Dave Gonigam – July 21, 2012
What?! Europe isn’t fixed yet?
This stunning revelation — specifically, the rediscovery that Spain is a basket case — is what the financial media blame for yesterday’s stock market sell-off.
Who’da thunk it?
At The 5 Min. Forecast, one of our aims is that you come away from each day’s issue having learned something you didn’t know before. If you missed an issue or two this week, here’s your chance to catch up with 5 Things You Need to Know…
Fed pumps up stocks… according to the Fed! “Research” by the New York Fed surmises that were it not for actions taken by the U.S. central bank over the last decade, the S&P would sit today at 600, and not at 1,363. “Thanking the Fed for stock market returns,” muses Chris Mayer, “is like thanking the fire department for putting out fires it started.” But no matter what the Fed does, Chris says there’s one enduring — and profitable — truth it can never change.
Innovate or Die…
That is the rather pressing theme of this year’s Agora Financial Investment Symposium in Vancouver, Canada. And in the run-up to this year’s event, we’ve got a special offer for you…
As always, we’re recording the entire lineup of speakers and are making them available to you on both MP3 and CD formats. But this year, we’re going a step further…
For the first time in the 13-year history of the Symposium, you will also be able to SEE all of the presentations, in stunning HD video!
So even if you weren’t able to join us at this year’s event, you don’t have to miss out on a single piece of analysis or recommendation.
And right now, before we kick off the event, they’re available at an incredible discount. Click here to get yours now. But hurry — the price will go up as soon as the conference begins.
Empty cities? Bridges to nowhere? It’s growth! Chris Mayer, making rare consecutive appearances in 5 Things, has two problems with the latest Chinese GDP numbers. First, GDP itself “is a nonsensical abstraction.” Second, even if it weren’t a nonsensical abstraction, it’s highly unlikely that, as the saying goes, “the bottom is in.” If anything in your portfolio is riding on China’s immediate future, you don’t want to miss Chris’ take.
2008 was bad. 2012 is worse. So it goes for world grain markets now that 42% of the continental United States is in drought classified as “severe” or worse. Corn and soybean prices hit record highs on Thursday. As always, winners and losers alike will emerge from these developments; Dan Amoss handicaps them here.
New Breakthrough Fuel Could Power Your Car
It took the Earth 300 million years to make the oil we burn.
Imagine if we could squeeze that whole process into just a few months… a few weeks… or even a few days. Because that’s exactly what could be happening.
At least a half-dozen labs and companies are working on this right now.
If they get it right, we could literally “make” as much gas for your car as you need. We could make fuel for planes, trains and diesel trucks this way too.
“You didn’t build that,” thoughtfully reconsidered. We tried to unpack a now-infamous speech by the president and unwittingly found ourselves dragged into the election-year gutter. Perhaps we should have known better. Lost in the resulting noise were two strictly nonpartisan points — about the notion of “playing by the rules” and about humans’ capacity for cooperative effort outside the scope of government. Now that the hubbub is dying down, you can revisit those ideas here.
Escaping Adam Smith’s “stationary state.” Professor Niall Ferguson says most developed economies are descending into stagnation, or as Adam Smith called it more than two centuries ago, “the stationary state.” There are two means of escape: One Ferguson sums up as “more free trade, more encouragement for small business, less bureaucracy and less crony capitalism.” In the unlikely event that should come about, the other means of escape becomes far more likely.
The good professor kicks off the 2012 Agora Financial Investment Symposium next Tuesday in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. We’ll bring you full coverage of the conference next week in The 5 Min. Forecast… augmented by Jim Amrhein’s colorful “roving reporter” dispatches. If you can’t be with us, there are always the recordings to be had; until the conference opens Tuesday, they can be had at the lowest price available.
Cheers,
Dave Gonigam
P.S. In response to popular demand, we’re also making video available with this year’s Symposium recordings. Now you can follow along with each speaker’s PowerPoint presentations. Of course, if you prefer audio only, that’s still available. Check out your options at this link.