Links: 2013-01-31
Fox News Ratings Hit 12-Year Demo Lows In January Cable News Figures
“At the end of each month, cable news ratings are released to the public. And, like clockwork, Fox News dominates the top 13 or so programs, far outstripping its competitors.
January was … a little different. To be sure, everything is relative in cable news: Fox News still had nine out of the top 10 programs.”
Rasmussen Expected To Confess To Doping | Cyclingnews.com
“Former Rabobank rider to speak at Danish press conference
Former Rabobank rider and Tour de France contender Michael Rasmussen is expected to reveal that he doped during his career in a press conference in Herning, Denmark.
According to reports in the Danish media, Rasmussen will talk about his past in a press conference at 2:00pm CET, arranged by his current ChristinaWatches/Onfone team.”
China’s Last Soft Landing? by Stephen S. Roach – Project Syndicate
“The Chinese economy has come through two major global crises in the past four years. On the surface, its resilience has been impressive – the first to recover, as Chinese leaders always want to remind the rest of the world. But, beneath the surface, an unbalanced, unstable, uncoordinated, and unsustainable economy risks losing its capacity for resilience. Without rebalancing and reforms, the days of the automatic Chinese soft landing may be over.
I have been an optimist about China for 15 years. I still am. But the clock is ticking. Wen Jiabao’s critique six years ago was a powerful diagnosis of the Old China’s flaws that pointed to the Next China’s hopes and dreams. It remains a blueprint that China’s new leadership cannot ignore. Time is no longer on China’s side. It must act now.”
Smartphone surge hits Nintendo and Canon – Telegraph
“The explosive growth of smartphones might spell riches for the companies that make them, but it has pulled the rug from under other technology firms like Nintendo and Canon.”
Macro and Other Market Musings: Why is There Still a Shortage of Safe Assets?
I don’t buy this for one second. High yield bond spreads are not high. They are low. People are starved for yield and are taking on risk.
“Now market segmentation is a controversial idea. Many observers don’t accept it. But it seems like a compelling story for the transaction asset market at the ZLB. Empirically, it provides an easy explanation for why BAA-AAA corporate yield spread, junk bond spread, and other non-transaction asset spreads are getting closer to historical norms, while the BAA yields-10 treasury yield spread and the S&P500 earnings yield-20 year treasury yield spread remain inordinately high.Welcome to the strange new world of transaction asset market segmentation.”
Catalunya pide prestados 9.073 millones de euros al Fondo de Liquidez en 2013
This Spanish-language article goes into more depth on the Catalonia request to borrow from the central government in Spain. They had a deficit of 2.3% of GDP, exceeding a target of 1.5%. This year, they are looking for a deficit of only 0.7%. So you can see that austerity is coming at all levels of government in Spain. No wonder incomes and demand are falling.
Ratingagentur Standard & Poors: Österreich hält Eurokrise stand – KURIER.at
This Austrian article talks about Standard & Poors giving Austria a AA+ rating even though the other major ratings agencies see Austria as AAA. S&P did take the outlook up to stable from negative, however.
El PIB cayó más de lo esperado en el último trimestre y retrocede un 1,37% en 2012 – ABC.es
This Spanish-language article goes into better detail of how Spain’s economy has performed in the last year. We got -0/4% in Q1 -0.4% in Q2 -0.3% in Q3 and a big -0.7% in Q4. The article says this is fundamentally a result of the receding demand in Spain which fell 3.9% in the last year
The number of jobless in German rose to 3.138 million, which marks the first time Germany has had over three million unemployed since March 2012. Tis article says that this is no cause for concern because the rise is seasonal and the increase is less marked than in previous years.
“Forty-nine percent responded they “favor” defense cuts, with 45 percent voicing opposition. Six percent of respondents either refused to answer or said they do not know how they feel on the issue.
Asked to state just how big Pentagon spending cuts should be, 82 percent of respondents committed to a percentage reduction. (Eighteen percent said they do not know by how much the Pentagon budget should be cut.) Within that 82 percent, 15 percent supported no cuts, with 21 percent calling for cuts of between 1 percent and 10 percent, according to the poll.”
House prices up 0.5% in January, says Nationwide | Business | guardian.co.uk
“House prices moved up 0.5% in January, in a further sign that two years of static prices and historically low sales across the UK are coming to an end.
Nationwide said the increase follows a period of flat prices and means that the average cost of a home now stands at £162,245.
Estate agents have consistently reported over the past month that 2013 will see a rise in the number of transactions as demand picks up.”
“state’s Franchise Tax Board eliminated a deduction that had been available since 1993. This tax break was available to people who made money from selling stock they’d held in California-based small businesses for at least five years, as long as they reinvested their gains in other small businesses in the state. Essentially, it encouraged many people to repeatedly invest in small businesses — potentially a big deal for entrepreneurs and angel investors.
Perhaps the most shocking thing about this is that the FTB is implementing the change retroactively, so it doesn’t just eliminate the break going forward: Anyone who used the tax break on the sale of startup stock from 2008 to today is now required to pay that money back, plus interest.
This stands to affect some 2,500 people and account for some $120 million in previously-legal tax breaks. That’s why many angel investors have started to receive big bills in the mail in recent days — and some of the people impacted are starting to fight back individually and through newly-organized groups such as the California Business Defense.”
Cycling – Armstrong slams ‘pathetic’ McQuaid, is the ‘scapegoat’ – Yahoo! Eurosport UK
“Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong feels he is the scapegoat of a sport that has always been subject to cheating, and has called UCI president Pat McQuaid “pathetic”.”
Facebook beats analyst expectations, reports $1.58 billion in Q4 revenue — Tech News and Analysis
“Facebook announced $1.58 billion in revenue Wednesday for the company’s fourth quarter, beating analyst estimates of $1.53 billion. Overall, the company reported $5.09 billion in revenue for 2012, compared to $3.71 billion for 2011, when the company was not yet public. The company saw fourth-quarter earnings of $0.17 per share excluding one-time charges, compared to analyst expectations of earnings of $0.15 per share.”
Apple’s Siri coming to 2013 Honda Accord & 2 Acura models — Tech News and Analysis
“Honda called Siri Eyes Free an “in-vehicle tool that will help meet the connectivity and convenience needs of its customers in a responsible manner” in a press release. Siri’s Eyes Free mode is available to drivers who own an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 running iOS 6. It’s meant to let drivers interact with their iPhone while keeping their focus on the road. With Eyes Free drivers can make hands-free calls, send texts, listen to messages, make and find calendar appointments and select songs to play. Honda will integrate its Bluetooth HandsFree Link in-car software with Siri.”
The Lone Dissenter: Kansas City Fed’s Esther George – Real Time Economics – WSJ
“Her dissent doesn’t come as a surprise. After the Fed unveiled its latest bond-buying program last September, Ms. George said she opposed the move. Cheaper money wasn’t the solution to the economy’s problems, she told The Daily Oklahoman at the time. “Any time you have the government this involved, you have to think something is not happening right. Right now, at zero interest rate, the markets really aren’t pricing risk. They’re not really functioning the way they normally would.””
Bonds Most ‘Overbought’ in 55 Years, Loomis Sayles’s Fuss Says – Bloomberg
This article is in sharp contrast to what David Beckworth was saying in the article above. Loomis Sayles Bond Fund beat 96% of peers in the last year and 92% in the last 5. And they are saying these things are overbought.
““High-yield is as overbought as I have ever seen it,” Fuss said. “This is absolutely, from a valuation point, ridiculous.”
The average extra yield investors charge to hold high-yield bonds instead of government bonds dropped to 493 basis points on Jan. 28, the lowest level since May 2011, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global High Yield Index. Junk bonds are high-yield, high-risk securities ranked below Baa3 by Moody’s Investors Service and lower than BBB- at Standard & Poor’s. A basis point is the equivalent of 0.01 percentage point.”
België zit in recessie: De Tijd
The Belgian economy is in a recession. Officia figures released showed a 0.1% shrinkage in GDP in Q4 2012. That puts Belgium’s GDP down 0.4% in the year since 2011 and marks the second consecutive quarter of shrinking GDP.
Why Did Economists Get GDP Wrong? – Real Time Economics – WSJ
“It is interesting, though, that none of the 24 economists surveyed for the Dow Jones consensus estimate forecast a negative print. The median expectation was for 1% growth in the fourth quarter with estimates ranging from 0.3% to 2%.
Part of that may be because negative prints during a recovery are rare, and the details of today’s report suggest that it’s unlikely to be repeated in the current quarter.
But economists also are notoriously bad at seeing negative quarters coming. In September 2008 the U.S. was finishing its first quarter of contraction in the Great Recession, but the Wall Street Journal’s survey of economists was expecting 1.2% growth. Just three of the 50 respondents that month expected a negative print when the official data were released a month later.”
Euro-Area Economic Confidence Rises More Than Forecast – Bloomberg
“Economic confidence in the euro area rose more than economists forecast in January, adding to signs that the 17-nation currency bloc may be emerging from a recession.
An index of executive and consumer sentiment rose to 89.2 from a revised 87.8 in December, the European Commission in Brussels said today. That’s the highest since June. Economists had forecast an increase to 88.2, according to the median of 30 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.”
Fiscal Cliff Didn’t Hold Back Business Spending – Real Time Economics – WSJ
“Corporate executives warned Washington late last year they were delaying investment plans amid rising uncertainty over the fiscal cliff, raising risks for the economy. Turns out they did nothing of the sort.”
US economy shrinks 0.1% on fiscal gloom – FT.com
“Much of the fall in gross domestic product was due to a big reversal in business inventories and a plunge in federal defence spending – both highly volatile – which each knocked 1.3 percentage points off growth. That suggests the underlying economy remains on a weak but stable growth path of 1-2 per cent.”
US GDP contracts for first time since end of recession – Telegraph
“The world’s largest economy contracted at 0.1pc annual pace in the final three months of the year, sharply reversing the 3.1pc growth recorded in the third quarter.
The steepest drop in defence spending since the early 1970s, uncertainty over the fiscal cliff and the hurricane that swept up the east coast in November combined to hit growth.”
Third of Student-Loan Debt Belongs to Subprime Borrowers – WSJ.com
“Nearly $300 billion of the almost $900 billion in outstanding student loans was held by the riskiest category of borrowers in March 2012. Of the subprime student loans that have come due, 33% were considered delinquent, a rise from 24% five years prior, according to the report from TransUnion LLC, released Wednesday.
“There’s a concentration of risk in the student-loan marketplace,” says Ezra Becker, who oversaw the report as vice president of research and consulting at the Chicago-based firm’s financial-services business unit.”
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