Month: March 2013

By WallStreetDaily.com

BlackBerry (RIMM) might be struggling to gain market share in the United States, but that’s not the case in Nigeria.

Of the four million smartphones owned in the country, two million (HALF!) are BlackBerrys.

Why does the company have such a large presence there? Its free text messaging service, BlackBerry Messenger, has a lot to do with it.

Robert Bose, the company’s managing director in the region, says, “We think BlackBerry Messenger is very strong, has a very strong community, has a very strong connectedness that Nigerian society enjoys.”

Indeed, for many of Nigeria’s two million users, BlackBerry Messenger is key. As one resident in Lagos says, “You can reach your families; you can reach your friends through pinging – without spending much money.”

If only BlackBerry Messenger had such cachet globally.

But with free text messaging services like iMessage for the iPhone and Kik Messenger (which works for Android, iOS, Windows phones and BlackBerry), the company needs to figure out a new way to generate market share.

Article By WallStreetDaily.com

BlackBerry Finally Gets Some Love… in Nigeria

By The Sizemore Letter

Last year, I compared U.S. dividend ETFs and gave readers a simple choice.  If you want current income, a high-yielding option like the iShares Dow Jones Select Dividend ETF (NYSE:$DVY) is your best option.  But for long-term growth, you might be better off investing in the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (NYSE:$VIG).  Though it yields little more than the broad S&P 500, it’s comprised of companies with a long history of raising their dividends.  I consider the ETF to be a one-stop shop for high-quality growth companies.

I utilize both ETFs in my portfolios.  VIG is the largest holding in both my Tactical ETF Portfolio and in my Strategic Growth Allocation, and DVY is a core income holding in my Strategic Growth Allocation.

But what about European dividend payers?  After two years of crisis, European stocks are cheaper than their American rivals, and they tend to pay out a higher percentage of their profits as dividends.

Here, investors have several viable choices. The first is the STOXX European Select Dividend ETF (NYSE: $FDD).  This ETF holds 30 of Europe’s highest yielders, offering a juicy 4.9% dividend.  Unfortunately, it is a little too heavily weighted in financials for my liking.  Nearly 40% of the ETF is invested in banks and insurance companies; I’d prefer to see that number well below 20% given the current macro risks to Europe’s financial system.  That said, one of FDD’s largest holdings is Spain’s Banco Santander (NYSE:$SAN), which I own in my aggressive Sizemore Investment Letter portfolio.

WisdomTree offers an ETF that offers a high dividend yield but with zero exposure to the financial sector: the International Dividend ex-Financials ETF (NYSE:$DOO).

Though not technically a “Europe fund,” as it has exposure to Australia, Japan, and other developed markets, 70% of the fund is invested in European stocks.  And for a high-yielding, dividend-focused ETF, the fund is surprisingly light in utilities.  Utilities are only 14% of the portfolio as of early March, which I consider a positive.  Utilities are slow-growth (and arguably no-growth) industries in much of the developed world.

DOO sports a dividend yield of 4.0%, which is remarkable given its sector diversification.  In an income-oriented portfolio, WisdomTree’s offering is not a bad choice.

Finally, I’d like to touch on the PowerShares International Dividend Achievers ETF (NYSE:$PID), which is essentially an international version of the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF I mentioned at the beginning of this article.  Like DOO, PID is not technically a “Europe fund,”but Europe is the largest geographic area represented.

There are a few idiosyncrasies worth noting.  To be included, a company must be incorporated outside the United States but must trade as an ADR, GDR or on the U.S. or London exchanges.   The ETF is weighted by dividend yield, so the stock with the highest weighting, at 4.5%,  is Teekay Offshore Partners (NYSE:$TOO).  Tanker stocks are volatile, and this is not the sort of stock I would normally want in a conservative dividend portfolio.  Unilever (NYSE:$UN, NYSE:$UL) is a stock that I would (and, in fact, do) put in a conservative dividend portfolio, but it is included in the PowerShares ETF twice: once for the Dutch-traded shares (UN) and once for the British-traded shares (UL).

Still, even with its quirks, PID is an excellent ETF choice for all of the same reasons as VIG.  There is no better signal of quality than a consistent history of raising a company’s dividend.

PID yields less than the other ETF options, at 2.6%.  But like VIG, it should be considered a high-quality growth ETF rather than a pure income ETF.

Disclosures: Sizemore Capital is long VIG, DVY, PID and UL.  This article first appeared on MarketWatch.

SUBSCRIBE to Sizemore Insights via e-mail today.

The post Choosing the Best European Dividend ETF appeared first on Sizemore Insights.

By www.CentralBankNews.info      The central bank of Mauritius kept its benchmark repo rate steady at 4.90 percent and said the upside risks to inflation are persisting while downside risks from weak and uncertain economic conditions in the country’s main export markets continue to weigh on the domestic growth outlook.
    The Bank of Mauritius said its Monetary Policy Committee kept the rate steady in light of the “continued uncertainty on the global growth outlook,” but some committee members had “expressed strong concerns about the deteriorating inflaiton outlook” and “emphasised the need to normalise rates to encourage savings while containing speculative activities in some sectors.”
    “The MPC maintains strong vigilance in monitoring economic and financial developments and stands ready to meet in between its regular meetings, if the need arises,” the bank said.
    Mauritius’ inflation rate rose to 3.6 percent in February from January’s 2.9 percent, the bank said, noting the persistent upside risks to elevated global commodity prices, the impact of a recent PRB award to the public sector, a rise in retail petroleum prices and the expected second-round effect of these, as well as the projected rise in administered prices.

    Based on no rate changes, the bank’s staff forecast a headline inflation forecast of 4.7-4.9 percent by December 2013 compared with an expectations survey from last month that put the annual headline inflation rate at 5.0 percent in December and 5.2 percent for December 2014.
    The bank’s policy committee took note of fragile economic conditions among the developed economies of export interest to Mauritius while recovery is more robust among emerging economies.
    Mauritius’ third quarter Gross Domestic Product rose 1.3 percent from the second quarter for annual growth of 3.9 percent, up from the second quarter’s 3.2 percent and the first quarter’s 3.0 percent.
    The central bank said the output gap had narrowed a little but remained negative, but the underlying economic momentum is expected to remain positive.
    The bank’s staff forecasts 2013 economic growth of 3.4-3.9 percent, up from projected 2012 growth of 3.3 percent. In 2011 Mauritius’ Gross Domestic Product rose a real 4.1 percent, the same as in 2010.

    www.CentralBankNews.info

By Chris Hunter

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that last week the Dow passed its nominal high of five years ago.

There has been much pompom waving in the mainstream media. Even
discredited forecasters now feel it’s safe to start regurgitating failed
predictions of stocks going to the moon.

Take economist Kevin Hasset. In 1999, along with James Glassman, he wrote Dow 36,000,
which forecast that the Dow would reach 36,000 points “within three to
five years.” Despite getting it spectacularly wrong in 1999, he was back on Bloomberg last week with the same prediction.

This is a silly distraction. The real question is where would the Dow
be if the Fed were not corralling investors into stocks by wiping out
yields on bonds?

The answer is a lot lower.

Here’s how legendary investor Stan Druckenmiller
put it on CNBC last week: “If you print enough money, everything is
subsidized – bonds, stocks and real estate.” (You can watch the full
interview here.)

Druckenmiller was George Soros’s lead portfolio manager at the
Quantum Fund and the architect of the pound sterling short that “broke
the Bank of England” in 1992. He also has an astounding track record –
averaging 30% returns over 30 years.

And what he sees now is the mother of all market manipulations… and an epic crash… caused by the Fed and other central banks.

Here’s how he put it on CNBC:

I don’t know when it’s going to end.
But my guess is it’s going to end very badly. And it’s going to end very
badly because, again, when you get the biggest price in the world,
interest rates being manipulated, you get a misallocation of resources
and this is going to end in one of two ways: with a malinvestment bust
which we got in 07-08. […] Or it could end with just monetizing the
debt and “off we go” inflation. So that’s a very binary outcome. They’re
both bad.

I am not saying that stocks can’t go higher from here. The Fed is printing $85 million a month and has promised do to so until the official unemployment rate comes down to 6.5%.

What I am saying is that the party is going to end badly. Just like
it did with the housing bust in 2007-08 and the stock market crash in
2008.

Here’s what’s important to understand: Stocks seem like a good deal because the Fed has evaporated yields on bonds. But on an absolute basis, they are not a great value.

The dividend yield on the more widely followed S&P 500 is just 2% – nearly 120% below its historic average. And its price-to-earnings ratio, based on 12-month report earnings, is 17.6 – more than 13% above its historic average.

Here’s the argument, from the introduction to their book, that Hasset
and Glassman used back in 1999 to sucker millions of Americans into a
falling stock market:

[We] will convince you of the single
most important fact about stocks at the dawn of the twenty-first
century: They are cheap. […] If you are worried about missing the
market’s big move upward, you will discover that it is not too late.
Stocks are now in the midst of a one-time-only rise to much higher
ground – to the neighborhood of 36,000 on the Dow Jones industrial
average.

This argument was wrong then. And it is just as wrong now.

You’ve been warned.

Good investing,

Chris

http://www.insideinvestingdaily.com/

The Dow Jones reached its all time high last week. Trading around 1551.18 the S&P 500 might be the next to hit its record – 1554.41 being the current top on October 11th 2007.

Senior Strategist Ib Fredslund Madsen with his take on the market this week.

Legal information

Video courtesy of en.jyskebank.tv

London Gold Market Report
from Ben Traynor
BullionVault
Monday 11 March 2013, 08:30 EST

U.S. DOLLAR gold prices continued to hover around $1580 an ounce Monday morning, in line with last week’s trading, while silver dipped back below $29 an ounce after making slight gains in Asian trading.

Sterling and Euro gold prices were also flat, hovering around £1060 and €1215 an ounce respectively.

“[Last week] was a relatively uneventful week for gold,” says a note from precious metals refiner Heraeus, citing a lack of “impulses to influence the metal”.

European stock markets ticked lower this morning with the exception of the FTSE, following Friday’s announcement by ratings agency Fitch that it has downgraded Italy by one notch to BBB+.

On the currency markets the Euro hovered around $1.30 against the Dollar this morning, after dropping 1.4% Friday following the release of better-than-expected US jobs data and the Italy downgrade news.

Friday’s US nonfarm payroll report showed 236,000 jobs added last month, while the unemployment rate fell from 7.9% to 7.7%.

“Gold prices have built in the view that the US recovery is on a good footing,” says Societe Generale commodity strategist Jeremy Friesen, “and by the end of the year we should see the Fed exiting the stimulus, which should be bearish for gold.”

January’s nonfarms figure however was revised lower to 119,000 jobs, below December’s 196,000 and the lowest figure for number of jobs added since June last year.

“This is the third time since the recession began that hiring has accelerated, only to fizzle out a few months later,” says INTL FCStone metals analyst Ed Meir.

More importantly, while the recent employment gains have been encouraging, overall employment is some three million jobs below the peak reached in January 2008…it is not surprising to see why most economists see the Fed continuing to provide the economy with support.”

The so-called speculative net long position of gold futures and options traders, calculated as the difference between bullish and bearish contracts held by hedge funds and other professional money managers, fell to its lowest reported level since December 2008 in the week ended last Tuesday, according to weekly data published Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Gold exchange traded funds meantime continued to see net outflows last week. The world’s largest, the SPDR Gold Trust (ticker: GLD), saw its holdings drop to their lowest level since October 2011 Friday, at 1239.7 tonnes.

“ETFs remained net sellers, although their aversion to the metal does seem to be easing,” says a note from Standard Bank.

“The week saw 21.9 tonnes liquidated from the holdings [of all ETFs tracked by Standard Bank], significantly lower than the previous week’s 56.7 tonne loss (which was a 12-month record). Total holdings are now at 2567.7 tonnes, down 152.7 tonnes since the beginning of the year.”

“[ETF] holdings remain vulnerable given prices are trading sub $1600,” adds Suki Cooper, precious metals analyst at Barclays.

“[That said,] macro uncertainty continues to linger, and gold’s safe haven appeal could return, particularly given the debt ceiling debate scheduled for May, but should investor interest continue to dwindle, physical demand and official sector appetite are likely set the floor for prices.”

Over in China, the world’s number two gold consumer, industrial production and retail sales both grew at a slower pace than analysts forecast in February, according to official data published over the weekend.

“Fixed asset investments continued to be the key driving factor[ for China’s growth],” says a note from Credit Suisse.

“This is consistent with our view of a narrow-based recovery. So far, there is no evidence that the growth momentum that has been primarily driven by local government investment projects has spilled over to other sectors…without a broader-based improvement of activities, a strong rebound of growth momentum will likely still be missing.”

Producer prices in China fell by more than expected, while by contrast consumer price inflation ticked higher to 3.2%, up from 2.0% a month earlier.

Chinese gold production meantime rose by nearly 25% to just over 30 tonnes in January, according to figures published by the China Gold Association. Data published last week show China’s net gold imports from Hong Kong that month fell to a three-month low below 30 tonnes.

Ben Traynor
BullionVault

Gold value calculator   |   Buy gold online at live prices

Editor of Gold News, the analysis and investment research site from world-leading gold ownership service BullionVault, Ben Traynor was formerly editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the UK’s longest-running investment letter. A Cambridge economics graduate, he is a professional writer and editor with a specialist interest in monetary economics. Ben can be found on Google+

(c) BullionVault 2013

Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.

By www.CentralBankNews.info Here’s today’s Central Bank News link list, click through if you missed the previous link list. The list comprises news about central banks that is not covered by Central Bank News. The list is updated during the day with the latest developments so readers don’t miss any important news.

USDCAD breaks below the lower line of the price channel on 4-hour chart, suggesting that lengthier consolidation of the uptrend from 0.9932 is underway. Range trading between 1.0216 and 1.0341 could be expected to continue in a couple of days. Resistance is at 1.0341, a break above this level will indicate that the uptrend has resumed, then further rise to 1.0400 area could be seen. On the downside, a breakdown below 1.0216 support will indicate that the uptrend from 0.9932 had completed at 1.0341 already, then deeper decline to 1.0150 area is possible.

Forex Signals

By CountingPips.com

The latest weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures traders increased their bets sharply in favor of the US dollar once again last week. The bets for American currency have now risen for four straight weeks and are at the highest overall long position since July 17th 2012, according to Reuters.

Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large International Monetary Market speculators, registered an overall US dollar long position of $23.57 billion as of Tuesday March 5th. This was a change from a total long position of $14.39 billion that was registered on Tuesday February 26th, according to the CFTC’s COT data and trader position calculations by Reuters, which calculates the dollar positions against the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc.

Individual Currencies Large Speculators Futures Positions:

The individual currency contracts quoted directly against the US dollar last week saw the euro, British pound sterling, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar, Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso all have a declining number of contracts compared to the previous week.

Individual Currency Charts:

EuroFX:

EuroFX: Large trader and speculator sentiment for the euro declined last week to drop for a fourth consecutive week. Euro contracts fell to a total net position of -26,116 contracts in the data reported for March 5th following the previous week’s total of -9,394 net contracts on February 26th.

Euro spec positions are now at their lowest level so far in 2013 and the lowest since December 11th 2012 when positions stood at -31,623 contracts.

Great Britain Pound:

GBP: British pound sterling spec positions decreased for a seventh consecutive week last week and dropped to their lowest level since November 2011. British pound speculative positions declined to a total of -43,849 net contracts on March 5th following a total of -36,130 net contracts that were reported on February 26th.

Pound speculator positions have now been in a negative bearish position for four straight weeks and are at the lowest level since November 29th 2011 when positions equaled -46,660 contracts.

Japanese Yen:

JPY: Japanese yen speculative contracts declined last week to the lowest level in about two months. Japanese yen positions decreased to a total of -73,351 net contracts reported on March 5th following a total of -65,344 net short contracts on February 26th.

Yen positions are at their lowest point since January 8th when short positions equaled +74,096 contracts.

Swiss Franc:

CHF: Swiss franc speculator positions decreased last week for a third consecutive week and remain at the lowest level since November 2012. Net positions for the Swiss currency futures dropped to a total of -11,450 contracts on March 5th following a total of -8,191 net contracts reported for February 26th.

CHF positions are on the short side for a third straight week and are at the lowest level since November 20, 2012 when positions totaled -12,488 contracts.

Canadian Dollar:

CAD: Canadian dollar positions decreased sharply lower once again last week to decline for a seventh consecutive week and to the lowest level in over a year. Canadian dollar positions fell to a total of -46,663 contracts as of March 5th following a total of -21,433 net contracts that were reported for February 26th.

Australian Dollar:

AUD: The Australian dollar decreased last week to fall for a sixth consecutive week. Aussie speculative futures positions declined to a total net amount of +7,149 contracts on March 5th after totaling +25,695 contracts as of February 26th.

Australian dollar contracts are now at their lowest level since June 26, 2012 when positions equaled just -2,159 contracts.

New Zealand Dollar:

NZD: New Zealand dollar speculator positions decreased last week for a second week after reaching their highest level in over a year on February 19th. NZD contracts fell to a total of +19,044 net long contracts as of March 5th following a total of +20,297 net long contracts on February 26th.

The New Zealand dollar positions have fallen under the +20,000 contracts threshold for the first time in the last eight weeks.

Mexican Peso:

MXN: Mexican peso speculative contracts decreased last week to decline for a seventh straight week. Peso positions fell to a total of +93,521 net speculative positions as of March 5th following a total of +104,804 contracts that were reported for February 26th.

Peso speculative positions have fallen under the +100,000 threshold for the first time since November 27th 2012.

The Commitment of Traders report is published every Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and shows futures positions data that was reported as of the previous Tuesday (3 days behind).

Each currency contract is a quote for that currency directly against the U.S. dollar, a net short amount of contracts means that more speculators are betting that currency to fall against the dollar and a net long position expect that currency to rise versus the dollar.

(The graphs overlay the forex spot closing price of each Tuesday when COT trader positions are reported for each corresponding spot currency pair.)

Article by CountingPips.com – Forex News & Market Analysis