Sep
30
2011
An article this morning highlights a New York Times bestseller ‘How Successful People Think’, written by John Maxwell who has written a number of ‘Leadership Books’. The article is titled ‘15 Tips On How Successful People Think’, and includes an easily viewed 17 slide PowerPoint Presentation – reading time 4 minutes.
Given what I take to be your interest in the Financial Markets generally, and in the Resource Equity Markets specifically, I suggest you read this very short article and Slide Presentation, and objectively score yourself against the 15 ‘successful people traits’ set out in the slides.
I have said in a number of these commentaries that I consider objective and independent thinking to be increasingly important to investing and trading success, particularly in the current and prospective economic and financial market times as I currently see those things. It is of little surprise to me that these themes underlie a good number of the ideas set out in the Slide Presentation.
Of what I think to be particular note, the article begins by saying “The world’s most successful people have one thing in common: they think differently from everyone else”. I suggest you test this thesis by considering whether the most successful people you know – where success is measured by ‘personal ego satisfaction’, which as one factor may include financial success – indeed do in your view ‘think differently from everyone else’. The article and Slide Presentation stress the importance of:
- the exercise of the 80/20 Rule;
- spending time with people who challenge you;
- brainstorming sessions with others;
- be able to reject popular thinking, and be able to ‘think for yourself’. If I have a #1 mantra, this is it. Said differently, don’t ‘follow the herd’ blindly without independently concluding for whatever your reasons that it makes sense to do that;
- listening to people, in circumstances where you maintain ‘conclusion flexibility’ (my words); and,
- spend time examining where you have been, where you are, and where you are going (Slide #12 summarizes this in the words ‘reflective thinking’).
Based on my own self-assessment, I am satisfied that I ‘pass muster’ on 8 of the 15 criteria all of the time, and pass on another 3 part of the time. I can only hope those eight are among the most important of the fifteen. I have a friend in Vancouver who reads these commentaries most days, and often sends me an e-mail giving me his thoughts on my commentaries. I have another friend who is a Senior Judge in a Canadian Provincial Court. He reads these commentaries most days, and sends me an e-mail every time he finds a spelling or grammar error. Both of my friends clearly are very competitive. I can’t wait to see if either, or both, send me their ‘self-assessment’ scores by e-mail today.
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Sep
28
2011
You may have seen this article by now, but many not have reflected upon what I think is a particularly important comment in it.
An article yesterday reported ‘Tempers flare between Dimon, Carney over rules’ – reading time 4 minutes. The article reports on what is said to have been “a confrontational exchange” last Friday in Washington over U.S. Bank Regulations between Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada, and Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Co., New York.
Mr. Dimon is reported as calling the new rules ‘anti-American’, and believing that (according to one bank analyst) “the U.S. government and regulatory machinery is putting safety and soundness of the financial system ahead of other legitimate concerns, such as economic growth and international competitiveness”. I can only hope that the bank analyst who interpreted Mr. Dimon’s views has Mr. Dimon wrong – as how nonsensical it would be, at least as I see things, for a country’s financial system to sacrifice “safety and soundness” ahead of “economic growth and international competitiveness”. If any country did do that, it seems to me that could only result in circularity – and an ultimate ‘bad ending’.
In any event, if that was the argument advanced by Mr. Dimon (and I can’t believe it was), or if Mr. Dimon advanced other ‘banker vested interest’ arguments, I say ‘good on Canada’s Mr. Carney’ for standing up to him.
The article does recite one thing that I think is important to bring to your attention. The article reports that this past June Mr. Dimon confronted Federal Reserve Chair Bernanke over whether (I assume the Fed) has studied the full impact of the complicated (bank) reforms on the global financial system. The article says that Mr. Bernanke conceded that they (the Federal Reserve?) had not, calling such an undertaking “too complicated” and acknowledging that the Fed lacked the “quantitative tools.” I see this as an astonishing admission by Mr. Bernanke, as it immediately causes me to wonder what other global economic and economic-related matters are “too complicated” for the U.S. Federal Reserve to analyze, in circumstances where it lacks the “quantitative tools” to do that. I suggest you think hard about my last comment – and consider discussing it with your Investment Advisor in the context of prospective financial markets performance!
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Sep
28
2011
A recent article questions ‘Can China save the world again?’ – reading time 6 minutes. The article suggests that in the 2008 financial meltdown, China’s exports shrank. In response to that economic turndown China introduced a U.S. $570 billion infrastructure related stimulus package which resulted in:
- Chinese GDP growth at higher rates than otherwise would have be the case
- Increased demand for coal, copper, iron ore, lumber, petroleum and other commodities from what it otherwise would have been – to the point where China currently accounts for over 40% of global metal demand. While this is an interesting number, I suspect it relates primarily to base metals. This enabled Canada (and, I would suggest, Australia) to “weather the (2008) economic storm” better than most developed countries.
The article then addresses the question of whether China could repeat this performance in circumstances of a second developed country financial crisis (my interpretation of what the article purports to address). The article says the answer is ‘probably not in the same way it did in 2008 because China is still dealing with the side effects of its previous stimulus package: burdensome local government debt, stubbornly high inflation, a “red-hot housing market that many say is set to blow up”, and an estimated growth rate of ‘only’ 8.5% – 9.0% in 2012 – down from 9.5% in 2011, and over 10% in 2010.
My comments:
- First, to suggest that China’s stimulus package following the 2008 financial crisis ‘saved the world’ makes little sense to me. Had the world ‘really been saved’ by China’s 2008 stimulus package introduction, presumably the Eurozone and America, in particular, would not be facing the Sovereign Debt and unemployment issues they do today.
- Second, 8.5% – 9.0% growth in 2012 presumably will not result in a significant drop in China’s demand for base metal and other resources until at least 2013.
- Third, I have thought for some time that China’s continued GDP growth at, or close to, current levels is important to world base metals demand, and hence prices.
- Fourth, China’s economic growth or lack thereof going forward will have little affect on the unemployment or net trade deficit positions of either the Eurozone or America. Hence, I don’t think further Chinese stimulus or other economic programs will be materially important to reviving economic growth in either the Eurozone or in America. In fact, the opposite might be the practical result of such Chinese economic activity.
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Sep
28
2011
Remember Meredith Whitney? She was the person who created a considerable uproar last December 20 when she appeared on 60 minutes and predicted a large number of U.S. State and Municipal defaults in 2011. See my commentary, ‘Meredith Whitney’ (December 24, 2010), where I cited an article titled ‘Meredith Whitney Getting Thrashed Eight Ways To Sunday For Terrifying Muni Default Call’.
This morning I posted an article to Stock Research Portal’s Filtered Economic News Home Page Feature titled ‘BRUTAL CHARTS: The Austerity Age Arrives In U.S. Cities’ – reading and chart review time 4 – 8 minutes.
The article says that:
- U.S. city budgets shrank (I assume ‘on average’) by 1.9% in 2011, following 4.4% declines in 2010; and,
- U.S. city revenues (again, I assume ‘on average’) dropped by 2.3% – the 5th straight year of city revenue declines.
The article is accompanied by a 12 chart PowerPoint Presentation that I suggest you review. In summary, these charts suggest (based on a variety of metrics) that U.S. city finances are declining in, what I think, is a rather startling way. If you read these commentaries regularly, you ought to recognize that this comes as no great surprise to me. Because I don’t see the U.S. economy getting out of the mess I see it currently in for the foreseeable future, I am not optimistic about prospective U.S. State and Municipal finances either.
The PowerPoint Presentation attached to the article is followed by a second 9 chart PowerPoint Presentation titled ‘THE SAD STATE OF WORK IN AMERICA: The Young Sit Idle, The Elderly Work Forever’ – chart review time 4 minutes. These charts also in my view are well worth your review time.
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