Asia

Submitted by IceCap Asset Management: April 2016 Letter to Investors

Revenge of the Risotto

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via peakProsperity.com,

The dictum “demographics is destiny” proposes that all the complexities of finance, society and politics are ultimately guided by demographics: the relative size of each generation, birth rates, death rates, etc.

For example, an oversized generation of retirees and an undersized generation of workers to support them has far-reaching consequences that can’t be legislated away.

After recent (and in some cases very dramatic) bearish conversions by the likes of JPM, BofA, Citi and UBS, the only bank that steadfastly held a bullish view on stocks during the recent market squeeze higher was Goldman Sachs.

Not any more.

On Thursday, Goldman strategist David Kostin appeared on CNBC, where he too join the bearish crowd and said that based on the threat of margin collapse ("35 out of 53 tech companies had margin declines") and record-high stock valuations this year, it's time to play defense in "a tough market."

There is not much more that needs to be said about the original Samuels/Rhodes kerfuffle, but Samuels’ attempt to defend himself merits a few more comments. Samuels disputes that he is the vocal opponent of the nuclear deal he has been made out to be, and complains that his words have been misinterpreted. He writes:

Here’s what I said at the opening of the panel — which hasn’t been tweeted or written about by anyone yet, so far as I can tell, even though it’s the very first thing I say in the video:

Submitted by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

Iran has extnded its discount on the June contract for its heavy crude going to Asia, just a few days after Saudi Arabia announced a price increase for its own June contract for the continent. With this new discount, Iranian oil will be noticeably cheaper for Asian clients than both Saudi and Iraqi crude.