Prieur’s readings (February 26, 2009)

By Prieur du Plessis, on February 26th, 2010 posted in: Investment, Markets, Money

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Stephen Fidler (The Wall Street Journal): The Euro’s final battleground: Spain, February 25, 2010.
Greece set off the crisis rattling the euro zone. Spain could determine whether the 16-nation currency stands or falls.

• Gerard Minack (Morgan Stanley): Default or inflate or …, February 25, 2010.
So many countries with so much debt; crisis seems very likely at some stage. … the options seem to be severe belt-tightening (threatening renewed developed world recession), bail-out or default, overt or covert.

• Martin Wolf (Financial Times): How unruly economists can agree, February 25, 2010.
Both sides of the debate can be right. The public finances must be credible, but further unnecessary economic damage needs to be avoided.

• Peter Brimelow (MarketWatch): Stocks still cheap, February 25, 2010.
Stocks rebounded strongly in 2009. But they’re still fairly low by historic standards. We base this conclusion on the work of Prof. Jeremy Siegel of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, author of the classic book, “Stocks For the Long-Run”.

Reading break:

Considering the short-term technical picture of gold bullion, Adam Hewison (INO.com) provides a short analysis saying more downside could lie ahead over the next few weeks. Click here to access the presentation.

• Nouriel Roubini, Adam Wolfe & Rachel Ziemba (Forbes): Easy money in China, February 25, 2010.
When will Beijing tighten monetary policy?

• Michael Pettis (Financial Times): China is misread by bulls and bears alike, February 25, 2010.
A dramatic slowdown in growth is amost certain, yet the country will continue to grow faster than the rest of the world.

• Michael Kahn (Barron’s): Emerging markets won’t re-emerge for a while, February 24, 2010.
Stocks and ETFs in this sector have fallen lately and should remain in the hot seat for the near term.

• Charlie Gasparino (The Daily Beast): How Obama screwed Volcker, February 24, 2010.
The president needed the gravitas of the former Fed chairman to sell his bank reform to Wall Street. But when the big banks didn’t buy it, Obama sold him out.

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