1."The yuan will keep depreciating as time goes by, so we should swap the money we have in hand into tangible assets," Li Xiaodong, chairman of Canaan Capital, tells his audience, while exhorting them to pull their money out of China while the going is still good and pour it into property in Spain and Portugal. Canaan Capital is one of a swarm of asset management firms leaping to profit from Beijing's latest policy headache: the swelling crowd of Chinese individuals and firms trying to get their money out of the world's second biggest economy as its growth slows to a quarter-century low. COMMENT: Another side effect of a slowing Chinese economy....the money is running. Follow the money.
2.Reuters: Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is expected to report a 1.3 percent increase in iPhone sales in the holiday quarter, its slowest ever and a far cry from the double-digit growth investors have come to expect. COMMENT: The competition is catching up with Apple. They will either have to lower prices or possibly introduce monthly payment plans in conjunction with the larger telephone co's.
3.Stratfor: India is the world's largest defense importer, accounting for 15 percent of all global imports over the past five years. However, the primary source of these weapons may soon change. Russia has long had privileged access to the Indian market, providing some 70 percent of India's weapons in volume over the last half decade. However, even as India invests heavily in upgrading and modernizing its armed forces, several pending deals between Moscow and New Delhi have stalled. COMMENT: As if Russia does not have enough problems.
4. Bloomberg: After years of lambasting other countries for helping rich Americans hide their money offshore, the U.S. is emerging as a leading tax and secrecy haven for rich foreigners. By resisting new global disclosure standards, the U.S. is creating a hot new market, becoming the go-to place to stash foreign wealth. Everyone from London lawyers to Swiss trust companies is getting in on the act, helping the world’s rich move accounts from places like the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands to Nevada, Wyoming, and South Dakota. COMMENT: Clearly when you are king of the jungle, nobody argues with you. At the moment North America is the safest geopolitical continent to keep ones fortune safe...tax free!
5.According to an unnamed official, Sweden plans to expel up to 80,000 immigrants seeking asylum, AFP reported Jan. 27. Details are still emerging about the timing of the potential move, which was leaked to the public just a day after a Swedish aid worker was stabbed to death by a fifteen-year-old boy at the center for young refugees where she worked. Sweden's plan would fall in line with the actions of many European countries that have recently taken steps to limit or stop the flow of migrants across their borders. COMMENT: Looks like liberal Sweden are starting to feel the heat in the real world. Maybe they should ask Trudeau to take them.
6.Exactly five years ago the western liberal media and their messiah, Barack Obama, announced to the world that the great liberal revolutions of the Middle East had at long last begun. They labelled it with a romantic Hollywood title "The Arab Spring". That was then and this is now five years later. According to the UN, over 250,000 people have died in the Syrian civil war. Iraq has become a sectarian battleground on the verge of splitting into three parts. Yemen and Libya are failed states. The Islamic State has evolved from a terrorist group to a budding totalitarian religious state that controls wide swaths of territory and has thus far withstood all the hot air and airstrikes that the West and Russia have thrown at it. Millions of refugees of the conflicts are pouring into Europe and wherever else they can find safe harbour. COMMENT: Now thats one for the Obama legacy.
7.Shares of Italian banks continued to fall Jan. 28, a day after Italy reached a deal on debt with the European Commission, ANSA reported. By midday, the FTSE Italia All-Share Banks index had declined 5.3 percent. Trading of shares at a number of banks, including Banca Popolare di Miliano, UniCredit, Monte Paschi and Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna, was halted after declining 5 percent or more. COMMENT: Watch for more fallout in this crisis. Italy is much larger than Greece.
8.Dark clouds on the horizon. Informed (or possibly uninformed) sources are indicating that a Turkish - US initiative to invade Northern Syria is in the offing. The Turks would supply the ground forces while the US would provide air cover. The Turks would then join local militia and create a buffer against ISIS and against Kurdish forces also battling ISIS. The potential flashpoint is a possible Russian alliance with the Kurds and a confrontation with Turkish-US forces (BTW both sides battling ISIS). Comment: Quite the salad on this menu.
Politics is not a game for naive thinkers. You may go in as an idealist, but you certainly won't come out as one - Honeysuckle Weeks
The herd instinct among forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers -Edgar Fiedler
Beware when the Great God lets loose a thinker on this planet - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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