PowerShares Planning To Close 19 ETFs

by Murray Coleman

Invesco PowerShares is making plans to close 19 of its exchange-traded funds, a dozen of which are based on fundamental indexes created by Rob Arnott's Research Affilliates.
But of those so-called RAFI funds, which use fundamental valuations to weight securities based on FTSE Group indexes, nine are U.S.-focused sector ETFs. The other three are niche-oriented international portfolios.
The moves, which are expected to take effect on May 19, comes after a splattering of smaller fund closings by other ETF providers earlier this year. The PowerShares shutterings picks up the pace of consolidations in an industry that had been growing at a faster pace than traditional mutual funds for a decade.
In fact, last year marked the first time since ETFs entered the investment marketplace in 1993 in which any signficant number of fund closings had taken place.

in:
http://www.indexuniverse.com/sections/newsinfocus/5792-powershares-to-close-19-etfs-12-rafi-funds-included.html">www.indexuniverse.com/sections/newsinfocus/5792-powershares-to-close-19-etfs-12-rafi-funds-included.html">www.indexuniverse.com/sections/newsinfocus/5792-powershares-to-close-19-etfs-12-rafi-funds-included.html">www.indexuniverse.com/sections/newsinfocus/5792-powershares-to-close-19-etfs-12-rafi-funds-included.html

Fidelity Says ‘All Things in Place’ for Bull Market

By Hanny Wan and Bernard Lo

Anthony Bolton, president of investments at Fidelity International, said a bull market in equities has already begun and financial shares are poised to drive recent gains higher.

Low valuations indicate advances that began in March are the start of a bull market, Bolton said. He favors financials, consumer cyclical, technology, and “value stocks,” such as retailers, automakers and construction-related shares.

“All the things are in place for the bear market to have ended,” Bolton said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Hong Kong. “When there’s a strong consensus, a very negative one, and cash positions are very high, as they are at the moment, I’d like to bet against that.”

The MSCI World Index has dropped 3.2 percent this year, extending last year’s 42 percent slump, the worst annual performance since at least 1970. Shares plunged as a collapse in U.S. consumer spending and a freeze in credit markets sent the U.S., Europe and Japan into their first simultaneous recessions since World War II.

in:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=a3wlzls3Lq4I&refer=europe

Banks Still Going Bust?

Some creative accounting, a Congress reluctant to offer any more help and the "stress test results" may squash a big comeback by the banking industry. The stock market is bouncing up and down as investors seem jittery about the banking industry, despite several major banks reporting first-quarter profits. Wells Fargo, Inc., Citigroup and Bank of America all reported better than expected earnings for the first part of the year.

Those booming bottom lines from banks are being questioned though. The New York Times financial columnist Paul Krugman warned Americans to stay skeptical as banks maneuvered their numbers. "The biggest positive news in recent days has come from banks, which have been announcing surprisingly good earnings. But some of those earnings reports look a little...funny." For example, Krugman noted that Goldman Sachs changed its definition of "quarter."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner revealed recently that of the $700 billion in government bailout money dedicated to rescuing the U.S. financial markets, only $109.6 billion remains. While the Treasury Department said they expect the fund to receive about $25 billion in the next year as companies repay their loans, Congress seemed a little confused on the return taxpayers were getting on this massive investment. The numbers breakdown as follows, according to the Associated Press:

$355.4 billion - committed under the Bush administration to help bolster AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America, GM, and Chrysler among other companies.

$30 billion - additional funds given to AIG under the Obama administration.

$5 billion - additional funds to automakers under the Obama administration.

$200 billion - disbursed to more than $500 banks.

in:
http://community2.myfoxaustin.com/_Banks-Still-Going-Bust/BLOG/264827/82263.html

Lo que Obama esconde

“Es importante que la gente sepa que lo de Obama no es una conspiración de los friquis, sino algo muy bien trazado desde los centros del poder más rancios e universales”.
Lo afirma Daniel Estulin, autor de La verdadera historia del Club Bilderberg, y uno de los autores que señalan con más insistencia al nuevo mandatario estadounidense como un esbirro de ocultos intereses. Y es que Obama es la nueva estrella de ese mundo en que los poderes oscuros acechan en la sombra.
En primera instancia, porque no hay presidente norteamericano que pueda escapar de las teorías de la conspiración. Pero, además, porque Obama posee el perfil perfecto para encajar en esas teorías. No es como su predecesor, George W. Bush, cuyas conexiones con poderes fácticos eran más o menos evidentes (neocons, grupos religiosos, industrias de la energía y del armamento) y cuyos planes para el nuevo orden mundial estaban en las páginas de los diarios más prestigiosos.
Obama, por el contrario, representa el rostro afable del sistema, alguien de maneras moderadas y de actitud claramente empática, que ha sido acogido como el salvador por la clase media y media-baja. El rostro perfecto y el perfil adecuado, según esta clase de teorías, para dar cuerpo al nuevo Manchurian Candidate, al nuevo “mensajero del miedo”.

in:
http://www.elconfidencial.com/cache/2009/05/02/mundo_40_obama_esconde.html

The top five inflation beating investments

by Philip Scott, This is Money

Deflation is blighting the UK but some fear a return to inflation is not far away
- we outline the best investment hedges against it

Deflation is stalling the UK's economic engine. In February the retail price index (RPI), which includes housing and mortgage costs, recorded deflation for the first time in almost 50 years, after dropping from 0% to -0.4%.

The fall was caused largely by low interest rates driving payments on tracker mortgages down - good news for borrowers, bad for beleaguered savers.

Simultaneously, the consumer price inflation (CPI) index, which excludes mortgage and housing costs, dropped back by 0.3 percentage points to 2.9%, chiefly because of cheaper fuel and food.

in:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/investing/article.html?in_article_id=483583&in_page_id=166&ct=5

America in Terminal Decline? No Way, Says Geopolitical Expert George Friedman

by Aaron Task in Newsmakers

With its slumping economy, mountains of debt, ungodly deficits and overseas entanglements, many observers believe the end of the American era is at hand.

Not so, according to George Friedman, founder of STRATFOR, a global intelligence company.

In his latest book, The Next 100 Years, Friedman argues America's power on the world stage will actually increase in the 21st Century for three major reason:

* The immense size of the U.S. economy: The current crisis is painful and America's deficits are shocking on an absolute basis but are "trivial" relative to the country's net worth, which Friedman estimates is about $340 trillion.
* The unrivaled dominance of the U.S. Navy: Even in the digital age, control of the high seas is paramount in geopolitics.
* The ability of the U.S. to absorb immigrants, both culturally and in terms of the nation's relatively low population density.

in:
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/237808/America-in-Terminal-Decline-No-Way-Says-Geopolitical-Expert-George-Friedman?tickers=^DJI,^GSPC,SPY,DIA,TLT,TBT,UDN

Why You Shouldn't Follow Warren Buffett

By Tim Hanson and Brian Richards

Have you ever bought a stock because Warren Buffett bought a stock? You know, like Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) or Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC)?
If so, you're not alone. In fact, thousands of investors follow Buffett's every move, and that's such a hassle for the Oracle of Omaha that he has actually (unsuccessfully) lobbied the SEC to give him a dispensation from disclosing his stock picks.
Heck, it got so bad that in 1999, Coca-Cola was trading for as much as 40 times earnings -- an unbelievably high number for a steady consumer staple that sells sugar water.
Yet, if you believe Alice Schroeder's account in her Buffett biography The Snowball, Buffett wouldn't sell Coca-Cola even then because "the price of Coca-Cola could plunge as a result."
After all, if folks had mindlessly followed Buffett in, thereby driving up the price, they would just as surely follow him out.

in:
http://www.fool.com/investing/international/2009/04/30/why-you-shouldnt-follow-warren-buffett.aspx

Triste primero de mayo

Con toda certeza, este 1º de mayo del 2009 es un día triste para los trabajadores. La crisis internacional, que comenzó como una crisis financiera, ya se trasladó plenamente al sector real (productivo) de la economía y todas las instituciones pronostican caídas del PBI mundial y regional. Para muestra solo un botón: el PBI mundial caerá 2% en el 2009.
Quienes más sufren la crisis son los trabajadores. En los 27 Estados de la Unión Europea, solo en marzo se perdieron 419,000 empleos. La tasa de desempleo ya llegó a 8.9%: 20 millones de personas. Lo peor es que en el 2009 habrá 3.5 millones de desempleados adicionales y la tasa de desempleo subiría hasta el 13%.

in:
http://www.larepublica.pe/cristal-de-mira/01/05/2009/triste-primero-de-mayo

Expectativas económicas de Japón son aún peores

El banco central del imperio reveló que, a su criterio, el producto bruto interno se contraerá este año más de lo previsto y habrá mayor deflación. En verdad, la segunda economía del mundo no termina de superar la perdida década y media de 1990 a 2004.

A criterio del ente emisor, el país continúa sumido en baja demanda interna y externa. En el segundo caso, a causa de la crisis sistémica iniciada hace más de diez meses en Estados Unidos y transmitida a la Unión Europea.
“Las condiciones económicas se han deteriorado apreciablemente”, sostiene un comunicado del BdeJ. Por ende, durante el año fiscal 2009 –va de abril pasado a marzo de 2010- el PBI se contraerá 3,1%, no el proyectado 2% de hace tres meses.

in:
http://www.mercado.com.ar/nota.php?id=361122

It's May, Time to Go Away?

There was a time in early March when we called attention to the extreme sense of negativity in the stock market and cited it as one reason to think we were in store for a meaningful rally. That view proved prescient, but as much as we were struck by the level of negativity then, we are now struck by the level of optimism now.
We concur with the view that the economic data, and earnings news, have signaled that the economy is in a bottoming process. However, the market is showing a propensity these days to view everything with rose-colored glasses and that perspective often coincides with near-term tops in the market.
The difference of opinion today, versus early March, is that we don't expect there to be a selloff that would match the magnitude of the recent rally. Conditions are better on a number of fronts. Credit spreads have narrowed considerably, commodity prices have risen, companies have regularly beaten too depressed earnings estimates and, as noted above, there is a growing body of economic evidence that suggests the worst of the downturn is behind the market.

in:
http://news.briefing.com/GeneralContent/Investor/Active/ArticlePopup/ArticlePopup.aspx?ArticleId=NS20090501085339PageOne