Since the mid 2000s, the rise of the Chinese consumer has transformed global luxury markets, opening new horizons for European companies. The challenge is to harness the buying power of China’s rapidly growing upper-middle and more affluent classes.
U.S. GDP growth during the recovery, underway since the middle of 2009, is among the weakest in recent history. It has averaged a little over 2% for the past four years, well below the previous long-term trends of 3% to 3.5%. Amid this slow recovery, investors have been looking for the economy to shift to
Although rising interest rates will likely taper demand for dividend-paying stocks, we have seen a significant expansion in the universe of companies with the ability and willingness to pay a dividend. The high-yielding sectors — the so-called “bond proxies” — particularly REITs and utilities stocks, will be most affected by initial interest-rate moves. Looking ahead,
Analyzing dividend-paying stocks focuses on more than just yield. It’s important to differentiate companies that can simply support a dividend from those that can potentially grow the dividend in the short or long term.
As 2013 begins, we believe the most important question for investment strategy is whether the secular bear market for stocks has ended. Some evidence suggests it might have. Stock market returns in 2012 were very good, marking the fourth successive calendar year of gains in the United States. Three of the four years delivered double-digit
The fading risks of a major deleveraging event in Europe and a hard economic landing in China, along with partial progress on U.S. budget issues, may encourage investors to take a new look at opportunities in equities.
The Dodd-Frank law strives to increase transparency in derivatives trading by moving over-the-counter trading to exchanges, where prices and counterparty risk are easier to track. This provision has pluses and minuses for financial institutions. On one hand, funding the over-the-counter trading was expensive, so less of this sort of trading actually helps to free up
As described in an earlier post, most U.S. banks now have — or are close to having — the capital they need to meet the federal government’s new capital requirements, we believe. One exception involves institutions that continue to have extensive investment banking operations and still are likely to need to increase capital. Generally speaking,
In 2010, Congress passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, popularly known as Dodd- Frank, with the purpose of regulating behavior of banks and financial institutions, capital markets, derivatives trading, and treatment of retail customers. Since then, regulatory authorities have been gradually implementing some provisions while writing rules for others with a process