Our favorite country ETFs to start out the new year are Spain (EWP), Mexico (EWW), and Korea (EWY).
Spain has bolted out of the gates as the sovereign 10-year yield has fallen sharply, down 35 basis in just the first few trading days. Mexico and Korea should benefit from the global expansion and are not as vulnerable as other emerging markets to Fed tapering. The charts need some work, but were watching closely for a breakout. Stay tuned.
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Core eurozone inflation falls to low, stoking fears of deflation – FT
The yield of a big Irish bond maturing in 2025 has slid from a peak of 12.33 per cent in 2011 to just 3.77 per cent on Tuesday while the benchmark 10-year bond yield fell to a low of 3.34 per cent – comfortably lower than comparable debt yields for Italy and Spain, which avoided full sovereign bailouts, and not far from the benchmark borrowing costs of the UK and Norway.
Strong demand for Ireland’s post bailout bond issue – FT
Millennials Hate the Suburbs
“An oft-referenced 2011 survey by real estate firm Robert Charles Lesser & Co. found that 77 percent of millennials said the plan to live in an ‘urban core.'”
One of Gallagher’s finer points in the book is her assertion that millennials hate the suburbs. Logically, this argument makes a lot of sense. Many millennials were raised in the suburbs and dealt with the typical grind of suburban life – endless driving, a lack of locally accessible entertainment, and considerable social isolation. After a childhood (and often years of post college graduate life) in the suburbs, millennials have craved change. Several companies like Gogo, Google (GOOG), and Mike’s Hard Lemonade have moved to city centers, hoping to locate close to young talent.
What The End Of The Suburbs Means For Investors – Seeking Alpha
That’s not to say that the gadgets I saw weren’t cool. Schwinn’s bike CycleNav “Smart Bike” Navigator was a departure for the longstanding American company. WakaWaka‘s solar-powered gadgets were novel. And Clear View Audio’s “invisible” audio speaker certainly left an impression. On the whole, though, nothing on display promised to change the course of the industry.
The buzz this year is centered on the “wearables”
market, which encompasses connected watches, digital health monitoring devices, and similar “smart” items. (Look, there’s the Wall Street Journal‘s Joanna Stern with a Bluetooth toothbrush!) But this budding market is rather disjointed and fairly undefined — what is a smartwatch, exactly, and what is one supposed to do with it? — and it’s unclear how this year will be any different. For years, Sony (SNE) and other electronics manufacturers have offered such devices, but none of them took hold with consumers.
At CES, in search of the next big thing – CNN Money
The Hottest New Tech Gear at CES 2014- Bloomberg
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Gold has started the year off strong and held up surprisingly well given some tough talk from Fed officials today. After a textbook bounce off support at 114.50, GLD has broken through its short-term downtrend and is now in no man’s land.
Maybe a move to the 50-day is in the cards, but we’re selling as it’s tough to see a sustained move higher for gold in a higher interest rate environment. The yellow metal faces the headwinds of further tapering, a shrinking U.S. current account deficit, and a negative second derivative in global foreign exchange reserve accumulation. Could be wrong and always with a stop.
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Global Macro Monitor 