Jim O'Neill on the future of BRICs

Milken Conference: Where Will Economic Growth Come From?

Global Conference 2012 kicks off by exploring the question facing policymakers across the United States and around the developed world: Has the emphasis on debt reduction put a wet blanket on recovery? Now that we can shift the focus away from crisis management, job creation is the central challenge. What investments and policy moves are needed now? If Europe descends into recession, will the effects reverberate around the globe, or has there been sufficient decoupling? Will Asia be the engine of growth, or will structural challenges slow the development of emerging economies? What sectors and geographies will define the future and revive economic growth?

With:
Willem Buiter, Citigroup
Terry Duffy, CME Group
Mohamed El-Erian, PIMCO
Kevin Warsh, Hoover Institution
Maria Bartiromo, CNBC

Hugh Hendry's latest letter focuses on China

[HT: ZeroHedge] After a long hiatus, Hendry is back with a bang with a long letter that predicts trouble in China, and posits that the root of its crisis will be its undervalued currency that has led to a huge debt buildup and a ginormous property bubble backed by the shadow lending system. In the process, he draw parallels to Weimar Germany and America during the great depression. Hendry continues to be bearish on Japan and most Asian assets.
April 2012 TEF Commentary

Stanley Crouch: Euro to Break Up In Matter of Months

Stanley Crouch, chief investment officer of Aegis Capital Corp., talks about the potential of a euro breakup, the outlook for the region's sovereign-debt crisis and investment strategy.

Richard Harris: Global Stock Markets May Fall Further 10%

Richard Harris, founder of Port Shelter Investment Management, talks about the outlook for global stock markets. Harris also discusses the European debt crisis, US growth prospects and economic issues facing China.

GoldenTree's Tananbaum on Investment Strategy

Steven Tananbaum, chief investment officer of GoldenTree Asset Management LP, talks about his investment strategy for collateralized loan obligations and the performance of U.S. Treasuries. Tananbaum, speaking with Stephanie Ruhle at the Milken Institute 2012 Global Conference in Los Angeles, also discusses the outlook for European banks.

Joe Dear: Investment Environment `Very Tough'

Joe Dear, chief investment officer of California Public Employees' Retirement System, talks about the investment strategy of the largest U.S. public pension and outlook for returns. He speaks with Bloomberg Television special correspondent Willow Bay at the Milken Institute 2012 Global Conference in Los Angeles.

James Stewart: Squawk Box Book Club Award

"Squawk Box" presents its first blue chip book award, with James Stewart, "Den of Thieves" author.

Bill Ackman on Running a Better Railroad

The Canadian Pacific proxy fight is heating up as the clock ticks closer to May 17th. Hunter Harrison, former Canadian National president & CEO; Stephen Tobias, former Norfolk Southern vice chairman; and Bill Ackman, Pershing Square Capital founder & CEO, discuss.

Bill Ackman on Canadian Pacific

Pershing Square Capital is waging a proxy battle to install seven nominees on Canadian Pacific's 16-member board. Bill Ackman, Pershing Square Capital founder & CEO, offers insight.

Bill Ackman on Searching for the Next Deal

Bill Ackman, Pershing Square Capital founder & CEO, offers insight on the Barnes & Noble and Microsoft partnership.

Eike Batista: Investing Billions in Brazil

CNBC's Maria Bartiromo speaks to Brazil's richest man, Eike Batista, regarding his plans to invest $50 billion in Brazil over the next 10 years. He is one of Time's "Most Influential People in 2012." Tim Seymour, EmergingMoney.com founder, also weighs in on the Brazil trade.

Barry Ritholtz: America Is So Not In Decline

David Kotok: “Weakness and Turmoil” Are Good for Stocks

Zac Bissonnette: How To Be Richer And Smarter Than Your Parents

• FICO Scores Really Don't Matter
• Forget New, Buy Used
• Stop Watching TV
• Learn to say "no" to yourself at least once a day, especially when it comes to impulse buys, and understand that if you can't afford it, you don't deserve it.
• Buy used or cheap clothes, because expensive clothes do not always translate into better quality. And wash your garments in cold water to make them last longer.
• Take up hobbies that do not cost much money and are not materialistic, like gardening.
• Serve cheap, discount store wine, at parties and do not buy imported wines, which can sometimes cost up to 50 percent more.
• Buy groceries on-line or in bulk and buy a slow-cooker to prepare meals.

Chess Grand Master Magnus Carlsen on the Colbert Report

The world's third youngest Chess Grand Master and youngest ever #1 ranked chess player, Magnus Carlsen discusses game strategy and stardom.

Money, Power and Wall Street

The must-watch PBS Frontline Documentary Series

Part 1


Part 2

Robert Arnott's outlook for the markets

Robert Arnott, Research Affiliates chairman provides insight into the market's outlook and offers investment advice on how to trade in these markets. Arnott discusses his "3D Hurricane" thesis (debt, deficits, demographics) and talks about how US stocks and fixed income are generally unattractive. Rather he prefers EM equities and bonds. As a bonus, we also have an Amanda Drury sighting.

The Winklevoss twins love the cloud

Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, Winklevoss Capital principals, discuss the next frontier in technology and the paradigm shift in creating capital for start-up ventures.

Simon Lack: investors should avoid hedge funds

Simon Lack, author of "The Hedge Fund Mirage: The Illusion of Big Money and Why It's Too Good to Be True," talks about his book and the reasons investors should avoid hedge funds.

Pat Dorsey sees opportunities in US Equities

Pat Dorsey former (Morningstar Director of Research) says equities have been going higher because of earnings, not Operation Twist.

Komal Sri-Kumar (TCW) sees an imminent recession

Komal Sri-Kumar, managing director of TCW Group Inc., talks about the outlook for the U.S. economy.

Peter Boockvar sees a bond bubble

Peter Boockvar of Miller Tabak & Co says the Fed has created a tremendous bond bubble. Jared Bernstein, Sr Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities disagrees, adding that the Fed needs more fiscal stimulus.

Doug Kass: Go long Staples, Financials, Energy, Tech

Doug Kass, president of Seabreeze Partners, discusses which areas of the markets he is bullish on now.

Llyod Blankfein on Goldman's Reputation, Business Model

The head of the vampire squid breaks his long silence

Jeff Gundlach: The Bond King speaks

We at Price Signals love how CNBC has branded Doubleline's Jeff Gundlach the "Bond King" even as they have the former bond king, Pimco's Bill Gross and his wing man Mo El-Erian, on the show on what seems like a daily basis.

CNBC interviews Gundlach, who looks creepy as usual and sports his normal orange tie, on the floor of the NYSE. Gundlach asserts that US debt is so high at $15T that 'normal' interest rates would kill the economy (a 6% rate would result in an extra $600B in interest payments). We therefore need a slow growth economy to prevent nominal GDP from growing too much and putting pressure on rates. He doesn't think inflation will accelerate in wages and housing, but rather in commodities and the things "we need."

The bond king doesn't see treasury rates rising much this year, but even a bond rally wouldn't make much since rates are so low. If the 10y went to 1.5% from 2%, investors would make only 6%.

JG also supports his short Apple thesis and believes that the stock has peaked.

John Greenwood: Convertible Yuan `Long Way Off’

John Greenwood, chief economist at Invesco, was the architect of the Hong Kong dollar peg to the US dollar. The Hong Kong dollar’s value has been kept at about HK$7.80 to the greenback since 1983. Here, he talks about the economic problems facing the U.S. and Europe, China's growth outlook, and the internationalization of the yuan

“What Hong Kong needs in order to think about re-pegging would be for the Chinese yuan to be fully and irreversibly convertible. 2015 is not possible in my view.”

Portales's Peadoby Sees U.S. Recession in 2013

Charles Peabody, an analyst at Portales Partners LLC, talks about the outlook for the U.S. economy, stocks and Federal Reserve monetary policy.

PBS Frontline: "Money, Power & Wall Street"

The first two episodes of the four-part “inside story of the global financial crisis” are online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/money-power-wall-street/ 

David Rosenberg on Europe's Impact on U.S. Stocks

David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates Inc., talks about the situation in Europe and the impact of Europe on U.S. stocks.

Whitney Tilson: Netflix Selloff a Buying Opportunity

Whitney Tilson, T2 Partners, says Netflix earnings report was "great news," and weighs in on the alleged Wal-Mart scandal under investigation.

George Soros on the future of Europe

George Soros was at the panel entitled "The Future of Europe" at the Institute for New Economic Thinking's (INET) Paradigm Lost Conference in Berlin on April 13, 2012.

James Rickards interview: Gold has to go up and QE3 is imminent

James Rickards is the author of the book "Currency Wars." He says that the government "knows" that the price of gold is going higher, but they want the increase to be orderly.

Part 1


Part 2

Stephen Roach chats with Ron Paul

Stephen Roach, former Morgan Stanley chief economist breaks down the risks facing the U.S. recovery; the cost of Fed policies; whether China's economy is hitting a wall; and the race for the White House with Ron Paul.

Sam Chandan: Fed to Keep Door Open for QE3

Sam Chandan, President & Chief Economist, Chandan Economics says the Fed will want to remain flexible and keep the door open to pursue QE3.

Pimco's Tony Crescenzi discusses Europe

PIMCO market strategist, Tony Crescenzi discusses what needs to be done to create debt sustainability in Europe and its impact on the markets.

A rare interview with author John Perkins on bribery overseas

A rare treat - John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," was on CNBC today to comment on the Walmart bribery scandal as well as provide a first-hand look at the the widespread problem of American companies engaging in bribery overseas.

Citigroup's Levkovich on U.S. Stocks, Earnings

Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup Inc., talks about the impact of the European debt crisis on U.S. stocks, corporate earnings and productivity, and the connection between business confidence and equity performance.

Sam Zell on `Overleveraged' Commercial Real Estate

Billionaire investor Sam Zell  says the US real estate market is still significantly over-leveraged with "zombie properties" because of "pretend-and-extend" strategies employed 5 years ago, so in the end it's difficult to have a viable commercial market until this problem is corrected, which in his eyes, is by letting the price discovery process play out. Today's low cost of capital also changes the incentives for banks to clear assets from their balance sheets.

Outside of real estate, he has invested extensively in deleveraging situations with middle market companies that have higher cost of capital, spanning all kinds of industries.

Jay Pelosky likes China, EM Debt

Jay Pelosky, consultant at J2Z Advisory, talks about his investment strategy for emerging-market stocks. Pelosky also discusses Federal Reserve monetary policy and U.S. equities. He doesn't see QE this year since he expects the US to keep growing. China's trading at 9.5X earnings which is in the top decline of cheapest valuations.

Microsoft's Dividends to Go Higher

Brent Thill, Managing Director of Software Research, UBS says Microsoft has done better than expected and its dividends are going to go higher. He adds that Microsoft will have a tough fight in the tablet space but won't be left on the sidelines.

Abhay Deshpande: Finding Value in U.S. Tech Sector

Abhay Deshpande, First Eagle Funds portfolio manager, discusses his global investment strategies for bringing investors big returns.

Phoenix Housing Market Rises

CNBC's Diana Olick reports on lower home supply numbers from Phoenix, down 42% from a year ago. Rick Sharga, Carrington Mortgage Holdings, weighs in.

Why Have German Property Prices Stayed Flat?

Peter Toogood, investment director at Old Broad Street Research, discusses why Germany has never experienced a substantial property boom. "Berlin is having its own property bubble, it has been moving for 3 or 4 years, but Germans just don't have that levered obsession, plus buy-to-rent, plus multiple houses owned by people, they think there are better things to spend money on than 'bricks and mortar'".

Marko Dimitrijevic on Emerging Markets

(From Mar 20, 2012) Marko Dimitrijevic, founder and CIO of Everest Capital, talks about the outlook for emerging markets. Founded in 1990, Everest Capital invests in developed, EM and frontier markets. The firm has offices in Miami, Singapore, Shanghai and Geneva, and manages approximately $2B.

Cambodia Joins Stocks Party

After over a decade of peace, Cambodia is opening up to domestic and foreign investors. The WSJ's Deborah Kan speaks to Hong Kong Digital Editor Jake Lee about Cambodia's stock exchange debut

Jay Pelosky: U.S. Stocks May Fall 10%

Jay Pelosky, consultant at J2Z, and Douglas Borthwick, managing director at Faros Trading, talk about their investment strategies.

Opportunity in Cambodia Agriculture, Manufacturing

Graeme Cunningham, head of research at SBI Royal Securities Plc, talks about the opening of Cambodia's stock market and investment opportunities in the country. Cambodia opened its bourse today as the government seeks to lure foreign capital by selling shares in state-owned companies to bolster the economy.

Ari Bergmann of Penso on the Danger of Fat-Tail Funds

Ari Bergman, founder and managing principal of Penso Advisors, explains why so-called fat-tail funds may in fact precipitate the very problems they are supposed to insure against.

Bill Miller and Paul McCulley on Consuelo Mack WealthTrack (Part II)

Here's part 2 of Consuelo Mack's WealthTrack interview with Legg Mason’s Bill Miller and former Pimco bond guru, Paul McCulley. [Part 1 Here]

Paul McCulley ("EMERGING CONSUMERS")
- Buy emerging market stocks
- Specialize in housing sector
- Lowest levered balance sheets in the world

Bill Miller ("GLOBAL EXPOSURE")
- Buy U.S. large cap stocks
- S&P 100 or S&P 200
- High quality
- Global reach
- Less risk

WSJ: Deals bloom in SE Asia

Private equity and banks are looking again for deals in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore.

Pimco Sees 'Huge' Opportunities in U.S. Energy

Mark Kiesel, Pimco managing director, explains why Pimco sees "huge" opportunities in U.S. energy, adding that U.S. onshore nat gas and oil are game-changers for the economy.

Donald Yacktman's stock picks

Yacktman Focused Fund is outperforming the S&P this April. Donald Yacktman, Yacktman Asset Management president, provides a look at his winning strategy and stock picks.

Jeff Matthews Discusses The Future of Berkshire Hathaway

Bob Janjuah Sees 10% sell-off in Q2

Bob Janjuah, global head of tactical asset allocation at Nomura, talks about the outlook for U.S. equity markets, economy and Federal Reserve policy.

(Artemis Capital) Volatility at World's End: Two Decades of Movement in Markets

The movement of stock prices has been an obsession for generations of speculators and traders. On a higher level mathematicians believe that modern markets are an extension of the same fractal beauty found in nature. Visualized these stock markets may take the shape of a turbulent ocean with waves made of human hopes, dreams, greed, and fear.

Merging the world of high-finance and high-art Artemis Capital Management LLC is proud to present a creative visualization of stock market volatility over the last two decades. The project was conceived by Christopher Cole, with visual design and programming by Jayson Haebich, and featuring the song "Blood" by Monsieur Adi from the Album "Fire Fire Fire". The video was first shown in conjunction with Christopher Cole's speech at the 2012 Global Derivatives and Risk Management Conference in Barcelona Spain.

Volatility at World’s End: Two Decades of Movement in Markets is a depiction of real stock market variance using trading data from 1990 to 2011. The visuals are designed from S&P 500 index option data replicating the implied volatility wave (or variance swap curve) extending to an expiration of one year. The front of the volatility wave contains the same data used to calculate the CBOE VIX index. The movement of this wave demonstrates changing trader expectations of future stock market volatility. As the wave moves through time the expected (or implied) volatility surface transforms into a realized volatility surface derived from historical S&P 500 index movement. The transition represents what professional traders call ‘volatility arbitrage’. The color variation in the volatility waves show the volatility-of-volatility or internal movement of the wave. The track underneath the volatility wave represents underlying S&P 500 index prices.

Bill Gross: Is Spain a 'Tumor' on the Euro Zone?

Bill Gross, Pimco co-CIO & founder, discusses a "tweet" he sent out earlier this week in which he expressed, in rather graphic terms, his view on the debt crisis in Spain.

Ruchir Sharma: Time to Look Outside the BRICS?

Ruchir Sharma, Morgan Stanley head of emerging markets, says investors are putting too much stock in BRIC nations-- instead-- they should turn to "breakout nations."

Matt McLennan Likes `Scarcity' Investments, Avoids Bonds

Matthew McLennan, portfolio manager at First Eagle Funds, talks about his investment strategy.

Steve Keen: Instability in Financial Markets

A 'Random' Look at the Economy with Burton Malkiel

Discussing what the efficient market hypothesis means with Burton Malkiel, Princeton University professor and author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street.

Alpesh Patel discusses Europe

With so many fears investors are just trying to go week by week, says Alpesh Patel, Praefinium Partners, who also offers insight into the state of the global economy.

Andrew Lo discusses the myths of the financial crisis

Andrew Lo, MIT Sloan School of Management finance professor dispels some of the myths surrounding the financial crisis, and weighs in on whether the government overreacted.

Expect the Yuan to Be Fully Convertible in Five Years

Giles Chance, author of China Credit Crisis: The Emergence of a New World Order: "CIC have been trying to invest in Europe for some time but it is only now in the last few months that the Europeans have been prepared to accept Chinese investment."

Doug Kass: Buy Banks with Large Exposure to Real Estate

Doug Kass, Seabreeze Partners founder & president, explains why he sees a multi-year recovery in the U.S. housing market.

Jonathan Carmel is extremely bearish on Spain

Jonathan Carmel, founder and money manager at Carmel Asset Management LLC, gives "54 Reasons Spain is worse than you think."

Carmel runs $50M and was featured in a must read article in the Wall Street Journal recently. His 54 page presentation is required reading for anyone who cares about macro.One big reason for his bearishness is that Spain's housing bubble was much larger than the US housing bubble, but is yet to correct (he sees a 35% correction eventually). Further, the Spanish construction industry employed 1 in 7 people in the labor force (vs. 1 in 22 in the US)!

Some ways to short Spain include buying Spanish CDS, shorting Spanish 10y debt, or shorting Spanish banks.

Todd Schoenberger on Stock Market, European Debt Crisis

Todd Schoenberger, managing principal at BlackBay Group, talks about the European debt crisis and the outlook for the U.S. stock market.

Stephen Leeb on China and Water Desalinization

Stephen Leeb, president of Leeb Capital Management Inc., talks about China's role in the water-desalinization market and the importance of water in the retrieval of other resources.

Ruchir Sharma: BRICs story is played out

Ruchir Sharma is the author of Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles and also head of emerging market equities and global macro at Morgan Stanley.

"If you look at the history of investing, you find there's always some theme that captures the imagination in a particular decade, and then it runs out of gas the following decades."

On China:
People tend to overlook the fact that China, with a per capita income of about $6,000, has already become a middle income country. "And it's much harder to grow from a large base." Thirty years of a one-child policy have left China with a demographic imbalance. Rapid urbanization has been a huge driver of growth. But now, 50 percent of Chinese people already live in urban areas. "I'm not saying China is going to collapse, but it can't keep growing out at 8 percent. China is maturing as an economy and needs to slow down."

On India:
There's a lot of hope and promise in India, but India's economy is hamstrung by political corruption and poor infrastructure, and growth rate has settled into a 6-7% growth band.

On Brazil:
In 2011, Brazil turned in an unspectacular performance of about 3% growth. Sharma sees Brazil's struggles continuing, in part because it has an expensive currency. "That's making their industries uncompetitive"

On Russia:
Even with the continuing commodity boom, Russia's economy only managed to grow about 4% in 2011. He's also concerned about the huge concentration of wealth there with a disproportionate number of billionaires. With a Chinese slowdown, commodity economies will struggle going forward. Sharma's Four Seasons Index (how much it costs to stay at a posh Four Seasons Hotel) shows that Brazil and Russia are two of the most expensive emerging markets in terms of exchange rates.

Josh Barro on the State Pension Crisis

Barro notes that unfunded state pension and health care liabilities of $4 trillion exceed the total amount of bond debt outstanding from states and localities of $3 trillion!

Edward Luce: America Is Headed Toward An Age Of Descent

Edward Luce, the chief U.S. columnist for the Financial Times, is the author of Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent. While not predicting America's collapse, Luce is "skeptical about America's ability to sharply reverse her fortunes."

Steen Jakobsen: Europe's North South Divide Getting Larger

Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxobank, told CNBC, "It is very significant that everyone is calling the all clear for Europe that the LTRO has worked; in reality the picture is very different. If you look at the performance of the IBEX the Spanish market, of the Portuguese PSI index, they are trailing the rest of Europe by 26%."

What is Rehypothecation?

David Bloom: The Dollar Will Weaken Against Everything:

David Bloom is the global head of foreign exchange strategy at HSBC.

"The US debt dynamics are out of control. In Europe yes there are problems but we are addressing the problems, but in the US tell me what they are doing about deficit reduction? Nothing. The dollar will weaken in the second half of the year as the US election will show the plans of both parties."

Jim Chanos is short Netflix, Coinstar, and Dell

Jim Chanos is short Netflix, Coinstar, and Dell. When it comes to shorting, he focuses on flawed businesses, accounting problems, and technological changes over valuation which he says is the least important factor.

Jim Chanos continues to be bearish on China

With growth slowing, particularly in the real estate sector, Chinese banks have been a great place to bet against, hedge fund titan Jim Chanos told CNBC.

Chanos, the head of Kynikos Associates, has been betting against China — despite its role as a global economic leader — primarily because he believes the country is overbuilt and does not have the internal demand to support its ambitious growth plans.

Nowhere has that trend been more apparent than in the banking system.

"If you looked at the performance of the banks over the last two years...they have been great shorts. They have been going down — they're down 30 percent over the last two years."

An exchange-traded fund   that tracks the Chinese banks, the Global X China Financials [CHIX], is off about 27% since peaking in November 2010.

Much like in the U.S., there has been talk about breaking up China's large financial institutions because of the danger their failure would pose to the broader economy. And, like the American quandary, taking down the big banks is be easier said than done.

"I would believe it when I see it to break up the banks. In China, remember, the the banks are arms of state policy. They loan because the local party official or regional party official tells them we need a new stadium. They are instruments of state policy. I really doubt the party is going to give up a lever of power by breaking up the banks."

The Communist Party has been rocked lately by scandal, as the wife of local party chief Bo Xilai is a suspect in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood. For the Chinese political system, the case is a game-changer, in that Bo was considered a rising star in the party and possibly headed for its top position.

"Some people have dubbed the party 'The Family,We're seeing more than a peek behind the curtain, we're seeing a real struggle."

Michael Steinhardt is not "wildly bullish"

Hedge fund pioneer Michael Steinhardt was on Bloomberg today and he bemoaned the state of the economy and Wall Street ("The spirit, excitement, and vigor of Wall Street is gone"), saying that he had no reason to be "wildly bullish." "We don't hear (the Fed) talking about widows and orphans. Who has benefited from low rates? It's been the banks."

Gary Shilling see S&P 800 and a recession in the US

Gary Shilling, president of A. Gary Shilling & Co., talks about the outlook for the U.S. economy and his investment strategy.

Michael Pachter on Best Buy

Michael Pachter, Wedbush Securities, shares perspective on how the resignation of Best Buy's CEO will impact the company.

IMF: Household Debt Leads to More Severe Recessions

Daniel Leigh, senior economist at the IMF, told CNBC, "we looked at 25 economies over the last 30 years and each time there was a recession or a housing bust, countries where there was a bigger build up in household debt had a much more painful recession, unemployment went up more, GDP fell significantly more and stayed lower for up to five years."

Scott Minerd on the European Recession

"Spain is on the road to restructuring, just like the rest of the European nations," says Scott Minerd, Guggenheim CIO.

Gordon Chang: China Inflation Is Under-Reported

Gordon Chang, Author, "The Coming Collapse of China" says China's rate of inflation has come down very quickly in the last 3-4 months, which he believes shows a deterioration of the economy.

Mark Roberts: Some Asia Property Undervalued

Mark Roberts, managing director and global head of research at Deutsche Bank AG's RREEF property division, talks about the property market in Asia.

Macau's Gaming Outlook

Grant Govertsen, Principal Analyst, Union Gaming Group is bullish on Macau's gaming market, and is particularly excited about the high growth potential of the mass market gaming segment.