Asia

The main risk over the weekend was that markets, which have now dropped for three consecutive weeks the longest negative streak since January, would focus their attention on the latest batch of negative Chinese economic news released over the weekend, which missed expectations across the board, most prominently in Retail Sales (10.1% vs. Exp. 10.6%, down from 10.5%) and Industrial Production (6.0% vs. Exp. 6.5% down from 6.8%), and following Friday's disappointing new credit loan data, would sell off as the Chinese slowdown once again becomes a dominant concern.

Since the end of the Cold War, we’re had a lot of very instructive experience in the Middle East. Back in 2010, I compiled the real-time analyses I had made of our policies and their results in a book titled America’s Misadventures in the Middle East. The book holds up well as an explanation for the origins and evolution of most of our difficulties in the region. Unfortunately, both the situation in the Middle East and our position there have continued to deteriorate.

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."