Der USA Bären-Thread

• Import Prices Post Another Large Increase, Up 1.1%

U.S. import prices jumped in December as energy costs surged, a sign that while inflation may be tame domestically there are plenty of price pressures coming from overseas.

 

Import prices rose 1.1 percent, just beneath economists' forecasts in a Reuters poll, following a revised 1.5 percent increase in November. Prices were up 4.8 percent for 2010 as a whole, according to the Labor Department data released on Wednesday.

Petroleum import prices climbed 3.9 percent, while non-petroleum costs rose just 0.4 percent.

Export prices advanced 0.7 percent after a 1.5 percent gain in November. They were up 6.5 percent in 2010, the highest in records dating back to 1983, and nearly double the rise seen in 2009.

A low inflation environment in the United States has allowed the Federal Reserve to maintain a very loose monetary policy, but a recent spike in global energy and commodity prices has raised some concern that cost pressures might pick up.

www.ftd.de/politik/international/...-schlagseite/50213397.html
......Dass sich die Industrienationen in ihrem Wirtschaftswachstum zunehmend von China abhängig machen, ist also keine gute Entwicklung. Kurzfristig mag das gut gehen, doch auf lange Sicht birgt es beträchtliche Risiken.
Für deutsche Unternehmen entwickelt sich China zunehmend zum wichtigen Handelspartner. 2010 schossen die deutschen Exporte um 40 Prozent in die Höhe, und das, obwohl sie auch in den Krisenjahren zuvor fast nicht eingebrochen waren. Zwar gehen trotz dieser Zuwächse bislang nicht mehr als rund sechs Prozent der Waren, die Deutschland ans Ausland verkauft, nach China. Den größten Teil nehmen weiterhin die EU-Staaten ab. Doch bemerkenswert ist, dass ein großer Teil des deutschen Exportwachstums auf der Nachfrage aus China beruht.

Die USA sind noch stärker von China abhängig. Durch den Kauf von Staatsanleihen finanziert der Staat das amerikanische Außenhandelsdefizit. Neuerdings hoffen auch die Südeuropäer auf chinesisches Geld: Peking hat Spaniern und Portugiesen zugesagt, ihnen einen Teil ihrer Staatsanleihen abzunehmen. Damit steigt die Gefahr der Abhängigkeit - und die chinesische Wirtschaft ist alles andere als stabil. Die Wachstumsraten sind zwar enorm, doch genau so groß ist die Gefahr, dass sich eine Blase bildet.
Um dieses Risiko abzufedern, gibt es kein Wundermittel. Europa muss seine Euro-Krise in den Griff bekommen und die Krisenländer langsam wieder auf Wachstumskurs bringen. Die USA müssen ihr Defizit in der Handelsbilanz verringern.Diesseits wie jenseits des Atlantiks muss die Konjunktur wieder Fahrt aufnehmen....

nicht unter den Tisch kehren. Immerhin sind sie wirtschaftlich sehr groß, allerdings viel kleiner als die EU. Wenn man davon ausgeht, dass demnächst alles in den USA zusammenbricht, würde das die restliche Welt sehr stark treffen.

Allerdings ist dieser Zusammenbruch demnächst sehr unwahrscheinlich. Die USA schaffen es immer noch mittels Gelddruckens sich zu halten und schädigen/fördern damit erst mal die Weltwirtschaft. Nichts mit Double Dip in 2010/11. Dagegen läuft die restliche Weltwirtschaft (Darf ich überhaupt etwas dazu sagen? Könnte als DAX-long interpretiert werden!) recht ansprechend. Daran sind die USA vielfältig beteiligt. Allerdings mehr negativ als positiv. Die Preistreiberei, wegen $-Druckens, bei Energie, Lebensmittel und anderen Rohstoffen bremst mindestens so stark wie die staatlichen US-Stimulationsmaßnahmen fördern.

Ich sprach hier nicht von militärischer Macht. Es ging um die weltweit auseinanderlaufenden wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungen, die es nach machen Aussagen hier, so gar nicht geben dürfte.

www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/0,1518,739021,00.html
...Laut "Welt" wird nun überlegt, die reale Ausleihsumme des Rettungsfonds zu erhöhen - entweder durch eine Aufstockung der Garantiesumme von 440 Milliarden Euro oder durch technische Änderungen. "Wir haben eine trügerische Ruhe, es muss ein glaubhaftes politisches Signal der Entschlossenheit an die Märkte geliefert werden", sagte ein Diplomat dem Blatt.......

online.wsj.com/article/...2748703791904576075670883505328.html

Darüber hinaus berichtet auch das "Wall Street Journal", dass die europäischen Regierungen eine Ausweitung des Euro-Rettungsschirms erwägen. Den Überlegungen zufolge soll der 440 Milliarden Euro schwere Garantierahmen vergrößert werden, außerdem soll es dem Europäischen Finanzstabilitätsfonds (EFSF) ermöglicht werden, an den Anleihemärkten zu intervenieren. Mit anderen Worten: Der EFSF könnte künftig direkt Staatsanleihen europäischer Krisenländer aufkaufen. Bisher garantiert er nur für deren Rückzahlung.

Offiziell heißt es in Brüssel, dass es noch keinen Beschluss gebe. Laut "Wall Street Journal" wird eine Entscheidung aber dringend nötig, weil die Finanzmärkte äußerst nervös seien. Nach der Krise in Griechenland und Irland wüchsen nun die Sorgen um Portugal......Übersetzung aus dem Spiegel Link oben

One of the best quarterly observations on asset classes, the Global Tactical Asset Allocation focusing on equities, has been released. This report is a must read for those few who still trade stocks. From the report: "We struggle to find any elements in our analysis pointing toward a continuing unabated 2-6 weeks advance. We are in one of this rare configuration where betting against such an occurrence is an almost (we repeat... almost) certainty. We expect a correction below 1180 on the S&P 500 in the next 20 trading days and would position accordingly. Our cyclical models are still positive so we have to assume that we will see new highs later this year. Note that the failure on the number of new highs to confirms the current highs, the high yield bond markets divergence and some other elements make this assumption less strong that it was last summer. One should be mentally ready to sell the long position which will be acquired when certain "oversold" thresholds are reached with a loss if a rebound fails to materialize and the cyclical models move to a sell signal. We would underweight emerging markets (and are strongly advising to exit the long position in our preferred market since the end of 2008, Indonesia), Europe and small caps. We would overweight Japan (but hedge the currency risk) and the US."

www.zerohedge.com/article/...rst-quarter-outlook-equities-gtaa

China kommt mit dem Gelddrucken nicht mehr nach

Financial analyst Meredith Whitney is sticking by her call that the nation's municipalities face a wave of defaults, despite a wave of criticism over her prediction that hundreds of local governments would not meet their obligations.

 

In fact, she took the forecast a step further and said when the defaults begin in earnest, it will mark an exodus from the muni bond market.

"When you have the first group of defaults you will see indiscriminate selling that would be a buying opportunity for some," the president of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group said in a CNBC interview. "Because there has been such complacency in the market and muni investors have been talked down to for so long—'There's nothing to worry about, there's nothing to worry about'—they'll just fly."

Whitney is most known for her call, before the financial system collapsed, that Citigroup was facing intense pressure from risky mortgage investments that would severely hamper the company as the subprime mortgage industry was collapsing.

Since then, she has garnered headlines for various dire predictions about the state of the banking industry and its inability to recovery because of pressures from the struggling housing market.

But her foray into the municipal bond area has provoked some of the most intense criticism of her calls. Experts from Pimco's Bill Gross to the leader of the National League of Cities have doubted whether the problem with local and state government debt is as bad as Whitney is predicting.

"We did this analysis in September," Whitney said. "I was scared to death to publish the analysis, understanding that this was a massive deal, probably the biggest call I ever made. We put thousands of man hours into this project. It took over two years to do."

She defended the call's validity, based on the shaky state of local finance and what she referred to as the "daisy chain" of financing from the federal to state to local governments that would not hold up anymore.

Investors can still make money in munis, she said, but need to be very careful in how they proceed.

"You have to know what you own. You have to really do your homework in terms of knowing what supports your bonds," Whitney said. "There are great municipal investments out there, but on a blanket basis you have to be really careful about knowing what cash flows are supporting your investments."

Home price drops exceed Great Depression: Zillow
By Al Yoon

NEW YORK | Tue Jan 11, 2011 8:40am EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Home prices fell for the 53rd consecutive month in November, taking the decline past that of the Great Depression for the first time in the prolonged housing slump, according to Zillow.

Home prices have fallen 26 percent since their peak in 2006, exceeding the 25.9 percent drop registered in the five years between 1928 and 1933, the housing data company said in a report on Monday. Prices fell 0.8 percent over the month.

It is a dubious milestone for the U.S. housing market which has failed to gain much traction despite a host of government programs to reduce delinquencies and encourage demand with temporary tax credits and lower interest rates. Many economists expect further price drops, even if there are some anecdotal signs of growing demand, such as in pending home sales data.

"For the next six to nine months, the larger factors affecting the housing market that will produce more home price declines will be the excess inventory of homes, high negative equity and foreclosure rates, and weakened demand due to elevated employment, Stan Humphries, Zillow's chief economist, said in a blog post.

Declines are accelerating, and it will take a while before falling unemployment and other signs of economic improvement support the market, Zillow said.

Home prices fell at a 0.78 percent pace in November, the fastest since February 2009, the company said.

(Reporting by Al Yoon, Editing by Kenneth Barry)

www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70961E20110111

"Wir müssen es den Menschen so verkaufen, dass sie glauben, was wir ihnen versprochen haben."  

Hilmar Kopper, ehemaliger Vorstandssprecher der Deutsche Bank, in den Nachrichten zur Euro-Krise Ende 2010.

Griechenland hat es schon 51 Mal geschafft, Spanien immerhin schon 24 Mal.

Deutschland war schon 13 Mal pleite, häufiger als Portugal (11 Mal).

unabhängig ( since independance) ?

schon utsch, wenn man die Brüsseler Spitzen und ihre Ziele hört! Let´s dancing!

US-Pennys (oder Cents) aus der Zeit vor 1982 hatten einen Kupfergehalt von 95 %. Sie sind beim aktuellen Kupferpreis (eilt von einem ATH zum nächsten) 2,8 Cents wert. "Leider" verbietet ein US-Gesetz, die Pennys einzuschmelzen. Aber man könnte sie lastenwagenweise über die mexikanische Grenze bringen und dort einschmelzen. Immerhin winken 180 % Gewinn ;-)

Beim US-Kupfer-Cent rächt sich, dass USA nicht konsequent Papiergeld eingeführt hat. Immerhin gibt es den Dollar selbst in der 1-Dollar-Version nur als Schein. Europa ist mit den Metall-Euros klar im Nachteil. Malko, sag was!

P.S. Lohnt sich der Deal auch beim Euro-Cent oder hat Trichet da billigen Füllstoff reingemischt?

Jonathan Heller, street.com
A (copper) Penny Saved is Three Pennies Earned
1/12/2011 11:01 AM EST

Check that pocket change, with copper at about $4.40/pound, pennies made before 1982 (and some in 1982) are 95% copper, and worth about 2.8 cents each, by my calculation. If you could wrangle up $100K in face value of copper pennies, you'd have $280K worth of copper. Unfortunately, its not that easy, plus a 2006 law now prevents the melting of US coins. You've got to dig deep these days to find value....

Allein ab Herbst hat sich der Schrott fast verdoppelt.

Geithner will die Unternehmenssteuern senken, ohne das Staatsdefizit zu erhöhen. Respekt!

www.marketwatch.com/story/...rate-tax-cuts-geithner-2011-01-12

The bulk of Fisher’s remarks consisted of a stern call on the new Congress and the White House to reform U.S. fiscal and regulatory policy.

Even though the tide of economic growth is picking up, “the ships of job-creating investment remain, for the most part, tied to the docks,” Fisher said.

Businesses “are stymied by a Congress and an executive branch that have appeard to them to be unaware of, if not outright opposed to, what fires the entrepreneurial spirit,” Fisher said.

“Many have begun to feel that opportunities for earning a better and more secure return on investment are larger elsewhere than here at home,” he said.

Greg Robb is a senior reporter for MarketWatch in Washington.

The U.S. economy strengthened as the year drew to a close, according to a report from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday that cited rising employment levels across the country.

 

The Fed's Beige Book report, based on anecdotal reports collected from the business contacts of the central bank's regional branches, painted an increasingly bright, if cautious, picture.

While real estate markets, at the heart of the deepest recession in generations, remained predictably weak, manufacturing contacts sounded more upbeat.

The Fed reported better conditions across all 12 of its districts, though banking and financial services showed results that varied by region.

"Economic activity continued to expand moderately from November through December,'' the central bank said in a statement.

The findings were consistent with a recent pick-up in U.S. economic data that has prompted some economists to beef up their forecasts for growth in the first half of 2011.

The U.S. economy grew 2.6 percent in the third quarter, a level considered too meek to put a significant dent in the nation's 9.4 percent jobless rate.

Against that backdrop, the Fed announced in November it would buy an additional $600 billion in bonds over an eight month period in order to support the recovery by keeping long-term borrowing costs low.

 

Market interest rates have risen sharply since then despite the purchases, though policymakers have argued they might have risen even further without Fed action.

The improvement in conditions in the Beige Book report strengthens the case, made both by some top Fed officials and outside economists, that the latest round of bond-buying might not be necessary.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, however, has argued that the economy is running so far beneath its full potential that it continues to need help from the monetary authorities.

The central bank has cited both weak employment conditions and very low inflation readings to justify its actions.

Memo to Ben Bernanke: inflation creeps up two yellow cheese squares at a time.

Kraft Foods cut two slices out of its reduced fat and fat-free cheese singles packets in 2009, a move that let it subtly raise prices without most people noticing.

Not every company has that flexibility. Many may wish they did in coming months.

Companies from food and soap maker Unilever to air-conditioner manufacturer Ingersoll-Rand could give more details about how they are being hurt or helped by commodity prices and what they plan to do about it when they report results over the next few weeks.

Everyone from mining equipment makers to airlines and even consumer electronics manufacturers is entering the new year with new cost pressures, as well as new opportunities that a commodity bull market affords.

Cotton prices almost doubled last year. Corn and wheat prices jumped about 50 percent. Copper reached a record last week, after gaining more than 30 percent last year and doubling in 2009. The cost of cheddar cheese rose 19 percent. And crude oil is near its highest level in more than two years.

"We're seeing margin squeezes on virtually everybody in consumer-land right now and we're actually looking to position ourselves a little further up the supply chain, away from the consumer," said David Kolpak, managing director at Victory Capital Management.

 

The effect may soon be apparent in company results, as they show whether raw materials prices have hurt bottom lines. The first-quarter earnings season will help shed light on issues like pricing power and how companies are managing costs.

Kimberly-Clark Corp's low-priced Scott is among the brands that cut their product sizes—in this case, the size of toilet paper squares—in recent months to squelch price increases.

"Manufacturers are more inclined to keep the price the same and simply shrink the package," said Consumer Reports senior editor Tod Marks.

Commodity prices have been supported by a recovering global economy and, to some extent, by speculators chasing returns.

They also reflect an insatiable appetite from developing markets like China for raw materials needed to build infrastructure and to feed and clothe growing populations.

If raw material costs have yet to translate into consumer inflation, it is partly because high unemployment in developed markets makes it hard to raise prices, said Oliver Pursche, co-manager of the GMG Defensive Beta Fund. He said stocks will react to commodity inflation beyond 2011.

 

It is very difficult for most companies to pass on higher prices, given still-low levels of consumer confidence, said Josh Green, chief executive of Panjiva, which provides data and analysis on overseas suppliers to manufacturers and retailers.

 

Few companies have the ability to charge premium prices for their products like Apple does, Green said. Most will choose to protect market share rather than try to boost margins, he predicted.

Technology, a sector that might considered relatively immune to inflationary pressures, faces headwinds of its own from potential shortages of rare earth elements, used in everything from lightbulbs to iPods. But such cost pressures may still be a ways off: In recent quarters, manufacturers like Dell have benefited from falling prices for components.

The greatest uncertainty for commodity prices, especially metals and energy, is how aggressively China moves to try to cool its economy, Pursche said.

"If there's a sense China will continue to raise interest rates, raise its loan requirements and try to slow things down, you can see a pretty quick sell-off," he said.

Companies across the globe are tweaking their business models as they digest higher commodity costs.

 

China's biggest listed steelmaker, Baoshan Iron & Steel, just imposed another price increase because of higher costs. Japan's Asahi Breweries is among those that have slashed costs, in its case by 5 billion to 6 billion yen last year, to absorb price hikes.

Malaysia's Top Glove raised prices six times last quarter, by 4 percent to 5 percent each time. Now it is buying land in Cambodia to plant its own rubber trees and making more nitrile gloves, which use a synthetic substitute for latex.

In Europe, Nestle, Unilever and Danone have been fairly successful in raising prices to offset spikes in wheat, cocoa and other costs, but smaller food companies such as British bread maker Premier Foods have suffered more as their input prices rise.

"High spot prices do not necessarily equate to companies' supply prices, but eventually they will have an impact if prices stay high— probably a second half 2011 issue," said analyst Warren Ackerman at brokers Evolution Securities.

Apparel companies may be among the first groups this earnings season to highlight cost pressures because of the near-doubling of cotton prices last year. Still, clothing made with higher-priced cotton likely will not hit stores for six months or more, said Al Ferrara, national director of BDO Seidman's retail and consumer product practice.

Some say commodity inflation poses no imminent danger to corporate profits. Most users hedge costs and will not see price increases for months, said Lord Abbett senior economist and market strategist Milton Ezrati.

"If I heard anyone say, 'our earnings are down because of commodities,' I'd be very suspicious," Ezrati said of the current earnings season. "It would sound like an excuse."

Siehe Warnung von M. Whitney in # 885

nahm mit dem Abverkauf das Volumen bedenklich zu:

Das sind im Schnitt 10 pro Tag seit meinem Ariva-Beitritt im Mai 2004.

Die "Sternenbeute" liegt bei 3,478 pro Posting.

So langsam wird es wohl mal Zeit für ne Pause...