Wednesday, January 26, 2011
UK Economy May Be Heading for a Double-Dip
Britain's "awful" gross domestic product figure for the fourth quarter is pushing the country closer to a double-dip and limits the central bank's ability to fight rising inflation, analysts and business leaders said Tuesday.
Sharon Lorimer / CNBC.com |
The UK was the first country in the G7 to release economic growth figures for the last quarter of last year and the 0.5 percent GDP contraction, instead of an expected 0.5 percent expansion, sent the pound 1 percent lower against the dollar [GBP=X 1.5816 0.0003 (+0.02%) ] and the euro [GBPEUR=X 1.1549 -0.0004 (-0.03%) ] and knocked down European stocks.
David Blanchflower, a former Bank of England Monetary Policy Committeeknown for his dovish stance and currently a professor of economics at Dartmouth College, said the figure was "awful, dreadful." Read more
Price Drop Points to Likely Double Dip in Housing Market
U.S. single-family home prices fell for a fifth straight month in November and could plumb new lows soon, a closely watched survey showed on Tuesday.
AP Home For Sale - Reduced Priced |
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas declined 0.5 percent in November from October on a seasonally adjusted basis, though it was not as sharp as the 0.8 percent fall expected by economists.
Prices have fallen 1.6 percent in the past year, sharper than the 1.4 percent predicted by economists polled by Reuters.
"Everything in this report is unfortunately still sagging and still pointing downward," David Blitzer, S&P 500 Index Committee chairman, said in a CNBC interview just after the report was released. "The recent news across the board on housing except for existing home sales has been very, very disappointing. We still seem to be at best scraping along the bottom." Read more
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Stock Sectors To Ride The Recovery
Yes, the U.S. recovery has been modest, but it still has legs—if wobbly—this year.
For starters, US economic growth is widely expected to out-muscle Europe and Japan, and the positive signs are increasingly heartening, pushing analysts to raise their GDP estimates.
“The recovery is real,” says David Darst, chief investment strategist at MorganStanley SmithBarney. “But it will, at times, be halting and anemic.” He predicts that GDP growth will notch four percent this year, compared to 4.4 percent globally.
Global Gorillas
So, many analysts, including Darst, are bullish on stocks—especially multi-nationals with high dividends and attractive price-earnings ratios. “Don’t be underweight in global gorillas that are under loved,” adds Darst.
Dynamic emerging markets will grow 6.4 percent this year, adding oomph to U.S. industrial stocks. Of the BRICs India and China are set to notch the strongest gains and Brazil the lowest, according to MorganStanley estimates. Read more