Investors might want to keep their seat belts buckled for a little while longer.
Since the beginning of October, stocks, commodities, the euro and other assets that benefit in good times have staged a blistering rally, reversing some of the third quarter’s punishing losses.
Since bottoming Oct. 3, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has jumped more than 9%, while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was up more than 11% as of Friday’s close. In France, the CAC 40 index is up 18% from its low in late September. Crude-oil prices have risen 15% since Oct. 4, copper is up more than 8%, and the euro rose almost 4% against the dollar last week.
Another sign of the stunning turnaround: U.S. Treasurys, which had been a helter-skelter destination for safety-seeking investors, have seen prices collapse.
Nevertheless, many market strategists and investors remain wary. Their concern: The fate of global financial markets is largely in the hands of government officials in Europe and the U.S. That has thrown many investing tools out the window. Investors can no longer bank on the economy or company earnings as key drivers of financial markets.
‘Investors should not let their guard down just yet,’ Chen Zhao of BCA Research, a Toronto-based firm, wrote in a note to clients Friday afternoon. ‘The direction of the stock market will be dependent on how policy makers in Europe react to the brewing banking crisis. Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict a political process that is as clear as mud.’
Tony Crescenzi, portfolio manager at Pacific Investment Management Co., sees the markets potentially stuck in a ‘quasi state of purgatory.’
The first real test will come Oct. 23, when European officials are expected to officially advance a proposal to bolster the balance sheets of the continent’s battered banks. The risk is that, when the details are ironed out, Europe’s latest crisis-ending plan will once again fall short of investors’ hopes. That happened in July, when European officials failed to live up to expectations for a comprehensive resolution to Greece’s debt.
And if the banks have to fend for themselves, it could fuel more volatility in financial markets, says Jens Nordvig, currency strategist at Nomura Securities. Such a move, he says, could lead to a pullback in bank lending at a time when Europe is already flirting with recession.
In the U.S., attention has been on the economic news. That could change as the super-committee’s budget deadline nears. Even if the panel comes to an agreement, some worry the deal won’t be enough to avoid another cut in the U.S.’s credit rating.
‘This is a critical issue, and by no means are we sanguine that it’s going to come out favorably,’ says RBS’s Mr. Richards.
Two weeks ago Mr. Aronstein exited from a ‘good-sized’ position in 30-year U.S. Treasurys and has ramped up his holdings of stocks to the highest levels in months. While he is short some financial stocks─he compares some banks’ business models to those of railroads 60 or 70 years ago─he sees opportunities in manufacturing, technology and some consumer-discretionary stocks.
‘People are in the mood to be frightened,’ he says. But there are ‘a lot of stocks, in particular in the U.S., that are doing well.’
On the other hand, Jeff Applegate, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, calls the recent bounce a ‘relief rally’ that won’t last long. Last week, he made his biggest bearish shift in two years, reducing his recommended holdings of stocks, high-yield bonds, commodities and real-estate investment trusts.
Mr.Applegate says the world is heading into recession, hurt by political paralysis and the withholding of fiscal stimulus at a time of economic weakness. The past few weeks haven’t changed that outlook, he says.’The policy action being taken, both in Europe and the U.S., is too little, too late,’ he concludes.
Among all the possible explanations for why China and India have experienced explosive economic growth in recent years, worker dedication doesn’t appear to be one of them.
According to a new Harris International survey on worker absences, workers in China and India the world’s second and 10th largest economies, respectively are the most likely to take bogus sick days.
The survey, conducted on behalf of Massachusetts-based workforce management firm Kronos, found Chinese workers were the most likely to play hooky, with 71% admitting they had called in sick despite not actually being sick. India came in second with 62% of workers copping to the lie.
France finished last (or first?) with 16% while the U.S. (52%) and U.K. (43%) finished in the middle.
Credits for book covers and movie posters/stills The credit has to be given to the book publisher or the producer of the movie.
The survey, based on responses from more than 9,000 people in eight countries, was conducted in July and did not include a sampling error.
Does this mean Chinese and India workers are lazier than their French counterparts? Not necessarily.
As Joyce Maroney, director of Kronos-sponsored think tank the Workforce Institute, points out in an interview with Reuters, France is among the most generous countries in giving workers paid time off with a mandated minimum of 30 days per year. China (10 days minimum) and India (12 days minimum), meanwhile, are among the worst.
“One could surmise that in those countries where more paid time off is given, people are less compelled to call in sick when they are not actually sick,” Ms. Maroney said in the interview.
Vacation time has been the subject of fierce debate in China, particularly since 2007, when the country abolished the long May Day “Golden Week” holiday and replaced it with three shorter holidays spread throughout the year. Among the complaints: Chinese companies were hesitant to grant paid holidays at other times of the year.
“Chinese people play hooky so they don’t die on the job,” hermes birkin joked a user of China’s popular Sina Weibo microblogging service writing under the name Xingruyu2001 in response to the survey results. “The worker’s compensation claims would be an inconvenience to our leaders.”
In India, meanwhile, part of the issue is also the contrast between the busy workaholic ethos of the city and the leisurely pace of traditional Indian family life.
“In the village, I could go to work whenever I wanted and take rest when needed,” says Amit Kumar, a 18-year-old worker at a New Delhi restaurant who recently arrived in the city from a village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. “Here I hardly get any leave and it’s always work.” He says he feigns sickness once or twice a month and goes to visit new places in the city or simply rests at his room. His friends at the restaurant also do so, he says.
While China had the highest percentage of respondents 45% Balenciaga ─ saying they thought employers could solve the problem by providing more time off, only a quarter of Indian workers felt the same way.
Interestingly, China and India were among the only places were a majority of workers said employers used an automated system to keep track of absences something Kronos elsewhere claims can increase a company’s bottom line by as much as 10%.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a French writer traded legal threats Monday, suggesting a new round of tussles ahead for the former International Monetary Fund chief.
Novelist Tristane Banon said through her lawyer that she would file a criminal complaint for attempted rape against Mr. Strauss-Kahn this week. ‘The complaint is ready,’ her lawyer, David Koubbi, said in a telephone interview. ‘I will file it to Paris prosecutors on Tuesday.’
Lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn — who was released from house arrest in Manhattan on Friday after questions were raised about the credibility of the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault — said their client had instructed them to prepare a complaint for slander against Ms. Banon.
Mr. Koubbi said Ms. Banon accuses Mr. Strauss-Kahn of having attempted to rape her in February 2003, when the writer came to see him for an interview for a book.
Upon receiving such a complaint, Paris prosecutors would conduct a preliminary investigation and then decide whether to designate an investigating magistrate to conduct a criminal probe. A conviction for attempted rape carries as much as 15 years in prison in France, where the statute of limitations for such crimes is 10 years.
Through one of his lawyers, Henri Leclerc, Mr. Strauss-Kahn said he considered Ms. Banon’s account of the 2003 meeting ‘a figment of her imagination.’
Ms. Banon first gave her version of events in a 2007 interview with French television channel Paris Premiere. She said Mr. Strauss-Kahn grabbed her, became violent and ripped off her bra before she was able to escape from the Paris apartment where Mr. Strauss-Kahn had convened the meeting.
At the time, Ms. Banon told Paris Premiere she had decided against filing a complaint against Mr. Strauss-Kahn because she feared it would leave an indelible stain on her resume.
Chinese shares rose 0.19 percent in early trade Thursday as banks gained on hopes for strong first quarter results and steelmakers advanced on expectations of robust seasonal demand, dealers said.
The Shanghai Composite Index, which covers both A and B shares, was up 5.65 points at 3,056.05.
The Shanghai A-share index gained 0.19 percent, or 5.95 points, to 3,200.07, while the Shenzhen A-share index fell 0.06 percent, or 0.86 points, at 1,345.47.
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) in a week will break ground on a new theme park and resort in Shanghai, according to people familiar with the matter, after years of red tape and negotiations with the Chinese government.
The groundbreaking ceremony follows Disney’s recent receipt of final approval from the Chinese central government to move ahead with its long-gestating plans for the 963-acre park and resort. That is about 1/26 the size of the 40-square-mile Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.
Early Saturday morning, or late Friday in the U.S., invitations were issued by Disney, together with an arm of the Shanghai government and a local business partner of Disney’s, inviting recipients to ‘a special event in Shanghai’ on April 8.
The Shanghai park will be the Burbank, Calif.-based Disney’s sixth major theme park in the world, and its first in mainland China.
Shanghai’s mayor has estimated the cost of the theme park will be 24.4 billion yuan, or $3.73 billion. The total cost of the resort isn’t clear, but it is likely to be one of the largest foreign investments ever made in mainland China. The resort will be majority-owned by media and entertainment companies that are in turn owned by the Shanghai Municipal Government. Disney’s stake in the endeavor hasn’t been disclosed, though the company is expected to hold a minority interest.
In addition to Disney, the parties issuing the invitation were the Administrative Commission of Shanghai International Tourism and Resorts Zone and Shanghai Shendi Group Co. Ltd., Disney’s government-owned joint venture partner. Negotiations for the park began in the late 1990s, spanning the terms of two Disney chief executives and five Shanghai leaders. Challenges turned on Disney’s desire to enter China’s television market and Shanghai’s desire to be assured the project would create a guaranteed number of jobs in the region. In the course of the Shanghai negotiations, Disney was able to create a separate theme park in Hong Kong, which opened in 2005.
Project planning for Shanghai moved into high gear in 2009 when Disney and the local Shanghai government reached a framework agreement that was sent to China’s central government for consideration.
The site is expected to include a theme park, two hotels, a retail-and-dining complex and a lake. At a recent conference for Disney investors, the head of the company’s parks and resorts division, Tom Staggs, said that Disney expects the project to take five years to complete.
To make way for the project, 2,000 households and 300 companies were relocated. Project officials anticipate 7.3 million visitors the first year. Shanghai intends to extend its subway to the area, located near the Pudong International Airport.
As of late Sunday, power was still out at reactors No. 3 and No. 4, the two most troublesome during the nine-day fight to keep the nuclear plant from spinning out of control.
Until Tokyo Electric Power Co. fully restores power at the reactors and turns on cooling systems knocked out after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, it faces continued radiation leakage from spent fuel rods stored at the two reactors. Those fuel rods are stored in pools of water that have been depleted, although Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, says the water hasn’t completely disappeared, contrary to some reports.
Repeated spraying of water by military and fire-department personnel appears to have raised the water level, but without a permanent solution the rods still could overheat and possibly break apart, spewing more radiation into the air.
‘We can’t be complacent,’ chief government spokesman Yukio Edano said Sunday. ‘Even if things go well, we’ll certainly see ups and downs.’
The reactor cores also remain a problem area, highlighted Sunday by a rise in pressure within the No. 3 core. That prompted Tepco officials to consider a venting operation that would relieve the pressure while releasing radioactive materials into the air. They later said the pressure was under control and called off the venting. The reactor core is the main part of the reactor, housing the active fuel rods that provide the heat that generates power at the plant.
The operation to connect power to the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors and turn on the standard cooling systems is expected to last at least several days. Until then, some nuclear experts believe the rods are at risk of full meltdown, which could damage the containment vessel and cause a radiation release that would dwarf those that have taken place so far.
For the moment, however, injections of seawater appear to have created a modicum of stability inside the cores of the two reactors.
A separate storage pool for spent fuel rods also is drawing the attention of some Tepco and safety officials. The area, which takes fuel rods from all six reactors, is located near the No. 4 reactor. The pool is nearly full with 6,375 units of fuel, according to Tepco.
Joonhong Ahn, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, said he believes there is no immediate threat. Still, he said, the number of fuel rods is ‘such a huge amount. While they are aged a bit and are therefore easier to control, we need to pay close attention as their temperatures go up.’
Hiro Hasegawa, a Tepco spokesman, said the situation is under control, although the company is watching temperatures in the tank and evaporation.
Singer Avril Lavigne leaves her grungy look far behind for a very classy magazine spread. The 26-year-old singer is seen here in a series of sexy poses for the March edition of Italian Vanity Fair, including one where she smoulders into the camera wearing sexy lingerie. Showing she’s not one to wash-up in the conventional sense, Avril turns kitchen vixen as she sits with her foot perched in the sink in one shot。
The Sk8ter Girl singer, who dates Brody Jenner, is currently making a comeback following a hiatus. She is set to release her forth studio album, Goodbye Lullaby, on March 8. The first release from the LP, What The Hell, made it to No.13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the U.S. In the UK it only just managed to scrape into the top 30.Avril is currently on a promotional blitz in Europe where she is spreading word of her new record。
The models initially sold at several hundred dollars above other premium, high-performance sets, such as high-definition models. That gap is shrinking.
a year ago, 3-D know-how was seen as a much-needed catalyst to lift sales of pricey new TV sets also a possible answer to the inexorable decline in prices. But already, louis vuitton bags are reverting to hefty cost cuts on 3-D sets to lift sales.
Average TV-set prices across the board have continued to plummet this holiday season amid lackluster demand. The average selling cost of a 40′ to 44′ high-definition liquid crystal display set with 1,080 lines of resolution will be $684 in North america in the work of the final quarter, down from $719 a year earlier, according to research firm Display Search. Low prices for entry-level sets at the beginning of the holiday season have gone up slightly because inventories thinned out.
For the world’s top TV brands, the plunging prices on 3-D models are a disappointing but not entirely surprising development in the cutthroat industry. In recent years, the industry has introduced a host of innovations for liquid-crystal and plasma display sets, making them slimmer, brighter, and more energy efficient. But those improvements have done tiny to slow annual cost declines of about 20%.
Meanwhile, prices on 3-D models have fallen 40% to 50% on average since the first ones were introduced in March, Display Search said. The firm in October said it expects 2% of all flat-panel TV sets shipped this year to be 3-D compatible, down from a July forecast of 5%.
Manufacturers scrambling to clear out inventories of high-end TV sets before the arrival of next year’s models are expected to heap further pressure on prices.
Prospects for 3-D TV are expected to be one of the hottest topics at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, which kicks off Jan. 5 in Las Vegas.
Hiroshi Yoshioka, the head of Sony Corp.’s consumer products group, said the company’s discounts on 3-D models are akin to what it is offering on other models. But they said it is becoming less pricey to add 3-D as a feature. ‘It won’t cost that much money to incorporate 3-D this year and next year,’ Mr. Yoshioka told reporters on Monday.
Manufacturers and retailers have tried to spark demand by bundling additional 3-D glasses and throwing in videogame consoles and Blu-ray disc players, but so far the promotions haven’t captivated consumers.
The prices of active-shutter glasses needed to generate the illusion of depth in this generation’s high-definition 3-D tv sets also are selling for as tiny as $15, after selling for about $100 earlier this year.
there’s several factors holding back sales of 3-D sets elsewhere: Shoppers think the sets are too pricey, consumers don’t want to wear 3-D glasses, many people don’t know whether they can watch regular 2-D content on 3-D sets (they can) and there isn’t compelling content in 3-D. Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN offers a 3-D channel, but 3-D content otherwise remains slow to create.
Hong Kong couturier Pacino Wan says: ‘When you talk about a sexy Chinese lady, you think about the qi pao.’ So he used those dresses─also known as cheongsam─as inspiration for the Chinese Playboy bunny costumes that the entertainment company commissioned him to design.
The outfits are planned for Asia’s first Playboy Club, opening this weekend at the top of the Sands Macao Hotel. Mr. Wan is the second designer in Playboy history to be asked to reimagine the bunny costume, which was originally designed in the 1960s by Hugh Hefner, Playboy’s founder. In 2006, Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli crafted new costumes for the Playboy club in Las Vegas.
So, how different is the Asian variety going to be? ‘I made it red, like a Chinese festival,’ Mr. Wan says. ‘I wanted to keep the elegance, charm and heritage in the deisgn.’
He worked with the traditional components of the costume ears, bodysuit, cuffs and cotton tail, and added new elements, including a Mandarin collar, jade ornaments, Chinese fastenings, embroidery and red tassles. And he used materials such as Chinese silk, leather and for comfort, he says stretch satin.
Mr. Wan has designed four Playboy bunny outfits ─ one of them will be chosen and adapted by Playboy as the uniform for its cocktail waitresses.
I had the chance to sit down at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego with Joe Montana before he went onto the field with the San Francisco 49ers against Denver in Super Bowl XXIV (1989). We didn’t know it then, but this would be Joe’s last Super Bowl, his fourth championship, yet another high point in one of the most remarkable careers not just in pro football, but in all of sports.
Joe seemed restless. He had already won everything there is in this game – the respect of teammates and opponents, coaches and owners, and especially the fans – plus all the awards: multiple League Most Valuable Player (MVPs), Super Bowls, and Super Bowl MVPs.
I said, “Joe, you can’t possibly be scared.”
What he said to me is, I believe the key to his success and the reason I consider him the greatest quarterback of all time. He said, “If you’re not afraid of losing, then losing means nothing.”
Every time Joe Montana stepped on the field, he was scared. That element of fear kept him sharp through his entire career. If we want to be at our best, we need that same element of fear burning inside of us. It sharpens the focus; keeps the edge.
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t remember what Joe said, realizing the truth of it. It has helped me. I know it will surely help you.
