全球股灾 集中讨论区

slutodomo

The Real Worry is Growth, Not U.S. DebtWhile headlines about S&P's downgrade dominate the news, the real problems — and opportunities — lie elsewhere.

More from Barrons.com:

• Attention, Shoppers. It's Time to Buy

• World of Worry

• How Bad Is It?

Standard & Poor's did global policy-makers a huge favor by downgrading the credit rating of the United States from the previously perfect triple-A rating by diverting the attention of the markets and the public from the truly crucial matters besetting the global economy.

Obscured by the all-S&P-downgrade, all-the-time coverage was the agreement by the European Central Bank to purchase bonds of the eurozone while the Group of Seven pledged to maintain financially stability.

Even if there was no hyperventilation over S&P's downgrade, markets would likely continue their slide, as their performance last week showed. The markets' decline actually accelerated on the downside last week after the U.S. hammered out an 11th-hour agreement to raise the debt ceiling and stave off a self-inflicted default.

That strongly suggests the problem besetting the markets and the economy lie elsewhere.

Consider that the European authorities are cobbling together a scheme to allow the third-largest economy in the euro zone to be able to continue to roll over its debts — an ability that proved far from certain as the experience of Greece, Ireland and Portugal have shown. Moreover, the yields on the benchmark 10-year bonds of the governments of Italy and Spain have risen sharply, to over 6%. That may not seem like much, but given their debt burdens — and their need to roll over maturing debt — it is formidable since the debt burden compounds rapidly at higher interest rates. This, importantly, was the breaking point for Greece.

Consider again the experience of the U.S. Throughout the dysfunctional dialectic that gripped the two parties over the debt ceiling, the yield on U.S. continued to fall. Indeed, two-year notes at one point traded at 0.25%, which means that an investment of $1,000 over the term of those securities would have given the holder all of $50 of income.

This raises the question of the whereabouts of the so-called bond vigilantes. These are the investors who effectively enforced the need for the U.S. government to put its economic house in order a generation ago. They did so by sending Treasury note yields to the mid-teens and by pushing long-term bond returns to 15%. Those yields vastly exceeded the historical returns from risky equities and allowed investors to lock in yields that permitted them to double their money in about five years.

By contrast, investors rushed to purchase 10-year U.S. Treasury notes yielding under 2.5% and 30-year bonds yielding less than 4%. The question remains, why do global investors want U.S. government obligations at such low yields and shun those of governments in the euro zone that are more than twice as high?

The fact remains, even after S&P's actions, the U.S. government may be the world's largest debtor, but its liabilities still are the safest assets in the world. The U.S. economy is the world's largest. America remains the preeminent superpower. And the U.S. issues debt in its own currency, the dollar, which remains the world's reserve currency.

And one cannot overlook the visual acuity of the ratings agencies in the past. The three blind mice, aka the major ratings agencies, saw fit to award triple-A ratings to mortgage-backed securities collateralized with subprime loans. S&P, for its part, rated Enron and Worldcom as investment-grade credits mere weeks before they filed for bankruptcy. It is not for nothing that credit ratings are considered a lagging indicator.

Now, triple-A ratings continue to be accorded to Germany and France, both of which will find themselves increasingly on the hook for the debts of their weaker eurozone brethren. The U.K. brags that its austerity measures are maintaining its triple-A rating, a brave defense of its deflationary policies that recall that of then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill to restore sterling's pre-World War I parities in the 1920s.

America's downgrade by a single ratings agency obscures the real problems now besetting the global economy. Instead of being solved by steps taken over the past year, the European debt crisis is getting worse. The slowdown in the U.S. economy is not a transitory phenomenon caused by exogenous shocks such as the tragedy of Japan's earthquake and tsunami. China, meanwhile, is not experiencing simply a benign pause in its growth but something more serious, as the need to deal with its local debt, which at $1.7 trillion equals 27% of that nation's 2010 gross domestic product.

Arguably, the U.S. debt situation, as ominous as it may be in the long term, is perhaps the least of the clear-and-present problems besetting the world's economy. That is not to say that no problems exist; exactly the opposite.

The media is obsessing over the actions of what may prove to be the Meredith Whitney of ratings agencies. (You remember her, the errant prognosticator who predicted municipal-bond defaults in the hundreds of billions of dollars in 2011.)

The bond vigilantes think otherwise. Ten-year Treasury yields hover just over 2½%, at 2.56%, little changed following the downgrade. That strongly suggests that the U.S. debt situation, parlous as it may be, is not the problem. Thus, the solution would lie elsewhere.

The misperception that results has an important implication for investors: By any measure, the valuations of world-class U.S. equities are too low and their returns based on their here-and-now cash flows exceed virtually any alternative.

Back in the 1970s, when the Death of Equities was declared and top-quality U.S. stocks sold for similar valuations, the competition was formidable in the form of double-digit bond yields. Now, bonds hover near record lows while the earnings yields on stocks (the reciprocal of price-earnings multiples) are near historic highs.

There are important challenges for the finances of over-indebted governments. The greatest of those is continued sluggish growth because of the debt hangover from the previous binge. That same uncertainty is making equities a less risky long-run alternative to low-yielding government securities that one day may be vulnerable to the decision of a ratings agency.

In the meantime, the greatest risk is posed by slowing growth. The ability of the U.S. to service its debts should be the least of your worries.

slutodomo

WHEN PEOPLE IN FEAR, I 'M IN BRAVE. WHEN PEOPLE IN BRAVE, I'M IN FEAR
这句经典的名句,能够真正实践的人又有几个?

lyehee18

美国又要开印钞机了
是好事还是坏事??

j5656

回复 7# MHB


    認同 明天是T+3的最後限期。。搞contra肯定賺或虧都要出票

kitnina

我是等明天升高卖的，一天不升，一天就不卖。

slutodomo

Obama, Boehner Continue to Duel on Deficit
President Barack Obama and House Republican leaders showed no sign of backing off their stances on how to cut the federal deficit as U.S. stocks sank the most since December 2008 on concern the economy will keep slowing.

Obama, making his first public comments since Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. credit rating to AA+ from AAA on Aug. 5, said yesterday that “common sense and compromise” should lead to a deficit-reduction plan that includes spending cuts and more tax revenue.

“It’s not a lack of plans or policies that’s the problem here,” Obama said at the White House. “It’s a lack of political will in Washington.”

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor responded with statements saying both sides should be able to find cuts in mandatory spending, such as Social Security and Medicare, to make enough progress on the long-term shortfall.

“Republicans demonstrated this problem can be solved without job-destroying tax hikes,” Boehner said.

Both sides sought to reassure global investors while staking out positions for negotiations on the direction of a so- called super committee of lawmakers, which is supposed to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reductions beyond the more than $900 billion that Republicans and Democrats have already agreed to. The panel was set up under a law that raised the nation’s debt ceiling, and if it fails, a trigger mechanism would kick in to slash spending equally in defense and domestic programs.

Stock Futures Rise

Concern about the S&P credit downgrade and the state of the economy helped push U.S. stocks lower yesterday. The S&P 500 Index (SPX) lost 6.7 percent to 1,119.46 at 4 p.m. yesterday in New York, its lowest level since September, as all 500 stocks fell for the first time since Bloomberg began tracking the data in 1996. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 634.76 points as about $2.5 trillion was erased from global equities.

U.S. stock futures rose this morning, as investors waited for the outcome of a Federal Reserve meeting. S&P 500 Index futures added 1.7 percent at 8:44 a.m. in New York. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index traded down 0.1 percent after gaining as much as 1.6 percent. Treasuries fell, with the 10-year note’s yield up six basis points to 2.37 percent at 9:02 a.m. in New York.

U.S. Assets

Obama sought to temper public concern about the stock and credit-ratings drop, citing the productivity of U.S. workers, the strength of the country’s universities and the nation’s history of entrepreneurship and innovation.

“Markets will rise and fall, but this is the United States of America,” he said. “No matter what some agency may say, we’ve always been and always will be a AAA country.”

Still he said, the S&P action should create “a renewed sense of urgency” for members of both parties to come up with a plan for bringing the government budget under control and shrinking deficits.

Obama vowed to offer his own recommendations in the “coming weeks.” He also reiterated his stance that any solution must include “tax reform that will ask those who can afford it to pay their fair share, and modest adjustments to health-care programs like Medicare.”

Cantor, of Virginia, said compromising on taxes in return for modest changes in entitlement programs is “a trade we simply cannot afford to make.”

‘Pressure to Compromise’

As a result of S&P’s analysis of the U.S. budget position, Republicans will come under “pressure to compromise on tax increases,” Cantor wrote in a memo to House colleagues that was released by his office. “We will be told that there is no other way forward. I respectfully disagree.”

While welcoming Obama’s promise to lay out specific reforms for entitlement programs, Ohio’s Boehner said raising taxes is “simply the wrong approach.” Lawmakers must focus on cutting spending, he said.

The deal Obama struck with House Republicans last week cuts $917 billion from spending over the next decade. The super- committee -- the two top Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate each will name three members by Aug. 16 -- will try to come up with at least an additional $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction.

Falling Short

In downgrading U.S. debt, S&P said in a statement that the plan “falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.”

S&P’s decision was at odds with the other two main ratings services, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings. Both affirmed their AAA grades on U.S. debt on Aug. 2, when Obama signed the debt deal.

Obama and the two Republican leaders agreed that the focus of the White House and Congress should be on generating greater economic growth, even as their prescriptions differed.

“The challenges go beyond the stock market,” Obama told a crowd of about 140 donors last night at a fundraiser in Washington. “Corporate profits have been up. The credit markets have stabilized but what’s absolutely true even before these last couple days in the stock market is that recovery wasn’t happening fast enough.”

Boehner said the answer is to provide “economic certainty and creating an environment in which businesses can invest and jobs can flourish.”

Cantor said House Republican leaders are preparing a package of legislation to be voted on beginning in September that would “reduce or eliminate regulatory barriers to job creation.”

Americans “want to see less government -- not more taxes,” Cantor said.

Other Ratings Companies

S&P’s downgrade decision was at odds with the other two main ratings companies, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings. Both affirmed their AAA grades on U.S. debt on Aug. 2, when Obama signed an increase in the U.S. debt ceiling and plan to trim the nation’s deficit.

The new rating is the second-highest and puts the U.S. on the same level as Belgium and New Zealand, and above Japan and China. Under S&P’s definitions, debt rated AA is barely different from AAA securities and shows that a borrower’s ability to “meet its financial commitment on the obligation is very strong.”

slutodomo

Why Buy Stocks Now
The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor program, which is separate from the company's news coverage.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The U.S. economy and equities are worth more than current prices indicate. This is a good time to buy companies with strong brands and decent cash positions -- those are ones that weather tough times better and grow nicely when conditions improve.

The Standard & Poor's downgrade did not cause the selloff the first trading day after its announcement -- the market slide began on July 22, some 18 days earlier. That was the day negotiations between Speaker Boehner and President Obama to accomplish a grand deficit reduction bargain collapsed.

Those talks failed because the president incorrectly insisted on more taxes -- over the last four years, the deficit is up tenfold, annual spending in excess of inflation is up $900 billion, but eliminating the Bush tax cuts for all tax brackets would yield less than $300 billion in new revenue.

>> Get your economic news on the go with TheStreet's iPad app.

The president's insistence on taxes to permanently increase the size of government -- and his absolute refusal to act on business and investor complaints about rising costs imposed by health care reforms and incomprehensible new industrial regulations -- have instigated doubt about the president's ability to grasp the challenges facing the economy, and come up with reasonable policies to jump start growth and avert a second recession.

Over the last two months, the economic data has been generally bad -- weak retail sales and industrial production, jobs creation, GDP growth and other distressing news.

Unlike the Ivy League economists and Noble laureates the administration consults, business leaders don't believe big deficits -- followed by more taxes and permanently bigger government -- spur growth.

Most recent presidential missteps have aggravated business and investor mistrust. These include an announced bus tour through the Midwest to address the jobs situation -- when the crisis is not one of communications but a lack of U.S. and global demand for what Americans can make -- and his failure to personally address the S&P downgrade for three days after his knowledge of the fact.

When the president finally spoke, he rehashed old ideas that will do little to improve the situation -- extending unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cuts only sustain the status quo -- and strengthening universities and free trade agreements offer uncertain positive outcomes only years into the future.

The president offered no recognition that the lack of demand, which business economists believe is paramount, is caused by a huge trade deficit and in turn by reliance on oil imports and distorted trade with Asia. He said nothing about regulatory burdens that are causing American businesses to take purchases and investment abroad.

The good news is a president and Congress can only do so much damage -- they are too rigid in their positions to agree on much further to distress the economy.

In the second half, economic growth should pick up, and the odds are better than even that a recession will be avoided.

Asia, laughing at Follies Americana, will continue to grow like gangbusters and the S&P 500 companies -- who comprise 80% of U.S. publicly traded companies by assets -- earn more than half their profits abroad and many are well situated across the Pacific.

Moderate growth at home and robust growth in Asia spell continued good earnings reports. Those will ultimately drive a recovery in stock prices.

At 62, I maintain a healthy cash position as a hedge against an unplanned retirement, but as I always do when things go sour, I am putting money into the market.

The investors will be feeling much better on New Year's Eve than in the August dog days of displeasure. Don't miss the party.

股王再世

回复 1# slutodomo

美国大涨要超过250点，大家进啦！我AIM KNM，MAA，NAIM，LATEXX很久了！SHOOT它LIAO！

ss24

回复 1# slutodomo

趁反弹进场太危险了,祈求解套的卖压太大了,很难逆转........

ss24

回复 1# kitnina

赞成....明天会有很庞大的祈求解套卖压,加上大众已经恐慌,已经在场的会想借机出场,没有进场的会观望...

slutodomo

History Says ‘Buy Now’…IF We’re Not Headed for Recession: BTIG’s Greenhaus
Stocks are bouncing back in early trading Tuesday as the market catches a bid after suffering its worst day since October 2008 and, at down 6.66%, the S&P's 12th-worst single-day performance since World War II.

"Investors remain very much on edge," says Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG. "They aren't' really sure what's happening economically; they aren't really sure what's happening fundamentally."

Greenhaus says the shift in the market - and market sentiment - began earlier this month after first-quarter GDP was revised down from 1.8% to 0.4%. Add to that the debt ceiling debacle, the S&P downgrade and Europe's implosion and you've got the makings of a crisis. What's adding to the worry is the concern the federal government can't bailout the private sector again this time; that, Greenhaus says, explains the ferocity of the decline in the past 12 trading days.

All eyes will be on the The Federal Reserve's ROMC announcement today at 2:15 p.m. EDT. Though most don't expect the Fed to take any action, the recent declines may change their view. Greenhaus argues there's a danger in the Fed reacting too strongly to the fluctuations in the equity market.

"They have be to be very careful to look like they're not responding to a decline in the stock market such that it reinforces the idea that the idea is here in perpetuity to prop up equity prices," he says.

Amid all the negativity in Washington and Wall Street, Greenhaus says there are a few reasons to be bullish, most notably valuations: Assuming earnings of about $102 over the next four quarters, the S&P 500 is trading closer to 11x earnings than 12x earnings, he noted in an email to clients Monday evening.

Furthermore, if we manage to stay out of recession -as he believes we will - history suggests a market rebound is in order.

That's a huge "if" but given the dramatic drop in recent days now may be as good a time as any to buy stocks. "To the extent that we are not going into recession, history is fairly clear to quite clear: buying at current levels given the speed and rapidity of the decline, investors are likely to be rewarded," he says.

That's true this morning. Time will tell if it's the right call in the long-term.

koo_2828

联储局也解决不了问题。。只是市场需要的是信心而已。。。股市地产商品期货会回升的，，钱太多了。。利率太低，如果拿着现钱什么都不做，难道看着它贬值？？那些基金经理又不是笨蛋。。

slutodomo

纽约9日讯）尽管美股重挫，股神巴菲特无惧外围差劣气氛，贯彻别人恐慌时买入的投资格言，以32.4亿美元（约98亿令吉）收购大西洋保险，务求壮大旗下的保险业务。

　综合外电报导，股神旗下的波克夏哈萨威（Berkshire Hathaway）透过国民保险公司，以每股52美元（约156令吉）收购大西洋保险。

　出价比大西洋保险5日的45.24美元（约135.72令吉）收市价溢价15%。

　大西洋保险董事局指出，会认真考虑和研究报价，目前约有6250万股在市场流通。

　波克夏哈萨威现在手持多达478.9亿美元（约1452亿令吉）现金，正找寻合适投资。

　但随著利率维持低水平，巴菲特将投资重心放在股市，押注经济复苏，持有股权高达676亿美元（约2050亿令吉）。

　美股这两周急挫，波克夏哈萨威首3项持股蒸发合共16亿美元（约48亿令吉），但美欧问题夹击令市场乱成一团，却正是股神捡便宜货的大好机会。

mayu2143

回复 18# 超笨无比


    我只觉得他“乾”了很多

ost2005

卖的人希望它跌。。。但我想应该不会再跌了。。。可能再创新高。。。

kitnina

昨天下午卖了的，应该很后悔吧
明天起不敢进场，后天再起总会想进场的（如此类推），等你一进场，又掉了。。。。。。
套方展博师傅那句，真正的赢家就是：“及早离场”

穷秀才

低买高卖，人人都懂。可是不是人人做到呢？是不是人人敢趁“低”买呢？

slutodomo

warren buffett 已经买进。他的investment decision很少错

slutodomo

The Senate Banking Committee has begun looking into last week's decision by Standard & Poor's to downgrade the U.S. credit rating, a committee aide told Reuters on Monday.

The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss unannounced committee business after the panel's chairman, South Dakota Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson, called S&P's move "irresponsible."




According to the aide, the panel was gathering information about the S&P move, but no decision has been made on whether it will hold hearings into the downgrade.

On Friday, S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time to AA+ from AAA.

The change was guided by doubts over Washington's inability to achieve at least $4 trillion in long-term savings amid a national debt that has climbed above $14.3 trillion. S&P also took into consideration the "debacle" surrounding the last-minute increase of the debt ceiling last week.

Seeks Pro-Active Congress

"We think elected officials across the political spectrum are unable to proactively take measure to put U.S. public finances on a sustainable footing in the same sort of matter as some our most highly rated governments," said John Chambers, head of S&P's sovereign rating committee.


After a dramatic right between Republicans and Democrats, Congress and President Barack Obama agreed to a 10-year deficit reduction plan that would ultimately save a little over $2 trillion.

Johnson said the "irresponsible" downgrade may "have spillover effects that tax the American people by increasing interest rates on home loans, credit cards, and car loans, any by increasing the cost of finance for some state and local governments."

S&P was also under attack from House of Representative Majority Leader Eric Cantor, an outspoken Republican opponent of tax increases.

In a memo to fellow Republicans, Cantor said that S&P's analysis of the U.S. fiscal situation "is overly focused on resolving the debt crisis in a manner that would greatly worsen the jobs crisis," referring to S&P's contention that "the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues" to help ease the country's fiscal problems.

Meanwhile, the talk in Washington was that the S&P downgrade of the U.S. Government would likely increase pressure on the new Congressional "supercommittee" to end ideological differences and political posturing to quickly devise a substantive deficit reduction package that goes beyond the $1.5 trillion called for in the recently-passed U.S. debt deal that also raised the nation's debt ceiling.

"I think this is one of the most telling, important moments in our country's history right now," Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said Sunday on the NBC program "Meet the Press." He added: "This poses a set of choices not just about a recession. It's about a financial crisis and the structure of our economy, which really has been misallocating capital."

However, the above is not to say that the U.S. Treasury Department has changed its stance regarding S&P's controversial decision regarding the U.S. Government: it hasn't.

moneygame88

逃命的机会不多了。。。