for Lehman, as there had been for Bear Stearns earlier in the year. Even if not, Lehman and its creditors and investors had had months to prepare for what had just happened. Some people we talked to that day were panicking; but many assumed that precautions had been taken, and damage would be limited. They were wrong.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Wall Street crisis: Lehman staff tell their stories(15 Sep 2008)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Wall Street crisis: Lehman staff tell their stories(15 Sep 2008)

Lehman Brothers employees in London and New York today described how many staff, some in tears, had already cleared their desks at the collapsed investment bank and and left the buildings.Some were swiftly on the phone to headhunters, as other polished up their résumés. In New York, tourists gathered outside Lehman's offices on 7th Avenue to take snaps as shocked employees left the building carrying boxes of personal possessions. Others headed to the company's cafeteria to use up remaining credit on their canteen cards.In London, one member of staff told how some of his colleagues had been in tears as news of the firm's demise had filtered through. Another described how staff were "finishing up", swapping contact details and boxing their belongings before going home.Graduate trainee Jack Reynolds, who had been at the company for just one week, left the bank's European headquarters building in Canary Wharf, London, carrying a Lehman Brothers branded umbrella and rugby ball."My career has been screwed," he said. "No one is happy. Everyone is upset and down but they've just got to get on with it."An internal communication was handed out to members of staff as they entered the building at Canary Wharf this morning. It read: "Our email earlier today provided high-level information regarding recent changes impacting the firm. We will update you as soon as possible on these developments and their impact on the UK business."In the interim, it is important that we do not commit any financial obligations to third parties until the situation is clearer. Accordingly, no trades or other transactions may be entered into by members of staff today without prior clearance from a member of the Europe and Middle East operating committee."We realise this will contribute to the uncertainty in the short term but this is a necessary precaution to protect your interests and those of the firm."Kirsty McCluskey, 32, who worked on Lehman's London trading floor, said her manager had promised her he would process her expenses. "It is terrible. Death. It's like a massive earthquake," she told reporters. "It's final. Everybody is just finishing up. I'll now try to move into another industry."Outside Lehman's worldwide headquarters in Midtown Manhattan this morning, tourists Harry and Jane Saunders were taking pictures of staff as they left the building. "We just got off a transatlantic cruise, we live in Arizona, so we don't see things like this very often. And this is very sad, very sad."They put the blame on President Bush, but said: "You can't expect the Federal Reserve to bail everybody out. We don't have enough money to bail everybody out." They said they felt they would be affected personally by the extraordinary events of the past few days: "Let's put it this way. We just got off a transatlantic cruise, right, and we had two more already lined up. We may cancel."The collapse of Lehman Brothers, which has lost billions of dollars on risky mortgage-backed investments, followed the failure of rescue talks over the weekend. Its US parent subsequently filed for bankruptcy protection in America early today, with administrators being called into its European headquarters in London hours later.In Britain, Lehman employs 4,000 staff in Canary Wharf. It also has an office in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, which is a subsidiary called Capstone Mortgage Services.As part of the UK administration, accountancy firm and administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) said a number of Lehman group companies remained solvent and would continue to trade. These companies include Lehman Brothers Asset Management (Europe), as well as others which manage property portfolios and loans.Today, Duo Ai, 26, who worked in research, said the atmosphere inside the building at Canary Wharf was one of shock. He said: "A lot of people are very sad. I heard someone was crying. I guess it's understandable if they invested a lot in Lehman stock."We really didn't see this coming. On Friday we were still holding out hope that some bank would buy Lehman. Everyone's understanding is that everyone is gone and everyone is clearing their desks."I couldn't sleep last night but stayed up talking about what was going to happen. The only question that remains is whether we will get this month's pay cheque."John Collins, 40, who works in equity derivatives product control, said he had been told not to come back tomorrow. "People are trying to put a brave face on it but obviously there are some disconsolate people in there who have taken it very badly," he said. "They say the economy is in its worst position since the 1920s. And they could be right. It's only the guys at the top who really know what's happening."In New York, Lehman workers also complained about lack of information. "We're not trading and we're just kind of waiting to hear," said one worker in fixed income. "We have gone straight to acceptance. We have gone through the stages of grief - there is not much you can do about it. People are getting their résumés together but it is not the best time to be looking for a job in financial services. But you do what you have to do. It was quick. It surprised me. But that is the pace of finance these days. Things can go that quickly they are so very highly leveraged."My opinion is that Dick Fuld probably held on too long - if something had happened a few months ago, we could probably have survived or we could have been acquired instead of going bankrupt."But it was "surprisingly calm," said one technology worker on the trading floors."People are kind of joking. Somebody said he was hoping he would get back a suit that somebody borrowed and never returned."It is obviously not a good place to be. But there is no crying or anything like that. Everybody is kind of being really strong about it. It has been getting worse and worse for so many months. I think we had a lot of hope over the weekend but by Sunday, people were saying, it looks like it is game over. Kind of a slow realisation, you know."We have had nothing at all about when they will put us in the picture. If you didn't know what was going on, and you went on some of the trading floors, you wouldn't see anything unusual, guys are standing, guys are talking, guys are at their computers."Most had turned up for work, said a Lehman IT worker. "People are in neutral and they are clearing things out. There is a bit of desk clearing going on; there has been desk clearing going since the weekend. There is some disbelief at the speed at which this happened."A trader, asked what his plans were, replied: "What am I going to do? Try and find a job. I am not at all confident in the current markets but you do what you can."

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

1999 Goes Into the Record Book on Wall Street(Jan. 1, 2000)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

1999 Goes Into the Record Book on Wall Street(Jan. 1, 2000)

Wall Street ended the millennium with an appropriate flourish on Friday, as major stock indexes closed at record highs amid signs that the feared Y2K bug was a no-show.But investors worldwide had basically been saying as much for months: The spectacular 1999 gains in equity markets from New York to Athens to Singapore were a strong vote not only for a smooth transition to the new millennium, but also for a booming global economy in the new year.Technology stocks, of course, were the driving force in the U.S. market in ’99. Ravenous demand by large and small investors alike for shares of semiconductor, software, Internet and telecommunications issues drove the Nasdaq composite index up 85.6% for the year, the greatest calendar-year advance of any major stock index in U.S. history.The previous record: The Dow Jones industrial average’s 81.7% surge in 1915.In a shortened trading session on Friday, while both the Nasdaq index and the Dow ended at new highs, the 28-year-old Nasdaq again showed the 103-year-old Dow who’s in charge now: Nasdaq jumped 32.44 points, or 0.8%, to 4,069.31, while the Dow rose half as much in percentage terms, adding 44.26 points to 11,497.12.Still, the blue-chip Dow’s 1999 advance of 25.2% beat the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index’s gain of 19.5%, thanks in part to Dow Jones & Co.’s decision to take a page out of Nasdaq’s book and add tech giants Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. to the 30-stock index on Nov. 1.Microsoft has since zoomed 26%; Intel has risen 8%.Many smaller technology stocks also have been red-hot in recent months, a factor in pushing the Russell 2,000 small-stock index this week to its first series of record closes since April 1998.On Friday, the Russell jumped 1.6% to a new high of 504.75.Some traders said that suggested bargain-hunters were snapping up depressed smaller stocks, hoping for a “January effect” bounce--a surge in shares that had been beaten down at year-end by tax-related selling.But that kind of bargain-hunting would have to be dramatic to bring many U.S. stocks into the bull market that tech stocks have enjoyed over the last year in particular.Indeed, a question raised over and over on Wall Street in 1999 was: Whose bull market is this, anyway?On Nasdaq, for example, nearly half of that market’s 5,000-some stocks actually declined in price in 1999, even as the Nasdaq composite index zoomed.A major problem for many stocks, though obviously not the tech sector, was the ongoing rise in interest rates. The Federal Reserve raised short-term rates three times during the year (in June, August and November), citing concerns that the U.S. economy’s tremendous growth rate might boost inflationary pressures.That made for sheer misery in the bond market: Bond values plummeted as the yield on the bellwether 30-year Treasury bond soared, closing 1999 at 6.48%, highest since late 1997 and up from 5.09% at the end of 1998.On a total return basis--counting interest earned, then subtracting the net loss in principal value--the Vanguard Long-Term Treasury bond mutual fund lost 8.1% for the year.Who could blame investors who gave up on bonds altogether and joined the tech-stock stampede?Interest rates also rose across Europe and in parts of East Asia as the global economic recovery gained steam.Higher rates, as expected, wreaked havoc with traditionally interest rate-sensitive stock groups, including banks, insurance companies, home builders and utilities.The Dow Jones utility stock index slumped 9.3% for the year. The Nasdaq bank stock index slid 8%.Assuming the Y2K computer bug remains only an annoyance, at worst, to the world economy, many experts believe the Fed is poised to tighten credit further in 2000, probably as early as February.But would that matter to the roaring tech and telecom sectors, even with stock price-to-earnings ratios at levels never before seen in the modern market?Though many investors may have already forgotten, the tech sector last summer demonstrated just how much downside there can be in richly valued stocks.Many Internet-related stocks, after peaking last spring, fell 50% or more by early August, wiping out billions in market value and panicking many investors into selling--at exactly the wrong time, in many cases.The Net sector then turned on a dime and roared again in late summer and into autumn. For the year, the Interactive Week Internet stock index soared 168.3%.With the heated action in many tech issues worldwide over the last two months, analysts have run out of superlatives to describe the phenomenon.The cult stocks of the end of one millennium--and the beginning of another--include wireless technology titan Qualcomm in the United States, consumer electronics giant Sony Corp. in Japan, cellular phone leader Nokia in Finland and Internet content company China.com in Hong Kong.The market’s bulls say there’s a fundamental basis for these stocks’ gains: technology is the future, after all; and many of these companies unquestionably boast the best growth prospects of any businesses on Earth.The market’s bears say this is like any other investment mania in history, only worse. It can only end in a crash of stock values, they say--at least for the tech sector, and possibly for the broader market.If that happens, it will be brought to the world in living color on the largest video screen in the world: Nasdaq’s newly opened MarketSite Tower in the heart of New York’s Times Square.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Tech Stocks Extend Slide; Nasdaq Ends 3.7% Lower(Sept. 18, 2001)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Tech Stocks Extend Slide; Nasdaq Ends 3.7% Lower(Sept. 18, 2001)

Technology stocks extended their losses Thursday as investors continued to assess the economic fallout from last week's terrorist attacks.The Nasdaq Composite fell 56.87, or 3.7%, to finish at 1470.93, after losing 1.8% Wednesday. Morgan Stanley's High Tech Index shed 16.57 to 369.01 and the Dow Jones Internet Index lost 2.43 to 40.71.On Capitol Hill, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress the terrorist attacks had disrupted the business activity in a number of ways, including a drop in consumer spending and travel and the stock market's four-day shutdown last week (see article). But Mr. Greenspan also said, "I am confident that we will recover and prosper as we have in the past."Software stocks continued to tumble as investors worried that the terrorist attacks would hamper companies ability to close sales in the final weeks of the September quarter."All software is down. The sector is definitely under pressure," John Rizzuto, software analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston Corp., said.PeopleSoft slipped 75 cents to $19.99, Siebel Systems shares lost $1.01 to $14, and CheckPoint Software fell $1.52 to $25.41, all on the Nasdaq Stock Market.Cadence Design Systems dropped 69 cents to $16.23 on the New York Stock Exchange. John O. Barr, an analyst with Robertson Stephens cut his earnings and revenue estimates for the integrated-circuit design software provider amid continued weakness in information-technology spending. Mr. Barr now expects third-quarter earnings of 19 cents a share on revenue of $347.4 million, below his previous estimates.SAP fell 50 cents to $23 on the Big Board. The German software giant said Thursday it will meet its earnings expectations for the first nine months of 2001, calming investors' jitters, but the German software giant left the door open to revise its full-year targets (see article).EMC added 10 cents to $12.70 on the Big Board. The data-storage giant said Thursday it has acquired closely held Luminate Software for about $50 million in cash. Luminate develops performance-monitoring software for storage-intensive applications and operating environments.Microsoft slid $3.11 to $50.76 on Nasdaq. The software giant called the remedies sought by the Justice Department in its antitrust case "improper" in its latest court filing, as the company prepares for a meeting next week with the new judge in the case (see article).Meanwhile, Applied Materials and 3Com joined the list of companies announcing job cuts this week. Applied Materials fell $1.63 to $29.49, while 3Com gained 10 cents to $3.79, both on Nasdaq.Chip maker Applied Materials said Thursday it plans to reduce its work force by about 2,000 positions, or 10%. It said it will take an undisclosed restructuring charge in the fiscal fourth quarter ending Oct. 28 (see article).Networking-gear maker 3Com late Wednesday reported a wider-than-expected quarterly loss on a steep slide in revenue. The company also announced it will cut 1,000 more jobs than previously planned (see article).Elsewhere, Leap Wireless International climbed $1.06 to $14.01 on Nasdaq after the wireless Internet company gained some flexibility in its financing agreements with vendors Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson, Lucent Technologies and Nortel Networks by amending covenants relating to capital expenditures and gross revenue.Priceline.com rose 26 cents to $2.29 on Nasdaq. Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa, two shareholders with a total stake of 27% in the Internet travel service, withdrew their request to file a shelf registration, which would have let them sell Priceline shares.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Taking Stock of the Numbers That Shaped Markets in 2001(From the Wall Street Journal Europe) ( Jan. 4, 2002)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Taking Stock of the Numbers That Shaped Markets in 2001(From the Wall Street Journal Europe) ( Jan. 4, 2002)

Numbers make the markets go 'round. So any conversation about equities is usually peppered with references to the highs, the lows and the ratios that try to make sense of it all.As markets enter a new trading year, here are data points for Europe and the U.S. that will help investors get through any cocktail conversation that revolves around investing and what happened in 2001.Europe17The Dow Jones Stoxx Index of 600 European blue chips fell 17% in 2001, its worst year since 1990. The index ended the year at 298.73, a long way from 359.79 at the start of 2001.The index was rarely in the black and hit its closing high of 362.47 on Jan. 29. The closing low, 235.90, came at the end of a manic week following the resumption of trading in New York Sept. 17. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. shut down the New York Stock Exchange for four days.The bright spot: Those who invested the first day trading resumed earned 26.6% through the end of the year.11Germany's Neuer Markt, the darling of European indexes in 2000, wasn't so cool only a year later. The exchange for small-company stocks couldn't even average one initial public offering per month -compared with one every other working day in 2000, when 133 companies went public. The last of the year's 11 IPOs came July 24, when init innovation in traffic systems AG raised 59.8 million euros ($54 million).It was a dud year all around for IPOs. The total number of offerings in Europe, the Middle East and Africa collapsed 71% to 183 from 639 a year earlier, according to investment-banking research firm Dealogic CommScan.1,442,000,000That is the value in pounds of shares outstanding in Railtrack PLC, the formerly state-owned railway-network operator that the Labor government put in administration Oct. 8. Its shares haven't traded since.Angry shareholders have banded into a handful of groups and continue to threaten lawsuits in an effort to recover their money.FourUnlike the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank was as slow as molasses in cutting interest rates in 2001. Its 18 members agreed to do so just four times. The repo rate ended the year at 3.25%, down from 4.5% at the start of the year.83.48The euro hit its low against the dollar July 6 when it was valued at just 83.48 U.S. cents. Euro bashers can note with glee that it represented an 11.4% drop in purchasing power from the start of the year, when it was valued at 94.24 cents.It has since made up half those losses; it ended the year at 89.15 cents.14,889,900,000While the ECB did little on the interest-rate front, it was busy overseeing the introduction of euro notes and coins. The 12 national central banks cranked out 14.89 billion banknotes -- some of which they will keep for themselves for emergencies. Each country also minted a total of 51,611,000,000 coins. Taken together, that is about 636 billion euros in cash making its way into the hands of 306 million Europeans.674,157,863While most exchanges across Europe reported sizable drops in trading volume, markets listing futures and options contracts were busier than ever. Eurex, the Swiss-German derivatives exchange, retained its title as the world's largest exchange with a 48% jump in the number of contracts traded, to 674,157,863.The U.S.FourWall Street's most harrowing stretch was four days when nothing traded at all.The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks transformed downtown Manhattan into a disaster zone and prompted a four-day halt in U.S. stock trading, the longest such stoppage since the Great Depression. Fearful of a market collapse when trading resumed, Wall Street rushed to set aside many longstanding rules and rivalries -- with mixed success. For example, federal regulators took the unusual step of relaxing nearly 20-year-old restrictions on when and how corporations can repurchase their own stock. The move unleashed share-repurchase announcements from hundreds of companies, but it didn't stop the Dow industrials from staging the biggest one-day point drop ever when trading picked up on Sept. 17.307,509,225,893The New York Stock Exchange certainly had lots of reasons to feel magnanimous.More than a quarter-trillion of them. Despite the historic trading halt in September, not to mention a war and a recession, a record 307.51 billion shares changed hands on the Big Board in 2001. That is well above 2000's total volume of 262.5 billion, itself a record high at the time. Way back in 1991, when a different Bush was waging a different war and we stood at the eve of a different recession, total trading volume on the NYSE was a mere 45.3 billion shares.690While the Big Board boomed, the Nasdaq withered. Hard hit by the decline in stock prices and the dearth of initial public offerings, the Nasdaq Stock Market has lost 690 listed companies since the end of 2000, according to data from the Nasdaq Web site. As of mid-December, the Nasdaq reported having 4,044 stocks listed on its Nasdaq National Market and the Nasdaq SmallCap Market, putting it on track to finish the year with its leanest roster since 1983.Although its cachet soared along with the 1990s tech boom, Nasdaq's ranks have been falling since 1997. That is when Nasdaq tightened its listing requirements to exclude any stock that trades below $1 (1.11 euros) for more than 30 days.92Staging an IPO, a glamour event in 1999, became an arduous challenge in 2001.Only 92 companies managed to reach the public markets, compared with 396 in 2000, according to Dealogic. For most of 2001, tight-fisted institutional investors balked at buying new issues, prompting more than 160 companies to scrap their previously filed IPO applications altogether. But business picked up in the fourth quarter with 31 IPOs, or more than a third of the year's total.3,287.71It is little wonder investors lost their stomach for IPOs, with the Dow industrials lurching 3,287.71 points from peak to trough during the year. A particularly unlucky soul who bought a basket of Dow stocks at the May 21 peak and sold at the Sept. 21 nadir would have seen his or her holdings shrink 29%. (Since the lows in September, however, the major stocks indexes have surged on hopes of an economic recovery.)6,447,893,636Not everyone is toasting the year-end rally, however. Judging from levels of short interest, or the number of open bets that stocks will fall, the recent run-up has brought out the bears as well. As of the last count in mid-December, short interest on NYSE-listed stocks rose 2.8% to more than 6.4 billion shares, notching its 10th monthly record in a row. (Some strategists consider increasing short interest to be a positive indicator, because it represents an obligation to buy stocks later on.)54It required 54 pages to list all the unsecured creditors of Enron and its subsidiaries. That is a list to make a short-seller grin.11Enron's stock wasn't the only thing that cratered in 2001: The federal funds interest rate got sliced 11 times, bringing it to levels not seen since the Berlin Wall was in its glory. Hoping in vain to ward off a recession, the Federal Reserve's policy makers chopped interest-rate targets throughout the year, most recently at their Dec. 11 meeting. But the power of the Fed to stimulate the economy was hampered by a bond market that stubbornly refused to let long-term interest rates fall as fast as the Fed committee might have wished.620So where will stocks be this time next year? Pick a number -- the odds are pretty good that you will land somewhere within the gaping 620-point window of forecasts for the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index.Major stock strategists predict that the S&P could settle anywhere from 950 to 1570 at the end of 2002, reflecting vastly different outlooks on the prospects for a quick rebound in the economy and in corporate profits. From its current level of 1148.08, an S&P of 950 would require a drop of 17%. To reach a target of 1570, the S&P would have to rise by 37%.ZeroReality check: Despite their painstaking prognostications, not one of these strategists correctly predicted the severity of the S&P 500's decline in 2001.Year-end forecasts had ranged from 1225 to 1715, all above the S&P's closing price for year-end 2001 of 1148.08.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Nasdaq Sinks 3.4% As Market Staggers To Dismal Year End(Jan. 1, 2001)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Nasdaq Sinks 3.4% As Market Staggers To Dismal Year End(Jan. 1, 2001)

Technology stocks retreated Friday, dragging the Nasdaq Composite Index down 3.4% and cementing 2000 as its worst year on record. Blue chips failed to extend a five-day run of gains, leaving the Dow Jones Industrial Average with its poorest one-year performance since 1981.The Nasdaq composite dropped 87.24 to 2470.52, ending the year down 39%. It was the index's worst year since the market measure was created in 1971, surpassing its 1974 drop of 35%.Meanwhile, the industrial average sank 81.91, or 0.8%, to 10786.85, closing down 6.2% for the year -- its first annual loss since 1990.Other major indexes finished lower. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell 13.94, or 1%, to 1320.28. The New York Stock Exchange Composite Index sank 3.03 to 656.87, and the Russell 2000 Index of small-capitalization stocks fell 10.50, or 2.1%, to 483.53.Hopes that the market would finish 2000 on a positive note were dashed. The main indexes showed some early strength, but the Nasdaq composite retreated amid declines by the year's hard-hit tech bellwethers, including Cisco Systems , Microsoft , Intel , Yahoo and Dell Computer . The industrial average exhibited a lack of direction for most of the day before sinking in late trading.Internet stocks led the Nasdaq composite lower, with the Dow Jones Composite Internet Index dropping 6.5%. Most other tech shares were weak. The transportation sector got a boost from airline stocks, and retailers also advanced. The S&P retail index rose 1.1% as Dow components Home Depot and Wal-Mart Stores rose.Many on Wall Street are happy to put this year behind them. Technology stocks have been the biggest losers, dragging down Nasdaq composite in contrast with 1999's record surge of nearly 86%. The industrial average rose 25% last year."You have to remember that in 1999 the Nasdaq went into a manic phase," said Larry Wachtel, market strategist at Prudential Securities. "In the year 2000, we unraveled that manic phase. I have a hard time getting out the crying towels. ... We're back to sobriety here."Financial markets are closed Monday, giving investors another three-day weekend to catch their breath.The bond market closed early Friday ahead of the New Year's holiday, with bonds ending mixed . Bond prices posted solid gains in 2000, mostly due to a late-year rally as it became increasingly evident that the U.S. economy was slowing. Government securities are seen as a safe-haven investment during times of economic uncertainty or a stock-market slump. The 10-year note's yield fell more than a full percentage point in 2000 to 5.11% Friday, from 6.43% a year ago.The dollar was lower Friday. It made sharp gains against the yen this year, and also climbed against the euro. The U.S. currency rose 12% against the yen, while the euro dipped 6.4% against the dollar in 2000.Fears that the economy is slowing too quickly, hurting corporate profits as a result, have driven the market's performance in recent months. The tech sector felt little but pain for most of the year as the Internet bubble burst and investors adopted a more cautious stance. Defensive issues, including tobacco, energy, and health-care and pharmaceutical stocks, outperformed the broader market in 2000 amid the uncertainty.Dow component Philip Morris rose 91% this year. The S&P pharmaceutical index jumped 35% in 2000, and Merck gained 38%. Microsoft finished the year down 63%, and fellow tech bellwether Intel lost 28% this year. AT&T dropped 66%, and Internet stocks took a beating, with Yahoo! down 86%.The Dow Jones Composite Internet Index sank 66% for the year and is off 73% from its high. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index lost 18% and is off 58% from its high.The Nasdaq composite closed Friday off 51% from its March 10 high, while the industrial average lost a milder 8% from its high point on Jan. 14. The S&P 500 finished off 10% for the year and down 14% from its high March 24, but the NYSE Composite managed to finish up 1% for the year and off 3.1% from its record close Sept. 1.Alan Ackerman, executive vice president and market strategist at Fahnestock, said investors are weary after the tumultuous year on Wall Street. He said all eyes will be on the Federal Reserve to pull the economy -- and the stock market -- out of its slump. Hopes that the Fed would cut rates in December weren't realized, sending stocks sliding earlier in the month."The future of the market clearly depends on whether the Fed is going to be friendly to the economy," Mr. Ackerman said. "My outlook is cautiously optimistic until we know what the Fed is going to do. The world is in the midst of an economic slowdown, and it needs a catalyst. That catalyst may be the Fed lowering rates one or more times in the next year."Ricky Harrington, a technical analyst a Wachovia Securities, said the prospect that the Fed may cut rates in January, coupled with a bounce from the tech sector's heavy losses, could lift the market early next year. On Dec. 20, the Nasdaq composite hit its lowest close since March 1999 of 2332.78. But the cloudy economic outlook will continue to loom over the market."As for January and the early part of the year, I think there is likely to be a further recovery in the Nasdaq and many of these depressed areas," Mr. Harrington said. "But the year 2001 I think will still be a second bear market year for the Nasdaq. Stocks are still overvalued, and the economy is clearly heading into a slowdown or something worse."Outside the U.S., European markets closed mixed Friday, with Frankfurt's key index rising 1%. In the Asian-Pacific region, markets finished mixed as Tokyo stocks ended down 27% for the year. Year-end window dressing offered some support in the region.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Another Tech Bubble? Maybe Not (April 16, 2012)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Another Tech Bubble? Maybe Not (April 16, 2012)

It's beginning to feel frothy in Silicon Valley. Here are a few numbers:On the first day of its initial public offering LinkedIn was valued at nearly $9 billion; today the social networking site is worth more than $10 billion. Instagram, a company with no profits, no revenue and no plan to make money, was just bought for a cool billion. The buyer was Facebook, a firm in the process of going public.And those values are nothing compared with what Facebook may be worth itself. That company is expected to be valued at between $80 billion and $100 billion after its IPO later this spring.But is this a bubble? Is the considerable exuberance in this part of the world irrational?Here in Silicon Valley you hear some version of this statement all the time: "This is different. I was here in the 1990s and these companies are not Pets.com."Investors and entrepreneurs have been saying this to each other for years, in part because it is true. Facebook generated $1 billion in profit last year. It's still almost doubling its revenue and profit year to year and it's doing all of that with a relatively small workforce.Instagram created a social network of 30 million people with just over a dozen employees. These companies have created ways to connect millions and build enormous audiences incredibly efficiently. That is worth something. The question is, what?Jean-Paul Rodrigue, a professor at Hofstra University, published an influential chart just before the financial bubble burst in 2008. He broke bubbles down into four stages:Steve Blank is a serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. He says we have sailed through the stealth phase of the current technology investment cycle. We are past the point where big investors are aware of the opportunities in mobile and social companies and we're rapidly entering into a period of manic excitement of the next wave of Internet companies.But Blank says not all bubbles are created equal — not all bubbles are bad. "Bubbles built the railroads," he says. "Bubbles built the steel industry." He believes many of the technologies that are attracting so much excitement right now have the potential to change the way we live and how the economy works.That may be. But prices are high enough now that many wonder whether companies like Facebook can justify their own hype. When investors talk about bubbles, typically they end up comparing a company's profits with its share price. The price-to-earnings ratio is a staple of evaluating a stock. ExxonMobil's P/E ratio hovers around 10. That means the company is valued at something like 10 times its annual profit.Apple has a P/E ratio of 17. That's high compared with historical averages, but Apple's earnings have been growing incredibly fast and the company is sitting on $100 billion in cash. And its stock looks positively cheap in comparison with the latest crop of social media companies that are going public.If after Facebook's initial public offering it's valued at more than $100 billion it will have a P/E ratio of 100 to 1. And that's a bargain compared with LinkedIn, which is trading at a ratio of between 800 and 900 to 1. These are bubblicious prices.To justify its projected IPO price to more conventional investors, Facebook will need to double its earnings every year for the next three or four years. Those who sell now may realize windfalls and those who buy have to hope for years of exceptional growth or they will be left holding the bag.But Blank says this may not be bad news for the economy as a whole."Unlike other bubbles — housing bubbles and financial bubbles — nerds don't buy yachts. They seem to reinvest in their own domain," he says.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Why this Time the Tech Bubble is Different(May 4, 2022)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Why this Time the Tech Bubble is Different(May 4, 2022)

We are in a stock market carnage. Pandemic darling stocks Zoom, Peloton, Carvana, and many other NASDAQ stocks have tumbled from their highs. FAANG + Microsoft stocks have lost close to $1.4 trillion of value due to the market meltdown in April. We are in a “tech bubble” but this time the bubble is different.Going back to 2001The 2000 and 2001 tech bubble was different than what we are seeing now. The early 2000s tech stock bubble happened mainly due to tech stock speculation mania. This was the time when the internet was created. Many visionaries rightfully saw the internet as the most important innovation since the industrial revolution (similar to how Bitcoin is now). Private (venture capital) and public market money poured into these internet companies. Investment banks paid analysts bonuses for pumping up buy ratings of worthless doc com businesses to get more business from these companies. In 2000, at the height of the tech stock boom, NASDAQ IPOs raised $54 billion. This was an all-time high. Between 1995 and 2001, 439 dot-com businesses went public. During the 4th quarter of 1999, an average of $160 million was invested in private tech companies per day. Of course, all good things must come to an end. As you can see below, the speculation mania ended as the NASDAQ reached new highs on March 10th, 2002 (reaching 5048.62 points). The NASDAQ hits its low on October 9th, 2002. This decimated valuations of so many tech companies and bankrupted so many dot com businesses. But of course, from the crash came some of the most valuable companies in the world like Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and Meta (formerly Facebook), which happen to be technology companies.Now Let’s Come Back to 2022If the early 2000s tech bubble was an investor led mania, the 2010s and early 2020s stock market boom is a monetary policy created mania. Zero % interest rates, cheap money, and money printing has been a boon for assets. Just see below growth of financial asset value relative to US GDP (courtesy: St. Louis Fed FRED).Also, shown below is Federal Reserve M2 Money Printing correlated to the US stock market growth (courtesy: Man Yin To | Seeking Alpha Contributor).Easy money and record low interest rates (while the average joe pay high credit card and student loan interest rates) has inflated asset values. Cheap money and low interest rates have made investors searching high return returns. This has led money to flow into commercial real estate, single family homes, tech startups, mortgage backed securities, commercial mortgage backed securities, and the stock market. Also, the rise of passive investing and ETFs (like Vanguard) have made money from individual investors and retirement accounts to flow into blue chip US stocks.Overall, the Fed is stuck in a rock and a hard place. Years of low interest rates and money printing has created the greatest asset bubble in history. Now the world is seeing unpresented inflation. If the Fed raise rates 8–9 times as the Fed has planned, expect a recession and financial markets to collapse. This was probably tolerable in the 70s, early 2000s, and even 2008. But now the US is heavily financialized. So many retirement accounts are going to lose value by almost half. Wall Street does not want the music to stop and the Fed knows this fact. But the Fed also does not want inflation to run amuck. This is also a crucial year for the US given that the country is having its Midterm elections. Majority of Americans disapprove or President Biden’s actions, which signals bad news for the Democratic Party, which holds majority in both the US House of Representatives and Senate. On a recent podcast, Morgan Creek’s capital Mark Yusko mentioned that the we’ll be lucky to have 3 fed rate hikes. I echo Mark’s sentiment. The fed wants to fight inflation while not rocking the boat. In this case, the Fed is going to tread very carefully.Overall, the decade of the 2010s is going to be mainly defied by money printing and the rise of Web 2.0. But we are already seeing the cracks. Tech stocks, including the FAANGs, are in free fall. One of the most respected tech investors, Chase Coleman of Tiger Global, has lost 44% YTD. Cathie Wood’s signature Ark Invest ETF is down nearly 40% YTD. But the worst is yet to come. Food inflation is at an all-time high. We are also seeing many sovereign nations lose faith in the US Dollar and de-dollarization is accelerating. With more rate hikes by the Fed to control inflation expect a harsher reaction from financial markets. I do not have a crystal ball to predict what will happen in the future. But what is known for sure is that global uncertainty and risk will only increase. We are still in for some pain.But with pain comes opportunity. Now is the time to go bargain hunting on some really good investments (as we have mentioned here, here, here, here, and here). After the tech bubble burst, some of the most valuable and important companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google came from the tech space. This is while useless “dot-com” companies with no sales went bust. Also similar to the last tech bubble, we are witnessing the birth of the new technology and asset class: Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and crypto are going to create the next wave of finance and decentralized applications. As investors are seeking places to allocate their capital, expect more money to go into crypto. Same can be true for commodities, climate change technology, and emerging market equities. Useless companies that went up thanks to money printing are just going to collapse and go bankrupt. Strong emerging tech companies are going to be the next billion- and trillion-dollar companies. As this “everything bubble” bursts, expect some gems to rise up from the ashes.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Pop Goes the Nasdaq!(2000-3-10)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Pop Goes the Nasdaq!(2000-3-10)

The boom is more accurately described as a bubble, since it rested largely on wild stock speculation and freewheeling venture-capital investment that resulted in the often ludicrous overvaluation of sketchy internet companies. Established business practices -- for example, asking questions like "What do you guys actually do?" -- were being ignored by investors and VCs hoping to cash in quick on new models that often were no models at all.The frenzy was built on what seemed to be the limitless potential of the internet as a cash cow for those daring enough to take risks. In the end, e-commerce did become a big deal, but it has evolved pretty much along conventional business lines.Big companies predominate and smaller entrepreneurs with a solid plan can thrive. The Jolt Cola kids, and their skateboards and Foosball tables, have largely passed from the scene.On March 9, 2000, however, the sky was still the limit. But the euphoria, built as it was on smoke and mirrors, couldn't last. And it didn't.On March 10, the Nasdaq Composite index peaked, more than doubling its value of a year before. But then the slide began, and it was a precipitous drop, which is why March 10 is generally considered the day the bubble burst.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

‘Price bubble’ in A.I. stocks will wreck rally, economist David Rosenberg predicts(May 25 2023)

Neutral

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

‘Price bubble’ in A.I. stocks will wreck rally, economist David Rosenberg predicts(May 25 2023)

Investors piling into stocks with artificial intelligence exposure may pay a hefty price.Economist David Rosenberg, a bear known for his contrarian views, believes enthusiasm surrounding AI has become a major distraction from recession risks.“No question that we have a price bubble,” the Rosenberg Research president told CNBC’s “Fast Money” on Thursday.According to Rosenberg, the AI surge has striking similarities to the late 1990s dot-com boom —particularly when it comes to the Nasdaq 100 breakout over the past six months.″[This] looks very weird,” said Rosenberg, who served as Merrill Lynch’s chief North American economist from 2002 to 2009. “It’s way overextended.”This week, Nvidia’s blowout quarter helped drive AI excitement to new levels. The chipmaker boosted its yearly forecast after delivering a strong quarterly earnings beat after Wednesday’s market close. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang cited booming demand for its AI chips.Nvidia stock gained more than 24% after the report and is now up 133% over the last six months. AI competitors Alphabet, Microsoft and Palantir are also seeing a stock surge.In a recent note to clients, Rosenberg warned the rally is on borrowed time.“There are breadth measures for the S&P 500 that are the worst since 1999. Just seven mega-caps have accounted for 90% of this year’s price performance,” Rosenberg wrote. “You look at the tech weighting in the S&P 500 and it is up to 27%, where it was heading into 2000 as the dotcom bubble was peaking out and soon to roll over in spectacular fashion.”While mega cap tech outperforms, Rosenberg sees ominous trading activity in banks, consumer discretionary stocks and transports.“They have the highest torque to GDP. They’re down more than 30% from the cycle highs,” Rosenberg said. “They’re actually behaving in the exact same pattern they have going into the past four recessions.”

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

One major divergence in the market is giving a top trader dot-com bubble flashbacks(Oct 16 2019)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

One major divergence in the market is giving a top trader dot-com bubble flashbacks(Oct 16 2019)

JPMorgan , Johnson & Johnson and UnitedHealth unofficially kicked off the reporting period this week, sending broad markets within reach of all-time highs. But the positive earnings results belie a major divergence occurring in the market. While the S&P 500 has risen 20% this year, earnings growth is expected to climb by just 1% in 2019. “We can have these divergences take place but usually not to this degree,” Matt Maley, equity strategist at Miller Tabak, said on CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Tuesday. “We saw it in 2015 where we had an earnings recession — earnings went down and the stock market was flat. Well, this year we have earnings that are flat and may end up being down. … That’s quite a divergence.” Maley says he has not seen a mismatch between the stock market’s performance and corporate earnings as large as this in more than two decades. “You very rarely get that kind of divergence that lasts very long. We had it to a smaller degree in 2012, and we definitely had it back in 1997, and the market continued to move higher but that of course was in the middle of a bubble,” he said. During the dot-com bubble of the ’90s, valuations were driven sky-high by investors eager to buy into internet and high-growth companies. From a low in October 1998 to a peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Composite rocketed nearly 280%. However, once that bubble burst in 2000, the index fell 79% in 18 months. “Unless you’re really looking for a big bubble here going forward, it’s kind of hard to be bullish on the broad S&P. That doesn’t mean that we have to have a correction or a recession or anything like that, but I do think it’s means that between now and at least the election next year, stock picking and group picking is going to be the main priority,” said Maley. While earnings growth might not be anemic to nonexistent, Joule Financial President Quint Tatro says monetary policy could be enough to support a path to stock market gains. “It’s all about the ‘non-QE that’s really QE’ that we’re getting here from the Fed and you can’t fight the Fed,” Tatro said during the same segment. Tatro adds that with the U.S. saying it has made progress with China on trade talks, this environment is looking especially attractive for investors. “With what looks like China trade at least not a daily headline for the time being, that’s allowing the market to breathe a sigh of relief as we’ve been seeing,” he said. “We think that this is going to last a good while as long as we continue to see this sort of truce playing out with China. Now those headlines come back in, valuations and earnings are going to matter again very quickly and investors should be aware of that.”

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Wall Street is getting very bullish as stocks hit records. Here’s why that’s worrisome(Nov 15 2019)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Wall Street is getting very bullish as stocks hit records. Here’s why that’s worrisome(Nov 15 2019)

As the S&P 500 has broken out of its trading range into record highs, euphoria has been growing — fast.Technicians like Stephen Suttmeier at Bank of America Merrill Lynch have been positively giddy recently, noting a bullish rotation into cyclicals, but also to value from growth, high beta from low volatility, cyclicals from defensives and small caps from large caps.It’s not just technicians. Strategists and retail investors are gaga with enthusiasm:1) Barclays says small caps are at an inflection point and poised to outperform: “Headwinds have subsided,” they declare.2) Bank of America also expects the cyclical rally will continue: “We think the stage is set for a restocking-driven recovery in Spring 2020 to extend the cyclical rally.”3) Morgan Stanley also loves the rotation: “We think a secular rotation from Growth to Value is beginning.”Even the average retail investor is getting bulled up. The American Association of Individual Investors’ weekly sentiment survey showed 40.7% of respondents are bullish, the highest levels since May, while only 23.8% are bearish, also near the lowest levels since May.Why is everyone so excited?The combination of a neutral/accommodative Fed and a better global growth outlook for 2020 are key factors in the euphoria, but the other factors are the seasonal strength and a belief that a China deal on tariffs will eventually be signed.Futures were jumping again on Friday as the White House signaled once again that the signing of the first part of the trade deal was close.“Everybody seems to think that FOMO [Fear of Missing Out] will cause institutional players to buy, buy, buy into the end of the year,” Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak, told me. “Everyone is saying that the only thing that can throw a wrench in the works is a breakdown in the Phase One [China] negotiations and nobody thinks that will happen (because both sides need some sort of smaller deal),” he wrote to me.Good or bad news?All this euphoria would be great if we were coming off of a big sell-off — but we’re not. The major indexes are at new highs as is the advance/decline line. Put it all together, and the market is clearly overbought.Tony Dwyer, senior managing director and chief market strategist at Cannacord Genuity, thinks investors should be cautious, citing the extreme overbought conditions, increased optimism, low volatility and a smaller number of stocks above their recent 10- and 50-day moving averages. “All four intermediate-term indicators suggest waiting to add exposure,” Dwyer wrote in a recent note.Some things never changeSome astute market observers are not impressed: They say there is nothing new under the sun. Brian Belski, managing director and chief investment strategist at BMO, noted that many on Wall Street are habitually late to the party.“In my almost 30 years on Wall Street, some things never change, namely, people get bullish after the market rallies,” Belski wrote to me.He does believe there is “some froth” as everyone on Wall Street chases performance going into the end of the year.“This does not mean the rally is over,” Belski said. “It just means they are late and undisciplined.”

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Event

WorldCom's financial bomb(June 26, 2002)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

WorldCom's financial bomb(June 26, 2002)

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Confidence in Corporate America hit new lows Wednesday as President Bush, Congress and other federal regulators vowed to investigate WorldCom while securities analysts forecast bankruptcy for the latest firm to fool investors with inflated profits. WorldCom, which will downwardly restate financial results in one of the biggest accounting scandals in history, joins Enron, Global Crossing and Tyco International among the tarnished success stories of the 1990s. graphic graphic Save a link to this article and return to it at www.savethis.comSave a link to this article and return to it at www.savethis.com Email a link to this articleEmail a link to this article Printer-friendly version of this articlePrinter-friendly version of this article View a list of the most popular articles on our siteView a list of the most popular articles on our site graphic graphic "No one blow is going to be terminal," said Pete Peterson, the chairman of Blackstone Group "But this is another very serious one. All this does is add to the increasing loss of confidence in our systems." Peterson leads a group of investors that includes the heads of TIAA-CREF, the big pension fund and Vanguard, the mutual fund company, that are drawing up corporate governance recommendations. Bush Wednesday promised a full investigation into WorldCom's accounting problems following word that the No 2 long-distance telephone provider improperly booked $3.8 billion over the past five quarters. The mis-accounting made earnings look better than they really were. "We will fully investigate and hold all people accountable for misleading not only shareholders but employees as well," said Bush, who called the news "outrageous." "Those entrusted with shareholders' money must strive for the highest of standards." Hours later, the SEC filed a civil lawsuit against WorldCom, charging the company with fraud. "We're seeking orders that will prevent any dissipation of assets or payouts to senior corporate officers past or present, and preventing any destruction of documents," SEC chairman Harvey Pitt said in New York. The Federal Communications Commission is also taking some steps in the scandal. FCC Chairman Michael Powell said Wednesday that he was "deeply concerned" by the WorldCom developments and their impact on the telecom industry. Powell said he will travel to New York on Friday and meet with a variety of telephone industry officials, analysts and debt-rating agencies to assess the challenges facing industry. "We are closely monitoring the situation and are doing everything possible to ensure and protect both the stability of the telecommunications network and the quality of service to consumers," Powell said in a statement. Investors Wednesday could not trade WorldCom shares, which were halted after falling more than 98 percent from their all-time high through Tuesday. But the overall stock market ended little changed, recovering from an earlier tumble. The Justice Department is also looking into WorldCom, a spokesman said at a midday briefing, joining a Congressional panel, which vowed an inquiry of its own. Memories of Enron The latest accounting misdeeds unnerved investors leery about the accuracy of corporate profits after the collapse of Enron Corp., which filed the biggest bankruptcy in the United States last December. Arthur Andersen LLP, found guilty earlier this month of obstructing justice in the Enron case, signed off on WorldCom's books. "Our senior management team is shocked by these discoveries," WorldCom CEO John Sidgmore, who was appointed in April, said in a statement. "We are committed to operating WorldCom in accordance with the highest ethical standards." The news late Tuesday from WorldCom prompted industry analysts to say the heavily indebted long-distance provider might file for bankruptcy protection from creditors. WorldCom is looking for about $4 billion in financing but some of its main bank lenders, including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan and Citigroup, are refusing to loan them any more, banking sources told CNN/Money. "They will have to file bankruptcy in a matter of days," a person familiar with the situation said. But other bankers close to the situation said it was too early to say whether WorldCom will file for bankruptcy soon. graphic Related stories The death of confidence The last straw Analysts punish telecoms In addition to describing improper accounting, WorldCom said it would cut 17,000 jobs, about a quarter of its work force, and fired Chief Financial Officer Scott Sullivan. David Myers, senior vice president and controller, resigned. The company, based in Clinton, Miss., said an internal audit showed that expenses of $3.1 billion for 2001 and nearly $800 million for the first quarter of 2002 were improperly accounted for. WorldCom said restating the expenses to account for their true costs would cut reported cash flow -- or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and other items -- for last year and the first quarter of 2002. While CEO Sidgmore said the company remains "viable and committed to a long-term future,"Adam Quinton, who covers WorldCom for Merrill Lynch, said the developments bring the company closer to bankruptcy. "This only adds to investor wariness," said Quinton, who advises investors to sell shares. Nervous times WorldCom's revelations may deter already reluctant customers from buying communications services. And its access to existing lines of credit may also dry up as banks demand repayment. "The development brings into serious question the company's ability to close on a new bank deal and it raises the likelihood the company will file for Chapter 11 [bankruptcy protection]," Marc Crossman, who follows the company for J.P. Morgan, wrote in a note to clients Wednesday morning. But one banker close to the situation said that WorldCom has $2 billion in cash that they have yet to burn through, making bankruptcy unlikely. "This is vastly different from Enron," the person said. "The $2 billion will last them several months." The SEC said WorldCom had committed "accounting improprieties of unprecedented magnitude" -- proof, it said, of the need for reform in the regulation of corporate accounting. To finance that reform, the House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to authorize a 77 percent boost in the SEC's budget, raising it to $776 million for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. Elsewhere, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said he ordered a separate WorldCom probe. "Clearly, it was an orchestrated effort to mislead investors and regulators, and I am determined to get to the bottom of it," said committee chairman Billy Tauzin, R-La. The accounting mishap comes during a tough time for WorldCom, which could face Nasdaq delisting if its share price remains below $1. The company's market value had tumbled to $2.7 billion at the close of trading Tuesday, from about $125 billion in mid-1999. Salomon Smith Barney Telecom Analyst Jack Grubman -- who had been perhaps the most bullish analyst on WorldCom -- cut his rating to "underperform" just a day before the company's announcement Tuesday. WorldCom said it asked its new auditors, KPMG LLP, to undertake a comprehensive audit of the company's financial statements for 2001 and 2002. The company will reissue unaudited financial statements for 2001 and for the first quarter of 2002 as soon as it can. John Hodulik, who covers WorldCom for UBS Warburg, said the restatement should reduce WorldCom Inc.'s reported 2001 "cash flow" by 32.5 percent to $6.3 billion and first quarter results by 36.9 percent to $797 million. "We are unable to provide a realistic price target until we have reliable financials," said Hodulik, who rates the company's stock a "hold." Click here for a look at what other analysts are saying about WorldCom. Selling assets In addition to the 17,000 job cuts, the company said it is selling a series of non-core businesses, part of a plan to save $2 billion. WorldCom stock began falling in late 1999 as businesses slashed spending on telecom services and equipment. A series of debt downgrades this year have raised borrowing costs for WorldCom, which is struggling with about $32 billion in debt. WorldCom said it has no debt maturing during the next two quarters. Former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers resigned in April amid questions about $366 million in personal loans from the company and a federal probe of its accounting practices. WorldCom, whose shares once traded near $64 in 1999, tumbled to 21 cents in before-hours trading, down from Tuesday's regular-hours close of 83 cents. 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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Economy & Strategy

셀스마트 대니

3 months ago

S&P 493: A More Stable Investment Than the Magnificent 7 Amid Trade Risks? (Mar 24, 2025)

Neutral

AAPL

Apple

셀스마트 대니

3 months ago

S&P 493: A More Stable Investment Than the Magnificent 7 Amid Trade Risks? (Mar 24, 2025)

Trade Policy Uncertainty and Its Impact on U.S. EquitiesAs trade policy risks continue to escalate, concerns are rising that the Magnificent 7 (Mag. 7) tech giants could be more vulnerable to global economic slowdown and trade barriers. Meanwhile, the remaining S&P 493 stocks—those outside the Mag. 7—may offer relative stability, given their lower dependence on foreign revenue.Lower Foreign Revenue Exposure in S&P 493According to Goldman Sachs, Mag. 7 companies generate 49% of their revenue from international markets, while Nasdaq 100 (NDX) firms have a similarly high exposure of 46%.In contrast,S&P 493 derives only 26% of its revenue from foreign markets, whileS&P 500 (SPX) overall sits at 28%.Russell 2000 (RUT) and S&P MidCap 400 (MID) have even lower foreign revenue exposure at 21% and 25%, respectively—highlighting their more domestic-focused nature.Mag. 7’s Exposure to Global Trade RisksTech giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Tesla, and NVIDIA have significant exposure to international markets, particularly in Asia and Europe. This makes them highly susceptible to any U.S. trade protectionism or geopolitical tensions.On the other hand, S&P 493 companies are more insulated from trade volatility, as they derive a larger share of their revenue from the domestic U.S. economy.Investment ImplicationsWith trade policy shifts potentially driving short-term market volatility, investors should carefully assess the risks associated with high foreign revenue dependence and consider strategic portfolio adjustments toward domestic-focused companies.[Compliance Note]All posts by Sellsmart are for informational purposes only. Final investment decisions should be made with careful judgment and at the investor’s own risk.The content of this post may be inaccurate, and any profits or losses resulting from trades are solely the responsibility of the investor.Core16 may hold positions in the stocks mentioned in this post and may buy or sell them at any time.

Neutral

AAPL

Apple

Fed cuts rates for the third time as US economy slows(Oct 30, 2019)

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Fed cuts rates for the third time as US economy slows(Oct 30, 2019)

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the third time this year as the US economy continued slowing amid ongoing trade disputes and weak global growth.The federal funds rate, which affects the cost of mortgages, credit cards and other borrowing, will now hover between 1.5% and 1.75%.Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell strongly suggested at a press conference Wednesday that the Fed would hold rates steady for the foreseeable future. Powell said the current level is “likely to remain appropriate” given the Fed’s economic outlook of moderate economic growth, a strong labor market and inflation growing at around 2%.“If that changes, the Fed will respond accordingly,” Powell said.Rate cuts during an economic expansion aren’t common, but they aren’t unprecedented either. The Fed similarly made what former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan called “insurance cuts” in 1995 and 1998. The Fed quickly went back to rate hikes after those moves.Yet, despite the fact that there is little wiggle room left to cut rates further should the economy suddenly start shrinking, Powell said he doesn’t believe the Fed is about to start raising rates anytime soon.“We would need to see a really significant move up in inflation … before we would consider raising rates to address inflation concerns,” he said.Two voting members of the policy-setting committee – Kansas City Fed President Esther George and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren – dissented against the decision to lower interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point.Policymakers painted a mostly rosy picture of the US economy in their statement, pointing to “solid” job gains and household spending rising at a”strong pace,” but also noted that business investment and exports continued to “remain weak.”Powell noted that a potential “phase one” trade deal between the United States and China and signs that the UK may be able to orchestrate a smooth exit from the EU may mean that risks are less dire and could boost business confidence.“There’s plenty of risk left, but I have to say the risks seems to have subsided,” he said.Earlier in the day, Chile canceled the upcoming APEC summit in November where President Donald Trump was expected to sign a trade deal with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.Fed officials next meet in six weeks. They left some room open for further rate cuts by omitting certain language in their statement, but left some room for deviation by pointing to remaining “uncertainties” to the country’s economic outlook.“The committee will continue to monitor the implications of incoming information for the economic outlook as it assesses the appropriate path of the target range for the federal funds rate,” the statement read.The Fed chairman has been under pressure all year by Trump to continue juicing the economy by sharply cutting interest rates, which are already at historically low levels, as he seeks to bolster his chances of winning next year’s election in 2020.Data released earlier on Wednesday, however, showed the economy may be slowing, making Powell’s job even more difficult as he seeks to keep the country’s longest running economic expansion running.In the third quarter, the economy grew 1.9% according to initial data released by the Commerce Department. That was better than what Wall Street had been predicting, but still fell short of the Trump administration’s forecast of hitting 3% economic growth annually. It was also the second back-to-back reading well below this year’s first quarter report of 3.1%.While the fresh data shows the economy isn’t quite going off the road yet, consumers are now spending less than before just as manufacturing continues to contract and investment spending by businesses continues to decline.The US stock market moved higher Wednesday after the rate cut.“The Fed better put another log or two on the fire because the economy isn’t burning as bright as the Trump administration had hoped when they came into office and with an election just over a year away, the economy needs more stimulus if it is going to grow at a moderate pace,” wrote Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Two of the world’s biggest economies are at risk of recession(Nov 10, 2019)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Two of the world’s biggest economies are at risk of recession(Nov 10, 2019)

Investors have recently put fears about the pace of global growth aside, opting for optimism on a “phase one” US-China trade deal. But muted economic data expected out of Europe this week could change the mood.Germany may post data Thursday indicating that it’s in recession. Economists surveyed by Reuters believe the world’s fourth largest economy shrank 0.1% between July and September — marking two straight quarters of negative growth.It’s possible that Germany — which has been hit by the trade war, as well as falling global demand for autos — just dodged a bullet. Exports unexpectedly rebounded in September, rising 1.5% compared to the previous month. August data was also revised upward.“With today’s data, a technical recession is not yet a done deal,” Carsten Brzeski, ING’s chief German economist, told clients, noting that Germany could have avoided another contraction “at the very last minute.”Recession or not, the reality is that Germany’s economy, the largest in Europe, looks very weak. A reminder of that could give investors a jolt.“The fact remains that the German economy has been in de facto stagnation for more than a year,” Brzeski said. “This is clearly nothing to become too cheerful about.”Not to be missed: Also on the calendar is Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony before Congress on the US economy, which takes place Wednesday and Thursday.Expect Powell to get grilled on where the Fed goes after three straight “insurance” cuts to interest rates. But he’s also likely to face questions on weak manufacturing and business investment data — and what it tells us about the strength of the world’s biggest economy.Up first: The United Kingdom will report GDP data on Monday. The country’s economy shrank for the first time since 2012 in the second quarter as global growth and Brexit fears loomed large — but economists polled by Reuters think the country will narrowly avoid a recession by notching 0.4% growth between July and September.

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Bonds up - a first in weeks(Nov 30, 1999)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Bonds up - a first in weeks(Nov 30, 1999)

Treasury bonds rose Tuesday, their first major gains in two weeks, as the highest yields in a month drew investors into fixed-income securities. "Yields were near some of their highest levels of the year,� said Bill Hornbarger, fixed-income analyst at A.G. Edwards."You see some people interested in bonds at those levels.� Just before 3:15 p.m. ET, the price of the benchmark Treasury bond rose 10/32 to 97-27/32. Its yield, which moves inversely to its price, fell to 6.28 percent from 6.30 percent Monday. The gains came despite two economic reports Tuesday that showed the kind of inflation- suggesting strength that might typically spark a Treasury sell-off. The Conference Board's index of consumer sentiment surged to 135.8 in November from a revised 130.5 reading in October. Separately, the National Association of Purchasing Management said its Chicago prices paid index rose to 70.9 from 65.4. But David Ging, bond analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, said Monday�s bond sell-off, which pushed yields to November highs, effectively discounted the day�s news of rising inflation, which erodes a bonds� value. Bond traders, Ging said, "are really looking at the payrolls data because that�s what (Federal Reserve chief Alan) Greenspan�s looking at.� That data comes Friday, when the Labor department�s last monthly jobs report of the year is expected to show the kind of labor market tightness that may lead to rising inflation, and help prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates again. The November unemployment rate is seen holding steady at 4.1 percent, near a 30-year low. Economists polled by Reuters estimate that non-farm payrolls grew by 226,000 jobs in November. The Fed tightened credit three times this year in a bid to pre-empt inflation and cool an overheating economy. Analysts said bonds also got support Tuesday as falling oil prices eased concerns over rising inflation. In New York, light crude for January delivery fell 91 cents to $25.05 a barrel. "Oil prices have a lot to do with,� A.G. Edwards� Hornbarger said of Tuesday�s gains. Dollar stuck in the middle The yen rose Tuesday, nearing last week�s four-year high against the dollar, as traders shrugged off the Japanese government�s second effort in two days to weaken its currency. Worried about the strong yen�s drag on exports, the Bank of Japan�s latest effort to sell yen for dollars proved ineffective, as traders bet on Japan�s economic recovery by buying yen. "The market's current belief that U.S. and European monetary officials will not come to the assistance of their Japanese counterparts is rendering Bank of Japan intervention futile,� said Alex Beuzelin, market analyst at Ruesch International. Just before 3:15 p.m. ET, the yen rose to 101.95 from 102.70 Monday, a 0.73 percent increase in the yen�s value. Officials fret that a strengthening yen, because it makes exports tougher to sell, may derail the Asian nation's fragile economic recovery. Yen strength hurt Japanese stock market�s, which were pulled down by major exporters like Sony Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd. But the yen continues to strengthen as money floods into Japanese stocks, which must be bought in local currency. The euro, meanwhile, weakened against the dollar, keeping near lifetime lows versus the U.S. currency Just before 3:15 p.m. ET, it cost $1.0085 to buy one euro compared with $1.0100 Monday, a 0.15 percent drop in the euro�s value. Analysts recently have come to blame the slide of the euro, which has lost about 16 percent of its value in its 11-month lifespan, on uncertainty over the European Central Bank�s policy stance. "The ECB main challenge this week is to give the markets a clear message that it does not favor a precipitous decline in the euro,� Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette said in a note to clients Tuesday. "In our view, any further weakening of the euro below parity (with the dollar) may have to be met with stronger policy coordination than seen to date

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Who's raising our rates?(May 22, 2000)

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Who's raising our rates?(May 22, 2000)

Who are these guys, and why are they jacking up the nation's rent, so to speak, by raising the cost of credit-card, car-loan, home-mortgage and other debt?In one sense, last week's stiff interest-rate hike by the Federal Reserve's little known Federal Open Market Committee was a no-brainer, given the still sizzling growth of the U.S. economy. But in another sense, the panel's increase in the so-called federal-funds rate from 6% to 6.5% marked a spectacular wager on your future, with your money, by 10 unelected and largely unknown officials operating behind closed doors. By raising the rate that underpins most other borrowing costs to its highest level in nine years, the committee is hoping--make that praying--to cool the economy and forestall ruinous inflation without jeopardizing the longest-running expansion in U.S. history.Such high-stakes crapshoots are routine for the FOMC, a secretive body whose ability to raise or lower interest rates makes it perhaps the second most powerful group of appointees in Washington--behind only the Supreme Court. Led by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan--the one member with star wattage--the panel gathers eight times a year around a 27-ft. 11-in. black granite and mahogany table to issue diktats that are feverishly parsed on Wall Street and around the world. The members are the seven Fed governors, plus five of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents at a time. (Two governors' seats are currently vacant; a Ph.D. in economics will help if you'd like to apply.) The remaining bank chiefs are nonvoting but vocal participants.While the press tends to treat Greenspan as the sole author of interest-rate policies, insiders and Fed watchers know that is hardly the case. Greenspan, actually considered a moderate among the group's inflation hawks and doves, is clearly first among equals and exerts a considerable influence over the FOMC. But as a careful consensus builder, he is also at pains to stake out positions that the rest of the committee can live with--and thereby avoid any risk of being embarrassed by a close vote. "There is a limit to how far the chairman's influence can be extended," Fed governor Laurence Meyer recently explained. "A good chairman sometimes has to lead the FOMC by following the consensus within the committee."What confronted this increasingly hawkish panel last week was a maverick economy that simply refuses to do what it's told. The Fed had raised rates a quarter of a percent--or 25 basis points, in the lingo--no fewer than five times since last June, with little tangible impact on either GDP growth or unemployment. Joblessness stood at just 3.9% in April, its lowest level in three decades. This persistent lack of idleness sent shivers up the spines of FOMC members, who fear that tight labor markets will lead to inflationary wage increases. To make matters worse, from a Fed perspective, the economy expanded at a brisk 5.4% clip in the recent first quarter, well above the presumed 3.5% to 4% "speed limit" that many economists have viewed as the upper range for growth without inflation."There is real frustration within the FOMC," says Fed watcher David Jones of the Aubrey G. Lanston investment firm. "Borrowing costs have been going up for more than a year, and yet no one seems to care. The Fed is asking 'What does it take to get the consumer's attention?'" The FOMC's answer: its first 50-basis-point increase in the federal-funds rate--the interest that banks charge one another for overnight loans--in five years, plus a stern warning that you can expect another boost when the committee meets again next month. (What should you do about your finances? See following story.)Ironically, the Fed's get-tough stance came just hours after a Commerce Department report showed that the "core" rate of inflation (the Consumer Price Index with volatile food and energy prices omitted) had fallen to an annual rate of 2.4% in April, down from 4.8% in March. That led Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, to denounce the FOMC increase as "clearly excessive" at a time when "accelerating inflation is not apparent." If this continues, says Harkin, "our economy is going to bleed to death." In other words, the Democrats need a slowing economy in an election year like they do another Monica.Last week's hawkish increase marked a clear departure from the gradualist policies that Greenspan had championed for years. "Three years ago," recalls former Fed vice chairman Alice Rivlin, "some [FOMC] members were worried about the economy overheating. But I wasn't, and neither was Greenspan." Both argued that technology was making workers more productive and stifling inflation. The FOMC thus opted for a string of small rate hikes that became a hallmark of Greenspan's cautious approach to monetary policy.But this spring the chairman reset his course, and other doves on the panel found themselves in full retreat. The tough new thinking was reinforced by the arrival of voting members like Jerry Jordan, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (Ohio). "There is [agreement] right now that the economy is growing too rapidly," Rivlin says. The moral: "If you step on the brakes a little and the car doesn't slow down, then you need to step on them a bit harder the next time."The stubbornly strong growth convinced Robert McTeer, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, that larger rate increases may be appropriate this year. McTeer, whose voting term expired last December, had been the only panelist to dissent from Fed tightening in 1999. "I believed, unlike some others, that productivity gains were keeping inflation sufficiently in check," McTeer says. "But as we moved into 2000, the signals from the economy were fairly clear cut. There was little question in anyone's mind that inflationary pressures were building."Nor was there much doubt on Wall Street about what the Fed panel was planning. Just two weeks ago, Robert Parry, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and a voting member, strongly hinted at the outcome by declaring in a speech "We have moved cautiously, but that doesn't mean we only have a single note to play."The curtain went up promptly at 9 a.m. last Tuesday when Greenspan stepped through the doorway that connects his office to the boardroom to signal the start of the FOMC meeting. (The room sports a large map of the U.S. at one end and, at the other, a fireplace with a bronze sculpture of Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture and fertility.) Instead of taking his usual place at the head of the table, Greenspan pulled out a chair in the middle--a move that highlighted his desire to forge a consensus but set off a round of musical chairs to preserve the customary seating plan in relation to the chairman.The meeting commenced, as all do, with the approval of the minutes of the last gathering--this is a government bureaucracy, after all--and some staff reports. Then a "go-round" took place in which the presidents and Fed governors discussed the economic outlook, each having had access to two briefing books bulging with fresh data and policy choices. Then it was Greenspan's turn, the meeting's moment of truth, when he delivers his interest-rate recommendation and the rationale for it. "Greenspan always has some striking insight, or some number that no one else has ever heard of before," notes Fed watcher Jones.The complete transcript of what the chairman and other FOMC members said won't be released for five years, yet Fed watchers have little doubt that most speakers expressed exasperation at the refusal of the expansion to knuckle under to past rate increases and stressed their determination to try again.Nor did students of the Fed see any sign of dissent from the doves. "In the old days," says economist Kevin Flanagan of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, "there was a debate over who was an influential hawk and who an influential dove." But today, Flanagan notes, any policy disagreements tend to vanish into Greenspan's carefully nurtured consensus. Concurs Fed governor Meyer, who has a reputation as a hawk's hawk on inflation: "Many members will voice some disagreement with the chairman's view in the go-rounds. But many of those will vote with the chairman in the end."Having done so, the most powerful monetary movers and shakers on the planet invariably line up for an informal boardroom lunch. Reaching for paper plates and plasticware, the FOMC members help themselves to a buffet that last week featured cold cuts, soft drinks, salads and chocolate-chip cookies--a special favorite of many members. Then they headed back to their offices to watch Wall Street's reaction, while bankers across the country adjusted the loan-rate signs in their windows. --Reported by Bernard Baumohl and Eric Roston/New York and Adam Zagorin/Washington

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

To gauge the health of the economy and the financial markets, check out these four key economic indicators(Feb 10, 2001)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

To gauge the health of the economy and the financial markets, check out these four key economic indicators(Feb 10, 2001)

1. The employment report. Typically released the first Friday of each month, the Employment Situation Summary, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls it, provides a quick update on the job market. Growing employment leads to increases in consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the U.S. economy. Thus most economists consider the report an advance peek at future economic growth.The financial press usually zeroes in on the unemployment rate, which has recently hovered at or near its all-time low of 3.9 percent. But that figure says more about where the economy has been than where it's headed. To get a glimpse of the future, check out the increase in "nonfarm payroll employment," or the number of new jobs created in the economy each month.Basically, job growth is a harbinger of economic growth. Indeed, a little more than a year ago, when investors were more concerned about the economy overheating than fizzling, strong job gains actually sent the market down by raising the specter of rising inflation. Lately, though, investors have been disturbed by the slowdown in job creation (see the chart). In 1997 and 1998, for example, we added jobs at a frenetic pace of more than 250,000 a month on average. In 1999 the monthly rate slowed to fewer than 230,000, and it slipped below 160,000 last year. By the fourth quarter of last year, an average of only 77,000 new jobs were being created each month, a drop of 70 percent from 1999's fourth quarter.That kind of decline doesn't guarantee a recession, but it certainly suggests much slower growth for the economy -- and corporate profits -- in the months ahead. If job creation numbers actually go negative for several months running, that would definitely be a red flag, since sustained job losses typically occur only during recessions.

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Bonds fall for 3rd session. Yields rise above key 6% level on fears of strong economic data(Aug 30, 1999)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Bonds fall for 3rd session. Yields rise above key 6% level on fears of strong economic data(Aug 30, 1999)

Treasury bond prices fell for the third consecutive session Monday, sending yields to two-week highs, as the latest set of economic data suggested the economy continues to strengthen. Just before 3:30 p.m. ET, the price of the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond fell 1-8/32. Its yield, which moves inversely to the price, rose to 6.06 percent from Friday's close of 5.97 percent. Bonds immediately began falling after the Commerce Department said sales of new homes rose 0.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 980,000. The rate, well above expectations, is the second-highest ever and suggests the robust housing market is not letting up. Already, fears of an overheating economy have led the Federal Open Market Committee to raise short-term interest rates by a quarter percentage point in both June and August. Monday's housing data, coupled with a series of strong economic data this week, could provoke fears of another rate hike when the FOMC meets in October. Already, traders are looking toward Wednesday, when the National Association of Purchasing Management releases its closely watched index of manufacturing activity, which is expected to rise to 54.5 from 53.4 in July. "NAPM could be quite strong," said Josh Stiles, bond strategist at IDEA Global.com. Anthony Crescenzi, bond market strategist with Miller Tabak Hirsch & Co., agreed. "What we're seeing is an increase in the manufacturing sector," Crescenzi said "The manufacturing sector has been very weak for the last year and a half -- since the Asian (financial) crisis. Now, that sector seems to be recovering." A strong rebound in manufacturing, Crescenzi said, could lead to a 4 percent economic growth rate -- a number not consistent with low inflation. On Friday, the Labor Department releases August employment figures. Analysts expect the unemployment rate to remain unchanged at 4.3 percent, near a 30-year low, with employers adding 206,000 non-farm jobs during the month. Full circle Explaining Monday's sell-off, traders also cited profit taking, saying the two-day bond rally following Tuesday's FOMC rate hike may have been overdone. Yields have "gotten back to where they were before they tightened," said Bruce Alston, who manages $1.5 billion in bonds for Value Line Asset Management. Also bearish for bonds, the price of oil Monday rose to its highest level since October 1997. Further, traders are worried about the market's ability to absorb an estimated $20 billion in new corporate bonds expected to sell in September. But analysts also noted the day's light trading volume, which can exaggerate the significance of price movements. "It's low volume, so a little selling goes a long way," Value Line's Alston said. Dollar weakens Further weighing on Treasurys, the dollar fell sharply against the yen. Just before 3:30 p.m. ET the U.S. currency slipped to 110.69 yen, almost a 1 percent drop from Friday's close of 111.77. The yen over the last several weeks has continued to strengthen against the dollar, helped by Japan's surging stock market and the belief the Asian nation is recovering from recession.Looking ahead, Tim Fox, currency analyst at Standard Charter Bank, sees the yen pushing higher against the dollar as long as Japanese stocks continue to gain. "A crucial aspect is going to be the Nikkei," Fox said of Tokyo's benchmark stock index. "The Nikkei has been driving the yen higher, trying to latch on to the strength of the Japanese stock market. If that continues, then dollar-yen will persist through that sort of 110 (yen) area, and perhaps break (through to) 108 later this year." The dollar, meanwhile, weakened slightly against the euro. Just before 3:30 p.m. ET, it cost $1.0463 to buy one euro compared with $1.0455 Friday, a 0.08 percent drop in the dollar's value.

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Nasdaq plummets. Index posts 7th largest point loss; strong retail sales data fuels rate hike fears(Dec 14, 1997)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Nasdaq plummets. Index posts 7th largest point loss; strong retail sales data fuels rate hike fears(Dec 14, 1997)

U.S. stocks ended lower Tuesday, with the Nasdaq composite plunging late in the session. The index, along with the broader market, languished in negative territory throughout the day after a stronger-than-expected retail sales report ignited interest rate fears. In addition, sharp losses in the bond market weighed on stocks. "When the bond market sold off, it caused a drastic reaction in the tech sector and the Nasdaq. There is no company news to account for the big drop,� said Alan Skrainka, chief market strategist at Edward Jones. The Nasdaq composite index tumbled 86.51 points, or 2.36 percent, to 3,571.66. The drop was the seventh largest point loss in the history of the index. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 32.42 to 11,160.17, and the S&P 500 index retreated 12.05 to 1,403.17. Breadth was negative on the New York Stock Exchange with losers widely beating gainers 2,024 to 1,069. Trading volume reached a heavy 1 billion shares. Treasury prices plunged following the retail sales report, with the benchmark 30-year bond losing more than a point, raising its yield to 6.29 percent from 6.19 percent late Monday. In currency markets, the dollar rose against both the yen and the euro. Investors digest key economic news Market participants digested conflicting data on the U.S. economy. The strong retail sales report sparked some interest-rate worries despite a separate report pointing to tame inflation. Analysts said inflation was holding steady following the Consumer Price Index release. The CPI, a measure of inflation at the retail level, rose 0.1 percent in November, the Labor Department said. The number was less than analysts� expectations of a 0.2 percent gain. The core rate, excluding volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.2 percent, in line with expectations. But retail sales data were more troublesome. Retail sales advanced at a 0.9 percent pace in November, well above economists� expectations of a 0.5 percent increase, fueling some concerns about rate hikes. Gary Schlossberg, senior economist at Wells Capital Management, said retail sales were the real surprise. "The retail sales number implies consumer spending is running well above its long-term average,� he said. The two reports are significant, analysts noted, since they are the last key economic releases that Federal Reserve policy makers will have to consider in determining interest rates at their Dec. 21 meeting. The economic news particularly weighed on financial stocks. The sector is highly sensitive to interest rates due to the stronger probability of borrowers defaulting on their loans when interest rates rise, therefore hurting corporate earnings. Among the Dow components, American Express (AXP) fell 5-13/16 to 160-1/2, Citigroup (C) retreated 1-13/16 to 53-1/2 and J.P. Morgan (JPM) declined 3-5/16 to 131-1/4. Nasdaq tumbles In a late selloff, the Nasdaq plunged after languishing in negative territory throughout the session. Analysts noted a lack of leadership weighed on the market, particularly in the usually strong technology sector. "All the sizzling hot stocks are taking a breather. Investors are reluctant to look elsewhere when the hot stocks are down,� said Charles Payne, head analyst at Wall Street Strategies. The weakness in technology followed the Nasdaq�s 52nd record close of the year Monday. Analysts said many participants were willing to stay on the sidelines. However, many strategists were unconcerned by Tuesday�s market performance. Michael Carty, stock market strategist at New Millennium Advisors, a New York investment firm, said the losses would not be long lasting. "The economy is very strong and interest rates are likely to remain stable. There are many stocks out there with strong potential earnings,� he said. Among the top Nasdaq gainers, 3Com Corp. (COMS), the world's second-largest maker of computer networking products, surged 5-13/16, or nearly 13 percent, to 50-5/8 after the company filed an initial public offering for its Palm Computing unit. Palm makes the No. 1 electronic organizer. But 3Com rivals suffered. Cisco Systems (CSCO) retreated 3-1/4 to 97-15/16, and Lucent Technologies (LU) dipped 2-1/2 to 77-1/4. Internet issues were in the red despite reports of some potential partnerships with major retailers. Yahoo! (YHOO) and the nation�s No. 3 retailer Kmart (KM) are expected to unveil an alliance to offer co-branded Internet access, according to the Wall Street Journal. Yahoo! fell 17-15/16 to 333-1/8, while Kmart rose 9/16 to 12-1/16. The report follows speculation of a potential marketing alliance between America Online (AOL) and Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), the world's No. 1 retailer. AOL slumped 5-3/4 to 88-1/4 and Wal-Mart, a component of the Dow industrials, inched down 15/16 to 67-1/16. The blue chips benefited from gains to Dow component Microsoft (MSFT). Its stock advanced 2-1/16 to 98-11/16 amid rumors that the world's No. 1 software company may be near a settlement of the U.S. government�s landmark antitrust case. However, a Justice Department spokeswoman told CNNfn the rumors were unfounded.��

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Bonds fall for third day(Dec 15, 1999)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Bonds fall for third day(Dec 15, 1999)

Treasury bonds fell for the third straight session Wednesday, pushing yields to the highest levels of the month, as a series of inflation-suggesting factors kept alive fears of another Federal Reserve interest rate hike ahead. Just before 3:15 p.m. ET, the price of the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond fell 13/32 to 97-5/32. Its yield, which moves inversely to the price, rose to a December high of 6.33 percent, from 6.30 percent Tuesday. Explaining the day�s losses, analysts cited a host of signs of strong economic growth that could ignite inflation and prompt the Fed to raise interest rates again. "Where�s the (economic) slowdown?� asked Josh Stiles, bond market strategist at IDEAGlobal.com. "We�re not seeing it.� Negatives include rising oil prices, surging stock markets and fears that Thursday�s trade report could lead to an upward revision of the nation�s gross domestic product. Light sweet crude oil for February delivery gained 35 cents to $25.80 a barrel Wednesday, igniting fears that gains in the widely used commodity will show up in closely watched inflation gauges like the Consumer Price index. Stocks rose again Wednesday, in a phenomenon that economists say creates the kind of paper wealth that leads to increased consumer spending. "Bonds are reacting a little poorly to the rebound in equities,� said Bruce Alston, who manages $1.5 billion in bonds for Value Line Asset Management. Just Tuesday, retails sales jumped a larger-than-expected 0.9 percent, prompting a major bond market sell-off. Wednesday�s data did not help. U.S. industrial production rose steadily in November as manufacturing businesses hit their fastest stride in a year. Tony Crescenzi, bond analyst at Miller Tabak & Co. mentioned a concern that Thursday�s international trade report for October could show a trade deficit wide enough to prompt an upward revision in the nation�s gross domestic product. "If the trade deficit is reported lower than the consensus estimate of $24.2 billion, this will force GDP estimates still higher toward 6 percent -- a level reached just four times in the past 15 years,� Crescenzi said. That would only add to the view that the Fed, the nation�s central bank, will have to raise rates again to cool an overheating economy. Fed officials gather Dec. 21, but with the meeting so close to potential Y2K worries they are expected to keep their main lending rate unchanged at 5.50 percent. But analysts say a rate hike likely will come at the next Fed gathering in February unless the economy shows signs of slowing. The Fed tightened credit three times since June in a bid to preempt inflation and stem the rapid pace of economic growth. Dollar mixed The dollar kept to a tight range Wednesday, rising modestly against the yen but falling slightly versus the euro. Analysts cited no fresh fundamental reasons behind the day�s limited dollar movements. Just before 3:15 p.m. ET, the euro rose to $1.0069 from $1.0056 Tuesday. Despite the slight gains, analysts say another test for the euro below dollar parity is still possible as long as the U.S. economy continues to outperform Europe�s. "The U.S. economy's strong rate of growth combined with low inflation remains very dollar supportive,� Ruesch International said in a note to clients Wednesday. �Parity in euro/dollar remains a very realistic objective for traders today.� The battered euro, which has lost about 16 percent of its value since its January inception, first fell below $1 two weeks ago. The dollar, meanwhile, rose to 103.68 yen from 103.45 Tuesday, continuing a trend begun Monday.

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Still On A Roll?(Nov 10, 1997)

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Still On A Roll?(Nov 10, 1997)

New York City's 21 Club, a famed Midtown eatery, was expecting a group of 90 Wall Street types from Salomon Brothers, a famed investment house, for lunch last Monday. Only 40 showed. "And they were grim," recalls Swapan Rozario, who works 21's banquet room. Downtown, the stock market was having Solly and all the other big swinging brokerage houses for lunch, plunging a record 554 points in one nauseating session. The next day, Turnaround Tuesday, Salomon's traders, and everyone else, were too busy making money to have lunch, as the Dow reared up to gain back 337 points of that loss.The mesmerizing pair of panics--the headlong retreat on Monday followed by a buying frenzy the next day--is causing policymakers, corporations and investors to make an abrupt re-evaluation of the economy and the stock market in the face of an unexpected jolt from the Far East. If the market is the sum of all investors' knowledge at any given moment, as many theorists argue, then what on earth is this barking dog trying to tell us?For one thing, it says the notion that small investors, inexperienced in down markets, would bolt at the first sign of trouble is all wrong. It was the pros who fled on Monday: if these guys had been on the Titanic, they would have been fighting the children for lifeboats. The pros were saved by the little guys on Tuesday. Most folks did nothing; others couldn't wait to "buy the dips," just as they had been counseled to do so often. "I have been through this a few times," says Kooshy Afshar, the owner of a small printing company in Beverly Hills, Calif. "When the market goes down, I sit tight. I look at the market as a long-term investment."But beyond that obvious message, is there a deeper meaning? It seems farfetched that such a panic could occur for no good reason and without consequence. We're way beyond normal price volatility here. Throughout history, daily Dow moves of 1% or 2% up or down have been relatively common. But Monday's 7% decline was the 12th worst ever; Tuesday's 4.7% gain, the best in a decade. Was the market right on Monday or on Tuesday?We have been cruising along under the fuzzy notion that the '90s are different, that an economy with seemingly rock-solid fundamentals could withstand the buffeting of currency crises in countries half a world away. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who likes this kind of excitement about as much as he does a rash, carefully reinforced his long-held belief that the Nirvana-like state of low unemployment and steady growth that correlates with his tenure can be sustained by riding herd on inflation. Said he: "Our economy has enjoyed a lengthy period of good economic growth, linked, not coincidentally, to damped inflation. The Federal Reserve is dedicated to contributing as best it can to prolonging this performance." And right on cue, data released Friday showed that inflation slowed dramatically this summer.The consensus on Wall Street and in Washington, where, in both places, it is undeniably lucrative to be bullish, is that Monday was the mistake; Tuesday set things right. The believers in this sort of "new economy" school see the sell-off as an overreaction to an economic slowdown in Asia, a development that heralds only a modest drag on the U.S. economy and the earnings of U.S. companies.Why? Only 4% of America's exports land in the more problematic Asian nations--Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines--not nearly enough for troubles there to seriously cut into the earnings of U.S. companies, at least not directly. In fact, the Asian problems might not have even registered with American investors if not for the fact that stock prices in the U.S. are so high that they have become hypersensitive to any and all adverse news. "It doesn't take much to derail a market that has gone to the moon," says Stephen Roach, chief global economist for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.In Wall Street parlance, Monday's sharp decline was "a market event," meaning that it had little to do with the real economy and everything to do with the sheer unsustainable height of stock prices. That view makes the decline easy to swallow and lends credibility to the wisdom of staying happy and staying in stocks or, as the little guy did Tuesday, buying even more. "There is no reason to think the U.S. stock market is going to go into a bear market," says economist Allen Sinai at Primark Decision Economics. "The U.S. economy is not going to be knocked down by the crisis in Asia."Soothing proclamations like that one came quickly and from many quarters, reverberating throughout brokerage firms, mutual-fund companies, barbershops and shopping malls all week. Mighty IBM announced that its shares were so attractive, it would spend as much as $3.5 billion buying them back. From her perch as co-chair of the investment-policy committee at venerable Goldman Sachs, Abby Joseph Cohen, the most consistently bullish--and correct--market forecaster of the 1990s, declared the sell-off a buying opportunity and promptly raised from 60% to 65% her portfolio's allocation to stocks.No gesture seemed too small with a full-blown panic possibly still ahead. At half time of Monday Night Football, the NASDAQ stock market, a sponsor, stated its closing value as it usually does, but failed to mention, as it usually does, the index's change for the day. In this case, it was down a record 116 points, or 7%.Perhaps the most soothing of all, though, were the carefully chosen words of Greenspan. In his inimitable style, the Fed chief called the swift market decline "a salutary event" that might be just what the economy needs to keep from overheating and allow the '90s expansion to continue for years.Like a snake charmer, Greenspan talked the market into a catatonic state--or was it that traders were merely exhausted? Prices remained somewhat stable the rest of the week, and by Friday the Dow stood 9.9% below its all-time high and few investors seemed much worse for the wear. There were some casualties, among them speculator George Soros, whose company lost $2 billion on Monday. Several Fed presidents joined Greenspan in talking up the economy. "The basics of the U.S. economy are strong," said Cathy Minehan, president of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank. "I see no reason why that should change." Thomas Melzer, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve, said the economy was doing "exceptionally well."

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Palin sparks fashion frenzy: Women rush to buy rimless glasses(Sept. 12. 2008)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Palin sparks fashion frenzy: Women rush to buy rimless glasses(Sept. 12. 2008)

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is doing for glasses what “Friends” star Jennifer Aniston did for hair in the early 1990s.The rimless glasses that Palin wore during her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention are flying off the shelves nationwide, including in Hampton.The fashionable frames, made by the Japanese company Kawasaki, have even caught the notice of Trendhunter.com, a Web site that prides itself on tracking the hottest trends across the globe.The site announced that Palin has fueled what they call “a designer-eyeglasses frenzy.”William “Sully” Sullivan, who owns Hampton Vision Center in downtown Hampton, agreed.“She is bringing life again to the rimless drill-mount fashion,” said Sullivan. “We have been selling the rimless glasses for a while, but sales have slowed down a bit. Now that she is wearing it, it’s become very popular again.”The shop, located at 28 Depot Square, is currently sold out of the Kawasaki frames, but they should be back in stock within the next week or so.Sullivan said a lot of people came into his shop in the last few weeks asking specifically about the "Sarah Palin glasses.”The attraction, he says, is that she looks good in eyewear.“It’s kind of the rage right now,” he said. “People are seeing it on her and they are curious about what she is wearing. They see how good it looks on her and wonder what it would look like on them.”He doesn’t remember this much hoopla over a frame since former MSNBC anchor Ashleigh Banfield caused a stir with her square-rimmed Lafont eyeglasses.The newly dubbed Palin frames, not including lenses, sell in the range of $300 to $500.Rimless glasses are available for both men and women and the vision center has several different types of frames at varying prices.“When they first came out, they became popular because they were different and they were lightweight,” Sullivan said. “It also gives the appearance with anti-reflective coating that you’re not wearing glasses at all.”But the store owner warned that not everyone may want to jump on the Sarah Palin eyeglass bandwagon.“Not everyone’s face shape can wear what she is wearing,” he said. “But if not, we can put them in something similar that suits their face shape in style.”

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Dollar Bill On Floor Sends Wall Street Into Frenzy(October 22, 2008)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Dollar Bill On Floor Sends Wall Street Into Frenzy(October 22, 2008)

Wall Street investors experienced a sudden surge in optimism Tuesday when, after six tumultuous weeks that saw record drops in the Dow Jones industrial average, a $1 bill was spotted on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.The dollar bill was discovered in the northwest corner of the trading floor at approximately 12:05 p.m., and its condition was reported as “crinkled, but real.” Word of the tangible denomination of U.S. currency spread quickly across the NYSE, sending traders into a frenzied rush of shouting, arm-flailing, hooting, hollering, and, according to eyewitnesses, at least one dog pile.“With credit frozen and the commercial paper market poised on the brink of collapse, this is the most promising development I’ve seen on Wall Street in months,” said floor trader Tim Formato, one of hundreds who gathered around the $1 bill and excitedly called their clients to inform them that they were looking at actual U.S. tender. “I think I touched it.”According to witnesses, the trading floor was soon abuzz with energy, as traders pointed at the dollar and repeatedly shouted “Look!” and “Money!” A proposal to divide the $1 note into 1,300 equal pieces and distribute them amongst investors was considered, but ultimately rejected. Early reports estimate the dollar may have passed through as many as 65 hands before disappearing in the late afternoon.The bill’s absence, however, did not deter the growing enthusiasm from those on the trading floor. By 2:15 p.m., more than 60,000 shares had beenpurchased in the new publicly traded asset, DLR, after brokers placed a flurry of calls advising their investors to buy into the booming single-dollar market.By the close of day, economists were estimating the dollar bill’s net worth at just under $270 million.“We couldn’t be in a better situation right now,” trader Patrick Kady said. “Unless of course it had been a euro.”However, some financial advisers are warning against the rampant speculation the dollar has caused on Wall Street. Many have cautioned investors not to make rash decisions, such as liquidating all their low-risk government bonds in order to sniff the green paper bill for just a minute.“I bet it smells like rose petals,” mutual funds specialist Ken Stoute said. “My friend’s friend Tim Formato? He’s on the board at Westminster Securities and he says he touched it. He said it was warm and soft and wonderful. He said he knows where it is now, and I can put in an option on seeing it tomorrow for only $85.”Since the appearance of the dollar, the Dow has spiked an impressive 993 points—its largest gain ever. Initial numbers are showing the most sizable rises in technology stocks, a trend some are attributing to Microsoft’s CFO Chris Liddell, who toured the trading floor Tuesday morning with the bill stuck to his left shoe.The overall projection for the market following the incident has been positive, with many analysts claiming that the $1 bill may be an indication of other spare change lying around. This, coupled with reports out of Europe that there is a German college student who has not yet hit her credit card limit this month, could be enough to stabilize the Dow and jump-start the global economy once again.

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Fed Makes Emergency 0.75% Rate Cut(Jan. 22, 2008)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Fed Makes Emergency 0.75% Rate Cut(Jan. 22, 2008)

The Federal Reserve, responding to an international stock sell-off and the likelihood of a sharp drop in America on Tuesday morning, cut its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point.The Federal Open Market Committee lowered its target for the federal funds rate on overnight loans between banks to 3.5 percent, from 4.25 percent.In a statement, the Fed said: “The committee took this action in view of a weakening of the economic outlook and increasing downside risks to growth. While strains in short-term funding markets have eased somewhat, broader financial market conditions have continued to deteriorate and credit has tightened further for some businesses and households.”“Moreover,” the statement continued, “incoming information indicates a deepening of the housing contraction as well as some softening in labor markets.”In a related action, the Fed approved a 75 basis-point decrease in the discount rate, to 4 percent.Within minutes after the announcement, trading in stock-index futures, which had been presaging a deep slide on American stock exchanges Tuesday, retraced much of their earlier declines, which had been driven by a second sour day in Asia and Europe.Stock markets across Asia plunged even farther and faster on Tuesday than they had on Monday, as anxious sellers dumped huge numbers of shares on worries that an economic slowdown in the United States could drag down growth around the world.The European stock markets initially followed their Asian counterparts lower, plunging at the opening and then see-sawing back and forth in frenzied trading as investors looked to the start on Wall Street for direction. After the Fed announcement, they had made up those losses and moved into positive territory. But the rate cut was too late for Asian markets, which had already closed.A decade after a credit crisis in Southeast Asia triggered an “Asian contagion” of stock market declines around the world, the credit crisis in the United States is now producing an “American contagion” to which no stock market seems immune.Heavy selling hit each Asian and European stock market as soon as it opened. Some of Asia’s easternmost exchanges, which had closed on Monday before the sharpest declines occurred in India and then Europe, suffered particularly steep drops.

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Energy costs drive February wholesale prices up 1%; biggest jump since 1990(March 16, 2000)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Energy costs drive February wholesale prices up 1%; biggest jump since 1990(March 16, 2000)

U.S. producer prices posted their biggest monthly jump in almost 10 years in February, reflecting a surge in crude oil prices, the government reported Thursday. However, the core rate, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, advanced at a more moderate pace. The Producer Price Index jumped 1 percent last month, the Labor Department said, exceeding the 0.6 percent increase expected and above January's flat reading. It was the biggest jump in the main index since October 1990. The core rate, which excludes food and energy costs, rose 0.3 percent, in line with expectations and reversing January's 0.2 percent drop.Stripping out huge advances in energy and tobacco prices, inflation posted only a moderate advance last month -- suggesting to financial markets that the Federal Reserve's inflation-fighting interest rate increases may not come as fast and furious as many had been anticipating. "Oil prices are important for the economy, but there continues to be no evidence that these increases are being monetized and passed on into the general structure of prices," said John Ryding, senior economist with Bear Stearns Inc. "We continue to expect that the Fed will boost rates by only 25 basis points at next week's (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting."The Dow Jones industrial average -- comprised of 30 companies that are generally more sensitive to rising interest rates -- took off at the opening bell as investors concluded that earnings will not be as significantly impacted by higher borrowing costs. Bonds also gained ground as investors gained reassurance that wholesale inflation remains subdued -- at least for the time being.Tame costs on the production line typically mean stable consumer prices, because producers do not have the rising costs that are typically passed on to buyers. Fed officials meet next Tuesday in Washington to discuss monetary policy and the direction of short-term lending rates. Most Wall Street analysts expect the Fed will wrench up its benchmark rate for overnight loans between banks by another quarter point. That would be the fifth quarter-point increase since June. The rate now stands at 5.75 percent. After today's numbers, some analysts expect the Fed may not have to press so hard on the brakes to slow down the economy. While most expect the U.S. economy to post growth upwards of 5 percent in the first three months of the year, very little evidence of accelerating inflation has emerged -- the main reason behind the Fed's recent spate of rate hikes. ABS brakes? "Most people were afraid that we'd start to see some inflation, but I don't think there's much here," said Robert Brusca, chief economist with Ecobest Consulting. "The Fed still has its foot on brakes and will keep tapping them at regular intervals, but perhaps not as much as investors had been expecting." (369KB WAV) (369KB AIFF)Indeed, almost all of February's gains came in the form of rising energy and tobacco prices. Energy prices for producers jumped 5.2 percent in February, the biggest increase since October 1990, reflecting a whopping 30.6 percent surge in the cost of home heating oil and a 12.9 percent jump in prices at the pumps for gasoline. In January, producers' energy costs rose 0.7 percent. Those increases mirrored the recent surge in oil prices, which have almost tripled in price to as high as $34 a barrel in the past 14 months, reflecting concerns that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would not boost its output next month to prevent global shortages. Tobacco prices, meanwhile, jumped 5.6 percent, more than reversing January's 4.2 percent drop. Cigarette prices rose 6.3 percent as manufacturers such as Philip Morris Cos. (MO: Research, Estimates) raised U.S. cigarette prices to distributors by 13 cents a pack, or about 7 percent. New York State also boosted taxes on cigarettes last month, raising the price on a single pack of 20 cigarettes to around $4.50 from around $4.Where's the inflation? In other categories, food prices increased a moderate 0.4 percent in February, after rising 0.1 percent in January. Prices for new computers fell 3.3 percent, car prices fell 1.2 percent, and prescription drug prices declined 0.2 percent. Intermediate goods prices rose 0.8 percent last month, while crude goods prices rose 4.2 percent. So why aren't prices rising? For one, there's productivity. Advances in technology have made companies better at producing and delivering wholesale goods cheaply and efficiently without raising their costs, ensuring prices at the retail level stay the same or even decline in some cases. Worker productivity advanced at a 6.4 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter.Another reason is competition -- from e-commerce companies on the Internet, from government deregulation of industries such as electricity and telecommunications, and from overseas firms who not only produce goods cheaply, but sell them to American producers in currencies that are worth less than the U.S. dollars those producers use to pay for them. All that has led to increased output without higher prices -- a phenomenon that has framed the U.S. economy for more than three years, said Rob Palombi, a markets analyst with Standard & Poor's MMS. What's more, "the U.S. dollar has been on a firming path against the yen and the euro, which should help offset inflation risks on imported goods going forward." After reaching near par against the yen in January, the dollar has risen to above 106 yen. It has also made steady ground against the euro, with the euro falling below parity in late January to trade around the 96-cent level.

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Changes in the Business Cycle(May 14, 1999)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Changes in the Business Cycle(May 14, 1999)

In December 1998, the current expansion reached a milestone – it became the longest peacetime expansion in post-World War II U.S. economic history, surpassing the record previously held by the 1982-1990 expansion. In fact, if the expansion continues through January 2000, it will tie the expansion associated with the Vietnam War as the longest expansion since our records of such things start in 1854.The experience of the U.S. during the last twenty years has been quite remarkable. The long economic expansion of the 1980s was followed by a relatively short recession in 1990-91, and the economy has been expanding ever since. The U.S. has experienced only 8 months of recession in the last 16 years. The most visible sign of the continued expansion is provided by the unemployment rate. For the past year, it has remained below 4.5 percent, hovering at levels not seen since the early 1970s.Not surprisingly, the long expansion has raised questions about the whole notion of the business cycle. Extended periods of expansion always lead a few commentators to speculate that the conventional business cycle is dead. In 1969, for example, a conference volume titled “Is the Business Cycle Obsolete?” was published just as the 1961-69 expansion came to an end and the economy entered a recession. With two record-setting expansions in a row, and the current one still going, it is to be expected that the notion of regular business cycles is again being questioned. The current favorite hypothesis is that a “new economy” has emerged in which our old understanding of business cycle forces is no longer relevant.While few economists believe we have seen the end of business cycles (just look at Asia and Latin America!), the views of economists about business cycles have changed. These changes reflect real changes in the U.S. economy, changes in our ability to measure economic developments, and changes in economic theory.Dating business cyclesAlthough virtually all data used to analyze the U.S. economy are produced by some agency of the federal government, the standard dates identifying business cycle peaks and troughs are determined by the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The NBER is a private, non-profit research organization whose research affiliates include many of the world’s most influential economists.The NBER defines a recession as “a recurring period of decline in total output, income, employment, and trade, usually lasting from six months to a year, and marked by widespread contractions in many sectors of the economy.” Recessions are, therefore, macroeconomic in nature. A severe decline in an important industry or sector of the economy may involve great hardships for the workers and firms in that industry, but a recession is more than that. It is a period in which many sectors of the economy experience declines. Recessions are sometimes said to occur if total output declines for two consecutive quarters. However, this is not the formal definition used by the NBER.Business cycle peaks and troughs cannot be identified immediately when they occur for two reasons. First, recessions and expansions are, by definition, recurring periods of either decline or growth. One quarter of declining GDP would not necessarily indicate that the economy had entered a recession, just as one quarter of positive growth need not signal that a recession had ended. The recession of 1981-82 provides a good example. Real GDP declined from the third quarter of 1981 to the fourth quarter, and then again from the fourth quarter to the first quarter of 1982. It then grew in the second quarter of 1982. The recession was not over, however, as GDP again declined in the third quarter of 1982. Only beginning with the fourth quarter did real output begin a sustained period of growth.Second, the information that is needed to determine whether the economy has entered a recession or moved into an expansion phase is only available with a time lag. Delays in data collection and revisions in the preliminary estimates of economic activity mean the NBER must wait some time before a clear picture of the economy’s behavior is available. For example, it was not until December 1992 that the NBER announced that the trough ending the last recession had occurred in March 1991, a delay of 20 months.Expansions and contractions since 1854U.S. business cycle peaks and troughs going back to the trough in December 1854 have been dated by the NBER. Based on their dates, we can ask whether basic business cycle facts have changed over time.One important aspect of a recession or an expansion is its duration. The lengths of recessions since 1854 are shown in Figure 1. Several interesting facts are apparent from the figure. First, measured solely by duration, the Great Depression of 1929-1933 pales in comparison with the 1873-1879 depression that lasted over five years. And the 1882-1885 recession lasted nearly as long as the Great Depression. Some lasting images of American history survive from this period, including the great debate over silver coinage.Second, while the Great Depression was not the longest period of economic decline, it does appear to represent a watershed; no recession since has lasted even half as long as the 1929-1933 contraction.Third, it is not just that recessions have been shorter on average in the post-World War II era, they have all been much shorter. Of the 19 recessions before the Great Depression, only three lasted less than a year; of the 11 recessions since the Great Depression, only three have lasted more than a year.Figure 2 shows the duration of economic expansions since 1854. Darker bars mark wartime expansions. Based on duration, the changing nature of expansions is not quite as evident as for contractions. But of the 21 expansions prior to World War II, only three lasted more than three years. In contrast, of the 10 expansions since, only three have lasted less than three years. Even if the wartime expansions associated with Korea and Vietnam are ignored, post-World War II expansions have averaged 49 months, compared to an average of only 24 months for pre-World War II peacetime expansions.Is the economy more stable?A simple comparison of the duration of expansions and contractions does suggest the U.S. economy has performed better in the post-World War II era. Recessions are shorter, expansions are longer. These changes strongly suggest that business cycles have changed over time. However, a simple comparison of duration cannot tell us about the severity of recessions or the strength of expansions. This would be better measured by the decline in output that occurs in a recession or the growth that occurs in an expansion. However, most studies that examine how volatile economic activity has been do conclude that output has been somewhat more stable in the post-World War II era.This conclusion, however, is not universally accepted. There are three reasons that comparing the business cycle over time is difficult.First, the quality of economic data has improved tremendously over the past 100 years. If the earlier data on the U.S. economy contained more measurement error because the quality of our statistics was lower, the measured path of the economy may show some fluctuations that simply reflect random errors in output data. This will make the earlier period look more unstable. In addition, earlier data on economic output tended to provide only a partial coverage of the economy. For example, better statistics were available on industrial output than on services. Since services tend to fluctuate less over a business cycle, the earlier data undoubtedly exaggerated the extent of fluctuations in the aggregate economy.Second, NBER dating methods have not remained consistent. Romer (1994) argues that the dating of pre-World War II business cycles was done in a manner that tended to date peaks earlier and troughs later than the post-World War II methods would have done. This contributes to the impression that prewar recessions were longer and expansions shorter.Third, the economy is increasingly becoming a producer of services, and productivity in the service sector is often difficult to measure. In general, the tremendous changes experienced in recent years associated with the information revolution are likely to affect the cyclical behavior of the economy in ways not yet fully understood.Implications for macroeconomic policyUnderstanding changes in the nature of the business cycle is important for policymakers. Most central banks view contributing to a stable economy as one of their responsibilities. Promoting stable growth has important benefits, and reducing the frequency or severity of recessions is desirable as part of a policy to ensure employment opportunities for all workers. Preventing expansions from generating inflation is also important since once inflation gets started, high unemployment is usually necessary to bring it back down.One might think, then, that policy designed to stabilize the economy should attempt to eliminate fluctuations entirely. This is not the case, for a very important reason. A business cycle represents fluctuations in the economy around full-employment output, but an economy’s full-employment output, often called potential GDP, can also change. It grows over time due to population growth, growth in the economy’s capital stock, and technological change. Developments in economic theory have led to a better understanding of how an economy adjusts to various disturbances. These adjustments can cause potential GDP to fluctuate, and it would be inappropriate for policy to attempt to offset these fluctuations. Identifying fluctuations in potential GDP from cyclical fluctuations can be difficult, however, as the current economic expansion illustrates. Is the economy in danger of overheating, risking a revival of inflation? Or have changes in the economy increased potential GDP?While the U.S. economy has enjoyed two consecutive record expansions, a longer historical perspective does help to remind us that business cycles are unlikely to be gone for good. Despite talk of the “new economy,” all economies experience ups and downs that are reflected in swings in unemployment, capacity utilization, and overall economic output. Though changes in the structure of the economy may alter the extent of these fluctuations, they are unlikely to eliminate them.In addition, the business cycle record is not independent of policy decisions. The economy may not have changed fundamentally; perhaps we have simply benefited from good economic policy (see Taylor 1998 for a discussion along these lines). With less successful policies, recessions could become more frequent and longer again. The Great Depression, for example, was prolonged by, among other things, poor economic and monetary policy decisions, and the recessions of the early 1980s were the price of policy mistakes in the 1970s that allowed inflation to rise significantly (Romer 1999). Thus, one reason business cycles can change, even if the underlying economy or source of disturbances haven’t, is because policymakers do a better (or worse) job of stabilizing the economy.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

What impending recession? New survey shows most people think they will be better off next year(Dec. 10, 2019)

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What impending recession? New survey shows most people think they will be better off next year(Dec. 10, 2019)

Economists are beginning to predict a near-term economic future that, until recently, would have been considered inconceivable, or at the very least implausible: The idea that the more than decade-old bull market still has room to run.A new survey from the National Association for Business Economics found that economic experts think there is less than a 50 percent chance that a recession will take place next year, and a roughly one-in-three chance that the economy will remain positive at least through mid-2021.NABE survey panelists said there is a 21 percent of a recession taking place by the middle of next year, a 43 percent chance of recession by the end of next year, and a 34 percent chance that a recession won’t occur until after mid-2021 at the earliest.In an interview with CNBC, Fidelity Investments director of global macro Jurrien Timmer suggested that the current state of the expansion could be, “a mini-reflation wave within an ongoing late cycle."I think in many ways, the way the economy has evolved in the past 12 months has been more positive than expected,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com. “If you asked people at the beginning of the expansion if it would’ve lasted more than a decade, most people would have said not,” he said. “This is one of the consequences of slower growth for longer.”Hamrick said the Federal Reserve reversing its rate-hiking trajectory and choosing instead to lower rates three times over the course of 2019 played a big role in reversing the market plunge that took place last December. “I think that is one thing that is huge and in many ways it was an admission by the Fed that it was wrong,” he said.Another key component is the job market, according to experts. The NABE survey was conducted before Friday’s surprisingly strong jobs report, which found that the economy added a robust 266,000 jobs in November, higher than the 187,000 economists anticipated.“The one thing that people point to all the time is the hiring component,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group. “I think that’s the real takeaway here. It’s more about the strength in hiring than anything else. As long as the labor market stays tight, then recession gets pushed off further and further,” he said.Studies show that ordinary Americans’ sense of financial security is tightly tied to the job market, and a new Fidelity Investments survey conducted in October found that people also feel optimistic: More than three out of four of the more than 3,000 surveyed, including 85 percent of millennial and Gen Z respondents, said they think they will be better off financially next year than they have been this year.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Don’t bet on a recession in 2020(Dec 27th 2019)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Don’t bet on a recession in 2020(Dec 27th 2019)

PAUL SAMUELSON was the rare sort of economist who understood that a well-crafted joke can have a greater impact than pages of complex maths. One of his famous quips was that declines in the stockmarket have predicted nine of the last five recessions. The joke dates from the mid-1960s. But it may well turn out to have particular relevance for financial markets in 2020.Samuelson was one of the architects of the efficient-market hypothesis, which holds that stock prices, like oil prices and currencies, cannot be predicted. That is largely because such prices already have forecasts about events in politics and economics embedded in them. To predict the markets is to make forecasts about forecasts. If it were easy, we would all be rich.Even so, it is wrong to think that all such attempts are futile. Useful things can still be said about how the markets might behave in 2020. To start with, we have a handle on the immediate outlook for the economy. Leading indicators of the world economy point to a continued slowdown. Forecasts for GDP growth are being revised down. And fears of a recession in America are growing. As such worries take firmer hold, share prices are likely to suffer for a while—perhaps quite badly. Yet there is reason to believe that recession fears will recede later in the year. The big surprise in 2020 may well be how quickly the mood in markets starts to recover.Today’s investor anxiety is clearly evident in the thirst for rich-world government bonds, the safest of assets. In Germany and Switzerland, interest rates are negative not just on overnight deposits but also on bonds that mature in the distant future. Yields on ten-year bonds have dipped below short-term interest rates. In the past, this has been a reliable signal that a recession is coming. A survey conducted by Bank of America finds that two-fifths of fund managers expect one in the next year. The same proportion thinks the trade war between America and China will never be resolved. Surveys of business confidence are similarly gloomy.So the big question for markets in 2020 is whether there is something on the horizon that can spur a little optimism. Don’t expect much good news in the early part of the year; signs that the slump in business sentiment is starting to infect the confidence of consumers are more likely. As recession fears build to a peak, stock prices will come under greater pressure. Long-term bond yields will fall further in America and plunge deeper into negative territory in Europe.Yet misery is rarely eternal. There are forces at work to counter it. One is monetary policy. Sceptics are right to point out that with interest rates already so low, central banks are short of ammunition with which to fire up the economy. But interest-rate cuts in America and China, and bond purchases by the European Central Bank, will at least keep credit flowing smoothly to businesses and consumers. That will put a floor under stock prices.It will probably take more than that to lift overall spirits in financial markets. But it would be unwise to bet against such a revival by the end of 2020. If government-bond yields fall further, politicians will wake up to the logic of economic stimulus by fiscal means—tax cuts and spending increases, funded by borrowing. Such policies fell out of fashion because their implementation is often ill-timed: it takes an age for politicians to agree on anything. But as recession fears grow, the pressure on them will build. As investors start to price in aggressive fiscal stimulus, stock prices will revive and bond yields will start to rise. As Samuelson noted a half-century ago, the markets sometimes predict disasters that don’t happen; 2020 could be one of those years.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Is the Labor Market Overheating?(APRIL 1, 2022)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Is the Labor Market Overheating?(APRIL 1, 2022)

Annmarie Fertoli: US employers are hiring at a brisk pace and the unemployment rate is nearing pre pandemic levels. But there are some worries, namely that record high job openings and higher wages could further fuel inflation. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell expressed concerns about that earlier this month when the Central Bank moved to raise interest rates for the first time since 2018. What does the latest jobs report mean for the Feds path going forward? I'm Annmarie Fertoli from the Wall Street Journal, and I'm joined now by Wall Street Journal, Chief Economics Correspondent, Nick Timiraos. Hi, Nick. Thanks for being here.Nick Timiraos: Thanks for having me.Annmarie Fertoli: Nick, overall we saw strong hiring last month, but this is actually something that could pose a challenge for the Fed, which is closely eyeing whether or not this economy right now is overheating. Can you explain those dynamics for us?Nick Timiraos: Well, the Fed is concerned about inflation running too high, and initially the Fed thought that was primarily happening because of a shortage of goods leading to extreme price pressures for a high handful of things like used cars and new cars. But the concern now is that inflation is broadening to include a broader range of goods and also services. And if you think about the services that we purchase, whether it's haircuts, or restaurant meals, those are things where labor is the main expense. And when you begin to see pressures driving wages higher, that adds to the Fed's concern that inflation is going to be harder to get out of the economy than if it were just rising because of some idiosyncratic price increases for things like used cars.Annmarie Fertoli: Now, how does the Fed usually handle these dueling mandates of achieving maximum employment while keeping inflation near the target 2%? We know that inflation hasn't been near that Fed target for quite some time now.Nick Timiraos: Well, sometimes as you note, the mandates can be in conflict. Right now, they're not. Right now, you have very strong employment and very high inflation. And the Fed will look at that and say, "Obviously we need to raise interest rates." Right now, interest rates are just below a half percentage point and the Fed thinks that a neutral rate, which would be where you're no longer providing stimulus, but you're not necessarily stepping on the brakes. They think that's somewhere between 2 and 3%. We're nowhere near their estimates of what a neutral rate would be. Right now, the Fed is on a clear path to get interest rates up this year to something around 2% give or take. The question's going to be, what do you do after that if the economy's still standing strong and inflation's still coming in high? Inflation results when there is an imbalance of supply and demand. The Fed can't do anything about supply of oil, shortages of cars. They can't fix the supply side of the economy. The only way for them to really bring supply and demand into balance in the short run is to reduce demand. And that's what would begin to happen once they get interest rates to neutral. If they decide to keep raising interest rates, they would be trying to deliberately slow down the economy, destroying demand, weakening the job market in order to get inflation to come down.Annmarie Fertoli: We know that the Fed is planning to raise interest rates several times this year. What does the latest data from the jobs report mean for how Fed officials might proceed at their next meeting in May?Nick Timiraos: The big question at the May meeting is not whether the Fed will raise interest rates, it's by how much. Traditionally, when the Fed raises interest rates, they move in just a quarter percentage point increment, but there are times when the data might call for a larger increase, a half percentage point increase. Now, the Fed has not raised interest rates by a half percentage point since 2000, but we haven't been in an environment where inflation's this high and where the unemployment rate is this low. When the unemployment rate fell to this half century low level in 2018 and 2019, inflation was at 2%. The big question now is really will the Fed do a supersized half percentage point interest rate increase in May? And the report from the Labor Department here gives them a green light to do a half point increase if they want to.Annmarie Fertoli: And what does the latest jobs report mean for the Fed's plans to unwind its $9 trillion asset portfolio?Nick Timiraos: The Fed has two tools that they've used to provide stimulus, which is cutting interest rates during the crisis. They cut rates to zero and then after that they purchase longer term bonds and mortgage backed securities, again, to push rates even lower. Now, as they're unwinding their stimulus, they're raising interest rates, but they're also preparing at their May meeting to announce a plan to shrink the asset holdings to allow that stimulus to reverse. And it's very likely that the Fed will begin to do that. And it's a double barreled form of policy tightening. It's not something that the Fed has a lot of experience with because they've only done this one other time after they expanded their asset portfolio. After the 2008 recession, they unwound it a little bit in 2017, 18, and 19. Now they're talking about more aggressively running down the securities holdings in that portfolio. It's very much going to be trial and error, wait and see, Fed Chair J Powell is talking about being humble and nimble. And that suggests that the Fed is doing something they don't have a lot of experience doing, which is to bring inflation down when it's way above its target, possibly raising rates a lot more than they have in the last two decades all while shrinking their asset portfolio.Annmarie Fertoli: All right. That's Wall Street Journal Chief Economics Correspondent, Nick Timiraos. Nick, thanks so much for your time today.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

The World Economy Risks Turning Too Hot to Handle(2018년 3월 16일)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

The World Economy Risks Turning Too Hot to Handle(2018년 3월 16일)

The world economy risks growing too fast for its own good.Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers meet next week in Argentina amid the broadest and strongest economic upswing since 2011, with President Donald Trump’s tax cuts adding a dose of accelerant. They convene days after the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development raised its forecasts to show global growth of 3.9 percent this year and next.For policy makers and investors, the key questions are how much faster can the world grow -- and do they even want it to if overheating means an inflationary boom is followed by another bust.Global growth has only matched or bettered 3.9 percent 8 times since 1990 and HSBC Holdings Plc notes every synchronized upswing since then presaged an abrupt shock. The peak of 5.6 percent in 2007 was followed by the financial crisis a year later.“When lots of countries are growing strongly, the global economy is at its most vulnerable, thanks to heightened interest rate and financial risks,” said Stephen King, senior economic adviser at HSBC.In a study of 50 economies published last month, King observed that the credit-crunch recession hit the U.S. in 1990 after a period of robust global demand and then bond markets collapsed in 1994 following another growth spurt. The next boom in 1997 came before the Asia crisis and then the world was buoyant from 2004 to 2007 until the worst recession since the Great Depression.Signs are already appearing that activity is now looking toppish as the Federal Reserve and other central banks tighten monetary policy, China curbs borrowing and Trump implements tariffs. Citigroup Inc. calculates data in major economies are currently undershooting forecasts by the most since September and measures of manufacturing confidence appear to be cresting, albeit at lofty levels.“Even though the sun still shines in the global economy, there are more clouds on the horizon,” International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in a blog post addressed to G-20 policy makers. “Think of the growing concerns over trade tensions, the recent spike in volatility in financial markets, and more uncertain geopolitics.”The fear of a trade war will be high on the agenda in Buenos Aires, with Bloomberg Economics estimating such an event could wipe $470 billion off the world economy by 2020.Read more on the risks associated with a global trade warInvestors seem placated for now. Global stocks were roiled in January amid concern a pickup in U.S. inflation would force central banks to react, yet subsequent data showed price pressures remain muted even as companies keep hiring.“Overheating -- in the form of a sharp pick-up in inflation -- is still a good way into the future,” Robin Brooks, chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, said of the U.S.In a report to clients on Thursday, Nomura Holdings Inc. economist Andrew Cates wrote that there is “plenty of scope for this cycle to mature” because tightening labor markets and stronger demand should prompt companies to invest and productivity to advance, allowing the global expansion to continue.There could still be trouble ahead.In the U.S., tax cuts and government spending are stoking demand but could end up provoking the Fed into raising interest rates more aggressively than policy makers now plan, risking another fallout in financial markets. Unemployment is already at 4.1 percent and could fall further.Fitch Ratings said on Thursday that “booming” global conditions will trigger central banks to raise interest rates.“The Fed will need to move rates materially higher over the next few years to head off overheating risk two to three years out,” said Krishna Guha, vice chairman at Evercore ISI in Washington.Still, incoming White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow urged the Fed not to “overdo it” in raising interest rates: “Growth is not inflationary. Just let it rip, for heaven’s sake,” he told CNBC in an interview.

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Fed chief Powell says no evidence U.S. economy overheating(March 2, 2018)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Fed chief Powell says no evidence U.S. economy overheating(March 2, 2018)

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Thursday the U.S. economy does not appear to be running hot, even as the influential head of the New York Fed suggested a faster pace of interest rate increases may still be in the offing for 2018."There is no evidence the economy is overheating," Powell told the Senate Banking Committee in his second appearance in Congress this week, saying he expects the Fed to stick with a "gradual" pace of monetary policy tightening.But in remarks at an event in Sao Paulo, Brazil, New York Fed President William Dudley said "gradual" could still apply to a scenario in which borrowing costs were raised four times this year, instead of the three moves Fed policymakers projected when they issued their last set of economic projections in December.Yet the Fed officials' comments were overshadowed by President Donald Trump's announcement of a plan to raise tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the sort of move Fed policymakers have warned about since the Republican took office last year.Such action, and the risk of retaliation by trading partners, could cloud the U.S. economic outlook and derail the global recovery currently benefiting the United States.Traders of federal funds futures trimmed bets on a fourth rate increase this year after Trump's announcement. U.S. stock indexes fell sharply, with the S&P 500 <.SPX> index down about 1.3 percent in a third consecutive day of losses.In his testimony, Powell described trade as a "net positive" while conceding it created some losers in the economy, and said "the tariff approach is not the best approach. The best approach is to deal directly with the people who are affected rather than falling back on tariffs."The Fed is expected to increase rates at its March 20-21 policy meeting. Policymakers will also issue fresh forecasts that will indicate whether the core of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee has shifted its view.'APPROPRIATE PATH'Powell's twin appearances this week showed that he and the rest of the Fed are wrestling over how to square an economy that is strong on many levels, and possibly about to get at least a short-term boost from tax cuts, but still lacks the kind of inflation and wage gains that would prompt faster Fed action on rates.To some policymakers, the absence of price pressures means the Fed should stand back, wait for wages to gain steam, and give workers a chance to make up ground lost due to the 2007-2009 financial crisis and its aftermath even at the risk of faster inflation in the future."Similar numbers of participants see upside risk to the outlook and downside risks on inflation," analysts from Barclays wrote in a recent note. "If policy is to move faster, or slower, one of these groups needs to gain additional members."Earlier on Thursday, the Commerce Department reported that consumer prices increased in January, with a gauge of underlying inflation posting its largest gain in 12 months. The report added to the sense that inflation is moving up to the Fed's 2 percent target.In prepared remarks for his testimony this week, Powell pledged to "strike a balance" between avoiding any rapid rise in prices while keeping the recovery on track in the hope that the tight job market finally produces significant wage gains.He also acknowledged, in response to lawmakers' questions, that the labor market may have room to strengthen further, given uncertainty about the level of "full employment," a concept generally associated with faster rising wages and prices.Though the current U.S. unemployment rate of 4.1 percent was "at or near or even below" many estimates of the full employment rate, "we don't see any evidence of a decisive move up in wages ... Nothing in that suggests to me that wage inflation is at a point of acceleration," Powell told the Senate panel on Thursday.Powell said risks are "more two-sided" now than early in the recovery, adding that "the thing we don't want to have happen is to get behind the curve."But he said at this point the Fed could continue "to gradually raise interest rates ... That is the path we have been on and my expectation is that will continue to be the appropriate path."Since Powell's appearance before the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee on Tuesday, markets have been looking for clarity over whether the Fed will accelerate the pace of its rate increases this year.Powell's bullish comments about the economy on Tuesday sparked a jump in U.S. bond yields and drop in stocks.Reporting by Howard Schneider; Additional reporting by Pete Schroeder and Jason Lange in Washington, Jonathan Spicer in New York and Ann Saphir in San Francisco; Editing by Paul Simao

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Economists React: China's GDP Shows Signs of Overheating(April 15, 2010)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Economists React: China's GDP Shows Signs of Overheating(April 15, 2010)

China's latest economic data show an attention-getting 11.9% surge in the first quarter's gross domestic product, combined with moderate inflation and slowing investment spending. Although China's leadership is clearly worried about a real-estate bubble, their next step is not obvious. Economists highlight what the mixed signals might mean for the future:Growth is strong, but there are signs of overheating. With stimulus already partly removed, the key is whether the authorities can steer the economy onto a more sustainable growth path, or whether generalized inflation and/or an asset bubble will break out in the second half and then trigger a bigger policy-induced slowdown for China in 2011. - Stephen Green, Standard CharteredWith 11.9% year-on-year GDP growth surpassing potential growth, overheated demand not only exhausts spare resources but also overstretches the supply capacity of raw materials, energy and infrastructure, leading to rapid upward pressure on prices. This is likely to be exacerbated by the fast export recovery, given that warming global demand puts new orders to China's manufacturers which exhausts the spare manufacturing capacity and ultimately adds pressures on consumer goods. ... In sum, the latest data releases have pointed to rising overheating and inflation risks. -- Qu Hongbin, HSBCThe acceleration in growth argues for further policy tightening. Yet, the call is not straightforward. CPI inflation is currently lower relative to the last two tightening periods in 2004 and 2007. The government is also concerned about producing a 2008-style correction in the property market. ... The fact that residential investment is the major driver of growth remains a concern. Residential apartments are a more politically sensitive issue than, for instance, steel factories, meaning the government may be reluctant to tighten as aggressively as it has in the past towards other sectors. - Ben Simpfendorfer, Royal Bank of ScotlandCPI inflation remains muted, at least for now. However, after four quarters of consecutive above-potential-level of GDP growth we believe the output gap is closed. We think in absence of a dramatic fall in external demand, it is critical for the government to tighten policy more decisively than they have been doing in order to prevent overheating. However, as CPI inflation remains low for now and policymakers remain very cautious on the external demand outlook we are likely to see more decisive tightening measures after CPI inflation rises to a relatively high level of say 3%-4%. - Yu Song & Helen Qiao, Goldman SachsWith growth now strong but headline inflation still subdued, the government has a window of opportunity to reign in the policy stimulus before it tips over into excess. ... On interest rates, the government is faced with an unpalatable choice: raise rates and damp the ardor of investors in the real estate sector, or leave rates on hold and allow the property bubble to expand further, and risk inflationary expectations taking hold. - Tom Orlik, Stone & McCarthy Research AssociatesFor now, the print of data does change the economic policy debate. There has been growing speculation that China may move on interest rates in response to the stronger property data (both volume and price) in April. We believe that the better than expected price data in March will be sufficient to keep the PBoC sidelined until the second half of the year. ... China's exit strategy continues to be one of subtlety and restraint. - Glenn Maguire, Societe GeneraleThe acceleration in year-on-year growth in Q1 was entirely due to weakness a year ago. Growth has continued to slow in quarter-on-quarter terms and the economy is now expanding at an unremarkable pace. Price pressures too seem to be easing. While we expect policy tightening over the coming quarter, there is no need for dramatic measures. - Mark Williams, Capital Economics

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

4 signs the stock market is overheating(July 1, 2014)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

4 signs the stock market is overheating(July 1, 2014)

The markets are in a state of ecstasy, but investors may be underestimating lurking danger.CNNMoney took a look at a slew of recent data on stock valuations and corporate sentiment, and while the prospects for global economic growth remain robust, savvy investors need to stay vigilant.Here are the most four worrying signs for the markets right now:1. Addiction to the Fed stimulus: Simply put, the financial markets are hooked on easy money, and that has caused them to ignore real economic and geopolitical vulnerabilities, according to an annual report released Sunday by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), an organization of of central banks.While the Federal Reserve and other central banks are widely credited with shoring up the financial system after the crisis by keeping interest rates low and driving investment into stocks, investors may have gotten ahead of themselves."It is hard to avoid the sense of a puzzling disconnect between the markets' buoyancy and underlying economic developments globally," the report said.Related: America's 6 biggest public pensionsThe BIS noted that investors aggressive search for yield has driven them into riskier European and emerging market bonds, as well as lower rated corporate debt. That has left them exposed to a host of problems should interest rates rise quickly or economic conditions deteriorate."Countries could at some point find themselves in a debt trap: seeking to stimulate the economy through low interest rates encourages even more debt, ultimately adding to the problem it is meant to solve," asserted the BIS.2. Stocks are downright expensive: According to a popular metric of market valuation, stocks are trading at lofty levels previously experienced leading up market crashes. According to the Shiller PE Ratio, which tracks inflation-adjusted earnings over the past 10 years, the S&P 500 is currently trading at over 26 times earnings. The long-term average, going back more than 130 years, is 16.5.The Shiller price-to-earnings ratio rose above 25 for the first time in 1901, then again in 1929. At the height of the tech stock craze in 2000, the ratio hit a record peak of 44 before the market collapsed. It was back above 25 in 2003 and stayed around that level until 2007 -- shortly before the so-called Great Recession.Source: Data from multpl.com based on Shiller PE RatioAccording to research by Credit Suisse, once it rises above 26, U.S. stock market returns are typically negative for the next five years.3. Markets are far outpacing actual growth: Stocks are priced in the stratosphere compared to the overall health of the U.S. economy. David R. Kotok, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer at Cumberland Advisors in Sarasota, Florida, says that the only other time the total valuation of the stock market relative to U.S. growth domestic product (GDP) was higher was at the peak of the tech bubble."We think the probability of a correction is rising. It is very hard to pinpoint," Kotok explained in a research note Sunday.Still, Kotok is stripping out the first quarter's decline in GDP for his calculations, and he admits that "GDP is not a perfect trading guide."Related: 3 reasons not to freak out about -2.9% GDPBut "it does express that, when stocks are highly priced in the aggregate relative to GDP, the probability is higher that markets are becoming fully valued."Worst Q1 GDP since recession4. Corporate leaders aren't so optimistic anymore: In a survey revealed Monday by accounting and consulting behemoth Deloitte, Chief Financial Officers in the United States have lowered their earnings expectations for the year, with CFOs in manufacturing feeling particularly pessimistic.CFOs' expectations for capital spending also fell, the Deloitte survey found."Net optimism is holding steady, but lower earnings and capital spending growth expectations suggest U.S. CFOs are factoring in bumps that were not on their radar screens three months ago," said Deloitte's Sanford Cockrell III in a press release.

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Morgan Stanley in Talks With Wachovia, Others(Sept. 18, 2008)

Strong Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Morgan Stanley in Talks With Wachovia, Others(Sept. 18, 2008)

Morgan Stanley sought shelter from the growing financial storm Wednesday, entering preliminary merger talks with Wachovia Corp. and other banks as a seventh straight decline in the company's share price sent the stock to its lowest level since 1998.After a harrowing day, Morgan Stanley's shares finished down $6.95, or 24%, to $21.75. Goldman Sachs Group, the largest U.S. investment bank by market value, also fell $18.51, or 14%, to $114.50.While the situation is more acute at Morgan Stanley, the two Wall Street banks are both battling extraordinary market pressures that have already pushed stable franchises such as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. into bankruptcy protection or hasty merger deals. At Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, two of the oldest and most successful investment banks, market confidence withered in the past 24 hours for firms that were once trusted and envied.As employees stared at their trading screens and television sets, a sense of disbelief hung over people who had thought themselves largely insulated from credit-market fears. "I've lost more than half my net worth in a month," said one Goldman employee.The perception hurting investment-bank shares is that they can no longer rely on jittery global markets to replenish the cash necessary to fund their trading and lending businesses. That has forced the companies' borrowing costs higher, which means, ultimately, it will likely become prohibitively expensive for them to fund their businesses.Commercial banks such as Wachovia are perceived as more stable, creating strong incentive for investment banks to link up with them, as Merrill Lynch did earlier this week with Bank of America Corp. But even some retail banks are under attack, such as the large savings-and-loan Washington Mutual Inc., which was exploring its own deal Wednesday with several other banks. WaMu has received expressions of interest from Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and other large banks, including one based outside the U.S., according to people familiar with the situation.Inside Morgan Stanley there was a growing feeling that the firm's chief executive, John Mack, would have to explore a merger or outside investment. Just 10 days ago Mr. Mack said in a Fortune magazine interview that he was "not thinking about selling the firm."But markets have moved with such force that yesterday Mr. Mack fielded a call from Wachovia CEO Robert Steel about a potential tie-up. Messrs. Mack and Steel both attended Duke University and have been on its board of trustees for more than a decade. Mr. Mack grew up in Mooresville, N.C., about 30 miles from Charlotte, N.C., where Wachovia is based.A spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley said that the firm is "focused on solutions" to address the falling stock price. Wachovia declined to comment.As much as Morgan Stanley is suffering, Wachovia faces its own uncertain future. Saddled with a mountain of troubled adjustable-rate mortgages inherited through its 2006 takeover of Golden West Financial Corp., Wachovia has seen its financial condition weaken and its stock price plunge. After the disastrous Golden West acquisition, few Wachovia shareholders are likely to relish the idea of another huge deal, particularly one with another battered financial institution.Morgan Stanley is also exploring preliminary tie-ups with a range of other banks around the globe, say people familiar with the matter. Morgan Stanley may well remain independent, but if a deal were struck it could come with the likes of HSBC Holdings PLC of the U.K., Banco Santander SA of Spain, Japan's Nomura Holdings Inc., a Chinese financial institution or a domestic partner such as Bank of New York Mellon Corp., say the people familiar with the matter.Mr. Mack also took another tack Wednesday. He dialed U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, as well as Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, to discuss how to stop the rapid decline in the two firms' share price. The two firms didn't discuss a merger but focused instead on how to stop short sellers betting on a decline in Goldman and Morgan shares, people familiar with the matter said.Mr. Mack entertained the idea of a lockup with Merrill Lynch last weekend as banking executives met at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to discuss the future of Lehman Brothers, but Merrill wanted to move too quickly for Mr. Mack, according to people familiar with the matter.Goldman Sachs has publicly toed a much more independent line in recent weeks. Its share price hasn't fallen as much as Morgan Stanley's, but its latest quarterly earnings report was its worst since 2005. The company says it has managed risk better than many commercial banks. Goldman officials add that commercial banks use the same funding markets as Goldman and Morgan Stanley do for large parts of their businesses.Mr. Mack and his fellow executives had hoped that their stock price would react better to the company's earnings announcement this week. The company's profits and net revenue topped even Goldman Sachs, which has avoided the blowups suffered by many peers.But after the earnings announcement late Tuesday afternoon caused initial enthusiasm among investors, Morgan Stanley shares resumed their downward march Wednesday. They continued lower even after the SEC announced that new restrictions would be placed on investors who bet on declines in share prices.

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Mounting Fears Shake World Markets As Banking Giants Rush to Raise Capital(Sept. 18, 2008)

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Mounting Fears Shake World Markets As Banking Giants Rush to Raise Capital(Sept. 18, 2008)

Fear coursed through the U.S. financial system on Wednesday, as hope for a resolution to the year-old credit crisis faded.Stocks tumbled, concern grew about which financial firm would fall next, and investors rushed toward the safe haven of government bonds in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the crisis at insurer American International Group.The market turmoil is doing more than inflicting losses on investors. Borrowing costs for U.S. companies have skyrocketed, and the debt markets have become nearly inaccessible to all but the most creditworthy borrowers.The desperation was especially striking in the market for U.S. government debt, long considered the safest of investments. At one point during the day, investors were willing to pay more for one-month Treasurys than they could expect to get back when the bonds matured. Some investors, in essence, had decided that a small but known loss was better than the uncertainty connected to any other type of investment.That's never happened before. In a special government auction on Wednesday, demand ran so high that the Treasury Department sold $40 billion in bills, far beyond what it needed to cover the government's obligations."We've seen crisis. We've seen recession. But we've not seen the core of the financial system shaken like this," says Joseph Balestrino, a portfolio manager at Federated Investors. "It's just crazy."A 449-point selloff took the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its lowest level in almost three years, leaving it 23% below where it stood a year ago. Volume on the New York Stock Exchange was the second highest in history, falling just shy of the record set on Tuesday. The VIX, a widely watched measure of market volatility that is often referred to as the "fear index," hit its highest level since late 2002.In Europe, stock markets lost roughly 2% of their value. In Russia, the scene of recent massive declines, trading on the country's major exchanges was halted for the second day in a row, this time only an hour and a half into the session. Gold prices rose 9% to $846.60 an ounce amid the global turmoil. In early trading Thursday, Tokyo stocks were down 3.2%, among other declining markets in the region."Forget about retail investors, all the pros are scared," says one broker. "People have no idea where to put their money."For now, "if you have cash, you're going to put it in the short-term, most liquid stuff you can," says Steve Van Order, fixed-income strategist for Calvert Asset Management.Adding to the fear was a loss in a prominent money-market fund, the Reserve Primary Fund, which held Lehman Brothers debt. It was the first time since 1994 that such a fund, which is supposed to be as safe as a bank account, had lost money. The loss was made worse by a run on the fund. Over two days, investors pulled more than half of their assets from the fund, once valued at $64 billion."This is a panic situation" in the bond markets, says Charles Comiskey, head of U.S. government-bond trading in New York at HSBC Securities USA Inc.Riskier assets were sold off. Yields on bonds issued by financial companies hit a record high of about six percentage points above U.S. Treasurys. In the market for credit-default swaps -- essentially insurance against default on assets tied to corporate debt and mortgage securities -- fears increased on Wednesday about whether counterparties would be able to honor their agreements. Investors tried to reduce their exposures to two more big players in the market, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley. That sent the cost of protection on both Wall Street firms soaring to new highs.In the stock market, the pressure on financial firms continued, with Morgan Stanley stock dropping 24% and Goldman Sachs shares losing 14%.Investors say the government takeover of AIG and Lehman's bankruptcy filing are evidence that the situation is grimmer than all but the most pessimistic had expected. Problems have spread from complex debt markets tied directly to the housing market into plain-vanilla corporate bonds."Another front is opening," says Ajay Rajadhyaksha, head of fixed-income research at Barclays Capital.Some people fear that the dwindling ranks of investment banks, coming at a time when commercial banks are pulling back on their own use of capital, will prolong the credit crunch."It's unclear who is going to be a credit provider going forward, and if having fewer credit providers means higher costs of borrowing going forward," says Basil Williams, chief executive of hedge-fund manager Concordia Advisors.Ordinarily, bondholders are better protected from losses than stock investors. But the events of the past two weeks have shown that they are vulnerable, too. The Federal Reserve's rescue of AIG doesn't protect the company's bondholders. That's because the deal, which consists of a high-priced loan to the company from the government, requires AIG to pay the Treasury before current bondholders. If AIG can't raise enough cash by selling assets, bondholders won't be fully repaid.As a result, despite the Fed lifeline, some AIG debt is changing hands at just 40 cents on the dollar, less than half of the price one week ago. Now that Lehman has defaulted on its debt, its senior bonds are worth as little as 17 cents on the dollar, traders say.That's spilled over to other financial names seen as under stress. Bonds of Morgan Stanley are trading at around 60 cents on the dollar. Goldman Sachs's bonds are trading at prices in the range of 70 cents on the dollar.As bond prices dropped, their yields rose. The spread between yields on corporate bonds and safe U.S. Treasurys have blown out to the widest levels traders have seen in years. On Wednesday, yields on investment-grade corporate bonds were more than four percentage points higher than comparable Treasury bonds, according to Merrill Lynch. Junk bonds ended the day more than nine percentage points over Treasurys, approaching the 2002 high of 10.6 percentage points, according to Merrill.Short-term debt markets, where companies borrow overnight or in periods up to one year, have dried up. The money-market-fund managers who normally buy such short-term debt have suffered losses on their holdings of debt in Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions.If companies can't borrow in the short-term debt markets, they may be forced to draw down on their revolving credit lines, yet another drain on banks' dwindling capital.The Lehman bankruptcy also pressured the market for leveraged loans, which are used by private-equity firms to finance buyouts. When the firm attempted to sell some of its loan holdings earlier this week, prices dropped toward 85 cents on the dollar, according to Standard & Poor's Leveraged Commentary & Data.The damage has gone beyond banks and brokerages. Ford Motor Credit Co., the finance arm of Ford Motor Co., paid 7.5% for Tuesday-night overnight borrowings, says one trader. Typically, the rate for such debt would be about one-quarter percentage point over the federal-funds rate, which is currently 2%, he says. Even for companies considered of the safest credit quality, the cost of overnight debt is rising. General Electric Co. was forced to pay 3.5% for overnight borrowing on Wednesday, the trader says. In normal times, GE, which has the highest debt rating, would have to pay the equivalent of the federal-funds rate."There's no evident catalyst for ending the pain," says Guy Lebas, chief fixed-income strategist at Janney Montgomery in Philadelphia.

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

The U.S. Economy: Trying to Guess What Happens Next(Nov. 25, 2007)

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

The U.S. Economy: Trying to Guess What Happens Next(Nov. 25, 2007)

YOU need not be a Wall Street chieftain to feel the anxiety that has wrapped its arms around the American economy. The stock market seems locked in a downward spiral as one bank after another suffers its day of reckoning with bad mortgages. Companies are sharply cutting profit forecasts as the sense takes hold that American consumers are finally too loaded with debt to buy the next flat-screen television. The dollar has fallen to inglorious depths, turning Manhattan department stores into something like a Tijuana street market for Germans. One unpleasant word hovers large: recession.How bad could things get? Pretty bad, say many economists. Not so bad that your grandfather’s prescriptions for enduring the Great Depression need dusting off, but nasty enough to force many Americans to get reacquainted with living within their means. That could make life uncomfortable. It may also be an unavoidable step toward purging the United States and the global economy of a major source of instability — an unhealthy dependence on the willingness of American consumers to keep buying even as debt mounts. Concerns that Americans must eventually grow thrifty, leaving factories from Guangzhou to Guatemala City scrambling for buyers, now sows unease around the world.It is worth bearing in mind that the American economy has a history of unexpected resilience in the face of supposedly grim prospects. Moreover, some parts of the economy are enjoying good times, notably farmers able to cash in on the making of ethanol. That said, most economists think the American economy is headed for a significant slowdown, as housing prices keep falling, consumers grow tight, and businesses cut investments.The Federal Reserve last week said it expected the economy to grow 1.6 percent to 2.6 percent next year, a stark contrast from the 3.9 percent rate registered in the most recent quarter. Some see signs of a worst-case scenario — a severe recession that would feature a plummeting stock market, a lower dollar and the loss of many jobs. That would make for an unpleasant year or two for Americans from most walks of life. It would probably drag down the world economy, as Americans put off purchases of everything from computers made in China to Italian-produced sports cars.The most bearish indulge frighteningly gloomy tones. “The evidence is now building that an ugly recession is inevitable,” declared Nouriel Roubini, an economist who was among the first to warn of the dangers of a real estate downturn, writing last week on his blog, the Global EconoMonitor. “When the United States sneezes the rest of the world gets the cold. And since the United States will not just sneeze, but is risking a serious case of protracted and severe pneumonia, the rest of the world should start to worry about a serious viral contagion.”Most economists are not so pessimistic. The most likely outcome envisioned by many is a slowdown or a mild recession. That would increase unemployment somewhat, and it would keep the stock market in the doldrums, but it would probably not be severe enough to significantly crimp economies abroad. And while it would impose pain, some see in this more moderate path a way to fix the imbalances in world trade that are at the center of fears of a great unraveling.Americans have been buying staggering quantities of goods from overseas using money lent by foreigners. Foreign exporters have been relying on American consumers to keep them in business. For years, this dynamic has made for increasingly lopsided terms of trade: Last year, American imports outstripped exports by $764 billion, with foreigners stepping in to cover the difference.In the more appetizing scenario, the adjustment would happen gradually. The dollar would fall, making American goods cheaper abroad and helping to correct the trade imbalance. The American economy would slow, but the world economy would continue apace, allowing American firms to export aggressively.Faced with slower business at home, Americans would be more inclined to save. That would force Japan, China, India and other export giants to find new ways to prosper without leaning on the beleaguered American consumer. The world economy would be cleansed of its imbalances, emerging stronger. The more optimistic suggest that this very scenario is now unfolding.“If you’re a global benevolent despot, you want a five-year period where China booms, India booms and the U.S. consumer takes a decided back seat,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at the brokerage and advisory firm ITG. “You need to have a period where Asia booms and we limp along, because the No. 1 worry for the world economy is large, unsustainable trade imbalances.”To grasp what may at first seem perverse — pain required to get back to gain — it is worth recalling the genesis of our current predicament.A decade ago came a financial crisis in Asia. As losses rippled around the globe, credit dried up, threatening the willingness of consumers to spend and businesses to invest. With the health of the global economy menaced, central banks lowered interest rates, fueling a wave of spending that, for the most part, has kept things rolling along.In the United States, cheap credit added momentum to the boom in technology. That story ended badly, of course, with many companies extinguished along with tens of billions of shareholder dollars. But it did not deter the American consumer, whose spending amounts to 70 percent of the American economy. The Federal Reserve again opened the taps of cheap credit. Spending went on.

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Housing History Sends Recession Warning(Nov. 24, 2007)

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Alexandria Real Estate Equities REIT

Housing History Sends Recession Warning(Nov. 24, 2007)

THE Federal Reserve Board forecast this week that there will be no recession in the United States in the foreseeable future. It says the gross domestic product will grow by as little as 1.6 percent in 2008, but is confident that growth will accelerate after that.That forecast — the first formally issued by the Fed in line with its effort to be more transparent — was released the same day that the Census Bureau reported a continued slowing of housing starts. The number of new homes being built is now little more than half the level of two years ago.If the Fed is right, and the economy does stay out of recession, with the unemployment rate barely rising at all, then it will be the first time ever that a housing slowdown this severe has not coincided with a recession. In fact, there has never been a slowdown of anything like this magnitude until after a recession was under way.The minutes of the October meeting of the Fed’s open market committee, which were released along with the forecast, conceded that there was a risk of a downturn. “Participants were concerned about the possibility for adverse feedbacks in which economic weakness could lead to further tightening in credit conditions, which could in turn slow the economy further,” the minutes reported.The Fed said there was also a risk from “a more severe contraction in the housing sector and a substantial decline in house prices.”But Fed officials also concluded that “in recent decades, the U.S. economy had proved quite resilient to episodes of financial distress, suggesting that the adverse effects of financial developments on economic activity outside of the housing sector could prove to be more modest than anticipated.”As the accompanying charts show, the decline in housing starts has been rapid and sudden, particularly for single-family homes. Such violent swings were more common decades ago, when increases in short-term interest rates could shut off deposits for savings and loan institutions. At the time, the savings and loans were limited by law from raising deposit rates too far. That made mortgages hard to get until rates came down.Falling home prices and tougher lending standards may be having a similar effect now.The second chart shows two-year changes in home starts, again measured by three-month moving averages to smooth out weather-related distortions. The rate of new-home starts from August through October — as the mortgage crisis took hold — was down 47 percent from the same months of 2005.Since the early 1960s, when the data became available, there have only been three previous cycles when starts fell by at least a third over two years. By the first month with such a decline in each of those cycles — January 1974, March 1980 and January 1991 — a recession was under way.There have been recessions without such a large impact on housing, most notably the 2001 downturn. But the housing market has never done this poorly without a recession starting.

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Alexandria Real Estate Equities REIT

Economy Grew 3.9% in 3rd Quarter(Oct. 31, 2007)

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Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Economy Grew 3.9% in 3rd Quarter(Oct. 31, 2007)

The economy expanded faster than expected in the third quarter, led by a surge in consumer spending and exports, the government reported today. But housing expenditures plunged, and economists remained wary about the outlook for the next few months as the market awaits the Federal Reserve’s decision on interest rates at 2:15 p.m. today.The 3.9 percent annual growth rate compared with 3.8 percent in the second quarter and 0.6 percent in the first quarter. The report from the Commerce Department is a preliminary estimate of gross domestic product in July through September, a volatile period that included the bleakest moments of the summer’s subprime mortgage collapse.The growth rate, which beat most analysts’ expectations, adds a new wrinkle to the Fed’s deliberations at today’s meeting. The central bank is expected to cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-point in response to widespread concerns about the lagging housing market and a credit squeeze.But today’s G.D.P. report presents a more cheerful view of the economy. The growth rate was the fastest since the first quarter of 2006. Consumer spending expanded at more than twice its rate in the second quarter, rising 3 percent after a 1.4 percent gain in the second quarter with a surge in sales of big-ticket products like appliances and furniture. Businesses spent more, too, with producer expenditures growing at a 7.9 percent annual rate, down slightly from 11 percent in the second quarter.“There was more momentum than recognized going into the financial crises of the summer,” said Stuart G. Hoffman, the chief economist at PNC Financial. But Mr. Hoffman warned the G.D.P. numbers masked a slowdown since August. “It sure hit a headwind when we saw the problems on Wall Street,” he said.Inflation may also be a greater risk than anticipated. Rate cuts stimulate the economy by making it easier for banks, consumers and businesses to borrow money, but Fed officials are always wary that a cut will ignite inflation. The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge ticked up 1.8 percent last quarter, an increase from 1.4 percent in the second quarter and the fastest growth rate since early 2006. The gauge, known as the personal consumption expenditures deflator, measures prices paid by consumers and excludes prices of food and energy, which are extremely volatile.Still, a measure of activity in the housing sector known as residential spending dropped 20.1 percent in the third quarter, accelerating from an 11.8 percent dip in the previous period. Investors and analysts remain wary that problems in the beleaguered housing market will bleed into the broader economy, stifling fourth-quarter growth.That view was bolstered by a weak manufacturing report this morning. Business activity in the Chicago area, considered a bellwether by economists, dropped in October as costs increased and businesses received fewer orders, according to the Chicago arm of the National Association of Purchasing Management. The index fell to 49.7 this month from 54.2 in September. Readings below 50 indicate contraction.Some analysts say that surging oil prices, a weakening dollar, and a mixed outlook for domestic businesses all provide ample reason for the Fed to act.On the other side of the coin, construction activity unexpectedly rose in September, buoyed by an increase in government projects. Spending on construction rose 0.3 percent last month compared with a 0.2 percent decline in August, the Commerce Department said today. Housing projects, however, continue to drop, with residential spending down 1.4 percent in September after a 1.7 percent dip in August.About 106,000 jobs were created in October, a promising sign for the job market, according to a private report also released this morning. The survey also revised upward September’s job growth to 61,000 new jobs, according to ADP Employer Services. The leading measure of employment, the Labor Department’s private payroll report, will be released on Friday.

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

European fear: The wolves are at the gate(August 5, 2011)

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

European fear: The wolves are at the gate(August 5, 2011)

A sharp drop in manufacturing, a towering debt-to-GDP ratio and a jaw-dropping decline in equity markets.No -- not the United States. Europe!Many of the underlying tremors that led to this week's steep sell-off in the U.S. have been festering in plain sight in Europe for a year or more.Consider a few figures:European indexes have been hammered over the past month, with the main exchanges of England (UKX) off 12.9%, France (CAC40) 17.6% and Germany (DAX) 16.7%.The economies of Italy and France -- two of the continent's largest -- expanded by only 0.3% and 0.2% in the second quarter.The problem?Developed countries piled on massive amounts of debt during the recession.Advanced economies worldwide increased their debt burden from $18.1 trillion in 2007 to $29.5 trillion in 2011, according to researchers at the Brookings Institution. And that's not the half of it. The number is projected to grow to $41.3 trillion by 2016.Throw 3 coins in the fountain. Italy needs themThe bill collector has already come for some. Billions have been spent propping up Ireland and Greece, and investors have not been shy about sending yields through the roof when they smell blood in the water.Investors lending money to Spain are now demanding interest rates of 6%, while Greek bonds carry a 15% rate and yields on Italian notes spiked this week to 5.5%.Coupled with weak growth, the sharp increase in interest rates only adds to the countries' debt and makes it even more difficult for them to lower their debt-GDP-ratio.There is some evidence that politicians are waking up to the scale of the crisis.What's going on with Italy?German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy planned to interrupt their summer vacations -- a hiking holiday in Italy and a three-week excursion to the French Riviera -- to confer by phone about the growing economic unease.That's welcome news, because while the crisis started at the continent's periphery, it has now arrived at the gates of Italy and Spain.And that, according to Domenico Lombardi, a senior fellow at Brookings and former International Monetary Fund executive board member, should worry policymakers in the United States."Italy has been hit," Lombardi said. "It's the third largest economy in the euro area, and there is no organization that can bail Italy out. It's just too big to swallow."If the situation in Italy were to worsen, the impact could lead to weakening demand for U.S. exports, uncertainty in global currency markets, and consequences for U.S. banks that are exposed to the European banking system.The timing couldn't be worse for the United States, which is about to engage in some fiscal belt-tightening as a result of the debt ceiling deal negotiated in Washington.With the government pumping less money into the economy, policymakers need to find a way to increase demand for U.S. exports, Lombardi said."But this is certainly not going to come from Europe," he said.The tremendous instability in Europe is yet another drag on an already weak U.S. economy and could increase uncertainly, spark a rush to safe-haven assets or delay major investments by American businesses."The economic recovery in the U.S. is inherently fragile," Lombardi said. "And this could have a dramatic effect on the job market outlook."On Friday, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn tried to calm the swirl of rumors as markets bucked up and down."The market unrest witnessed in the last few days is simply not justified on the grounds of economic fundamentals," he said, having broken off his holidays to return to Brussels. "It is not justified for Italy. It is not justified for Spain."But try telling that to bond markets

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Debt ceiling: It's not over until the vote(July 31, 2011)

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Debt ceiling: It's not over until the vote(July 31, 2011)

The debate over the debt ceiling has fractured Washington, heightened partisan rancor and sowed seeds of distrust. And before all this ends -- leaders in Congress must garner enough votes to actually pass legislation.The White House and congressional leaders have agreed to a plan to cut spending and raise the debt ceiling in time.But final passage will require votes from both sides of the aisle, and they will have to be gathered at the last minute -- which heightens the risk of a miscalculation.Witness what happened on Sept. 29, 2008, when the House at first rejected the $700 billion bank bailout bill.Weeks earlier, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been placed into conservatorship by the Treasury Department. Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy. AIG Corp, the world's biggest insurer, had been bailed out by the Federal Reserve.After all that, the Senate passed the bill. And then, as markets watched, the measure was voted down in the House -- a defeat that shocked investors and congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle.Debt ceiling: What happens if Congress doesn't raise it?Following the vote, the Dow slumped 778 points, in the biggest single-day point loss ever.A few days later, the House reversed course and passed a modified version of the bill. Some 58 members switched their votes.Why was the process so hard? A principal reason is that it was rushed.Lawmakers who voted against the bill warned that "being stampeded" into a decision would be a serious mistake."Wall Street is so hungry for the $700 billion they can taste it. To get it they need to ... create panic, block alternatives and herd the cattle. We ask Congress not to rush," California Democrat Rep. Brad Sherman said before the vote.That sentiment stretched across party lines."I am voting against this today because it's not the best bill. It's the quickest bill," Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, Republican of Colorado, told the New York Times. "Taxpayers for generations will pay for our haste and there is no guarantee that they will ever see the benefits."Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said lawmakers now face a similar situation.Lawmakers aren't going to have a lot of time to consider their options. And the negotiations are happening behind closed doors, limiting the involvement of rank-and-file members."With TARP, it wasn't clear that another day or two wouldn't make a big difference," Ornstein said. "If you take two to three days messing around with this, you end up with what could be a profound and very long lasting impact."Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions has voiced concern about the timeline, saying there is a "very real risk that no text will be available until the last minute."And like 2008, not everyone is dealing with the same set of facts. At that time, every high-ranking government official from then-President Bush on down was warning of dire consequences if TARP faltered in the House.That moved a few members into the "yes" column, but not all."We're on the cusp of a complete catastrophic credit meltdown. There is no liquidity in the market," Rep. Sue Myrick, a North Carolina Republican, said in a statement before the vote. "We are out of time. Either you believe that fact, or you don't. I do."Right now, despite warnings from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, President Obama, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and even House Speaker John Boehner, a number of Republicans remain so-called debt ceiling deniers."You've got enough people out there, way too many people, who aren't going to be convinced until Armageddon actually happens," Ornstein said

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Mortgage Crisis Spreads Past Subprime Loans(Feb. 12, 2008)

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133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Mortgage Crisis Spreads Past Subprime Loans(Feb. 12, 2008)

The credit crisis is no longer just a subprime mortgage problem.As home prices fall and banks tighten lending standards, people with good, or prime, credit histories are falling behind on their payments for home loans, auto loans and credit cards at a quickening pace, according to industry data and economists.The rise in prime delinquencies, while less severe than the one in the subprime market, nonetheless poses a threat to the battered housing market and weakening economy, which some specialists say is in a recession or headed for one.Until recently, people with good credit, who tend to pay their bills on time and manage their finances well, were viewed as a bulwark against the economic strains posed by rising defaults among borrowers with blemished, or subprime, credit.“This collapse in housing value is sucking in all borrowers,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.Like subprime mortgages, many prime loans made in recent years allowed borrowers to pay less initially and face higher adjustable payments a few years later. As long as home prices were rising, these borrowers could refinance their loans or sell their properties to pay off their mortgages. But now, with prices falling and lenders clamping down, homeowners with solid credit are starting to come under the same financial stress as those with subprime credit.“Subprime was a symptom of the problem,” said James F. Keegan, a bond portfolio manager at American Century Investments, a mutual fund company. “The problem was we had a debt or credit bubble.”The bursting of that bubble has led to steep losses across the financial industry. American International Group said on Monday that auditors found it may have understated losses on complex financial instruments linked to mortgages and corporate loans.The running turmoil is also stirring fears that some hedge funds may run into trouble. At the end of September, nearly 4 percent of prime mortgages were past due or in foreclosure, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.That was the highest rate since the group started tracking prime and subprime mortgages separately in 1998. The delinquency and foreclosure rate for all mortgages, 7.3 percent, is higher than at any time since the group started tracking that data in 1979, largely as a result of the surge in subprime lending during the last few years.An example of the spreading credit crisis is seen in Don Doyle, a computer engineer at Lockheed Martin who makes a six-figure income and had a stellar credit score in 2004, when he refinanced his home in Northern California to take cash out to pay for his daughter’s college tuition.Mr. Doyle, 52, is now worried that he will have to file for bankruptcy, because he cannot afford to make the higher variable payments on his mortgage, and he cannot sell his home for more than his $740,000 mortgage.“The whole plan was to get out” before his rate reset, he said. “Now I am caught. I can’t sell my house. I’m having a hard time refinancing. I’ve avoided bankruptcy for months trying to pull this out of my savings.”The default rate for prime mortgages is still far lower than for subprime loans, about 24 percent of which are delinquent or in foreclosure. Some economists note that slightly more than a third of American homeowners have paid off their mortgages completely. This group is generally more affluent and contributes more to consumer spending and the economy relative to its size.Unlike subprime borrowers, who tend to have lower incomes and fewer assets, prime borrowers have greater means to restructure their debt if they lose jobs or encounter other financial challenges. The recent reductions in short term interest rates by the Federal Reserve should also help by reducing the reset rate for adjustable loans.

Sell

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF

Dot-com veteran: There’s no bubble now(Nov 3 2014)

Neutral

133690

Mirae Asset TIGER NASDAQ100 ETF