Tuesday, January 22, 2008
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080122/fed_interest_rates.html
Isn't this just desperate?
Imagine this, what if DJ continues to show negative signals?
Are they going to their rates even further as mentioned?
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The worst market crisis in 60 years
By George Soros
Financial Times, 23 January 2008
The current financial crisis was precipitated by a bubble in the US housing market. In some ways it resembles other crises that have occurred since the end of the second world war at intervals ranging from four to 10 years.
However, there is a profound difference: the current crisis marks the end of an era of credit expansion based on the dollar as the international reserve currency. The periodic crises were part of a larger boom-bust process. The current crisis is the culmination of a super-boom that has lasted for more than 60 years.
Boom-bust processes usually revolve around credit and always involve a bias or misconception. This is usually a failure to recognize a reflexive, circular connection between the willingness to lend and the value of the collateral. Ease of credit generates demand that pushes up the value of property, which in turn increases the amount of credit available. A bubble starts when people buy houses in the expectation that they can refinance their mortgages at a profit. The recent US housing boom is a case in point. The 60-year super-boom is a more complicated case.
Every time the credit expansion ran into trouble the financial authorities intervened, injecting liquidity and finding other ways to stimulate the economy. That created a system of asymmetric incentives also known as moral hazard, which encouraged ever greater credit expansion. The system was so successful that people came to believe in what former US president Ronald Reagan called the magic of the marketplace and I call market fundamentalism. Fundamentalists believe that markets tend towards equilibrium and the common interest is best served by allowing participants to pursue their self-interest. It is an obvious misconception, because it was the intervention of the authorities that prevented financial markets from breaking down, not the markets themselves. Nevertheless, market fundamentalism emerged as the dominant ideology in the 1980s, when financial markets started to become globalize and the US started to run a current account deficit.
Globalization allowed the US to suck up the savings of the rest of the world and consume more than it produced. The US current account deficit reached 6.2 per cent of gross national product in 2006. The financial markets encouraged consumers to borrow by introducing ever more sophisticated instruments and more generous terms. The authorities aided and abetted the process by intervening whenever the global financial system was at risk. Since 1980, regulations have been progressively relaxed until they have practically disappeared.
The super-boom got out of hand when the new products became so complicated that the authorities could no longer calculate the risks and started relying on the risk management methods of the banks themselves. Similarly, the rating agencies relied on the information provided by the originators of synthetic products. It was a shocking abdication of responsibility.
Everything that could go wrong did. What started with sub-prime mortgages spread to all collateralized debt obligations, endangered municipal and mortgage insurance and reinsurance companies and threatened to unravel the multi-trillion-dollar credit default swap market. Investment banks' commitments to leveraged buyouts became liabilities. Market-neutral hedge funds turned out not to be market-neutral and had to be unwound. The asset-backed commercial paper market came to a standstill and the special investment vehicles set up by banks to get mortgages off their balance sheets could no longer get outside financing. The final blow came when inter-bank lending, which is at the heart of the financial system, was disrupted because banks had to husband their resources and could not trust their counterparties. The central banks had to inject an unprecedented amount of money and extend credit on an unprecedented range of securities to a broader range of institutions than ever before. That made the crisis more severe than any since the second world war.
Credit expansion must now be followed by a period of contraction, because some of the new credit instruments and practices are unsound and unsustainable. The ability of the financial authorities to stimulate the economy is constrained by the unwillingness of the rest of the world to accumulate additional dollar reserves. Until recently, investors were hoping that the US Federal Reserve would do whatever it takes to avoid a recession, because that is what it did on previous occasions. Now they will have to realize that the Fed may no longer be in a position to do so. With oil, food and other commodities firm, and the renminbi appreciating somewhat faster, the Fed also has to worry about inflation. If federal funds were lowered beyond a certain point, the dollar would come under renewed pressure and long-term bonds would actually go up in yield. Where that point is, is impossible to determine. When it is reached, the ability of the Fed to stimulate the economy comes to an end.
Although a recession in the developed world is now more or less inevitable, China, India and some of the oil-producing countries are in a very strong countertrend. So, the current financial crisis is less likely to cause a global recession than a radical realignment of the global economy, with a relative decline of the US and the rise of China and other countries in the developing world.
The danger is that the resulting political tensions, including US protectionism, may disrupt the global economy and plunge the world into recession or worse.
China Allows Domestic Banks to Invest in Singapore
By Josephine Lau
Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- China will let its commercial banks invest in Singapore stocks and funds, signaling that the government is widening the scope of its overseas investment program.
The nation reached an agreement with the Singapore authorities for investments by Chinese banks under the so-called qualified domestic institutional investor, or QDII program, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said in a statement posted on its Web site today.
China will ``soon'' sign similar agreements with the U.S., German and Japanese governments, the statement said without specifying a timeline.
The Chinese government is expanding investment destinations for its QDII program after four funds offered by fund houses posted combined losses of 11.8 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2007. China's industry watchdog announced on Dec. 17 it will let the nation's banks invest in U.K. equities, the first expansion of banks' QDII funds outside Hong Kong.
Today's release didn't say when QDII funds can start investing in Singapore. The Singapore Straits Times Index has dropped 4 percent so far this year. The FTSE ST China Index, a measure tracking 50 so-called S-chips of Chinese companies in Singapore, has plunged 31 percent during the same period.
``The move will broaden the investment base for Singapore stocks and widen its appeal,'' said Nicole Sze, a Singapore- based investment analyst at Bank Julius Baer & Co., which manages $350 billion in assets worldwide. ``The well-run S-chips will probably be the key beneficiaries.''
Singapore's central bank said in a separate statement today that it may work with the Chinese regulator on ``other areas of cooperation.''
Approved in April 2006, the QDII program has granted the country's banks, fund managers and insurers more than $40 billion in quotas to purchase products such as overseas equities, government and corporate bonds, and fixed-income instruments.
Profligacy is America's problem
By Philip Bowring
January 23, 2008
HONG KONG: Those Asian allies and trade partners of the United States who can raise their gaze above stock market gyrations look with concern at U.S. the response to its economic difficulties. They note a continuing unwillingness to face realities and fear that the medium-term result will be both an enfeebled America and a sharp rise in protectionist sentiment.
U.S. policies are dominated by the twin objectives of propping up asset prices and consumer spending. Interest rates have been slashed in a panicky response to Wall Street and the administration (and all the presidential candidates) favors $150 billion or so of tax cuts to boost spending (and the budget deficit).
The short-sighted view in Asia is that this is good for the region because interest rates will support market sentiment and stock prices and consumer spending boosts will help sustain Asian exports. The violent swings of Asian markets over the past few days testify to the extraordinary influence of Wall Street on the world as well as on U.S. policies.
But step back just a little from these daily events. Why should we be so concerned with stock price falls? Even now, the Standard & Poor's 500 is down only 7 percent from a year ago and up 50 percent over five years. Several markets are up 500 percent or more over that period! Every market in Asia, with the exception of Japan, is still above year-ago levels, in the case of India and China by a very large margin. Much froth remains to be removed before prices can be considered sustainable. Ironically, Japan has been the exception despite having the lowest interest rates, lowest inflation and a strong trade balance.
In all the talk in the United States about falling asset prices and recession fears, the issue of the savings rate and the trade balance has been forgotten. Yet it is in those issues that the crux of the U.S. problem lies.
In November, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the personal savings rate in the United States was a negative 0.5 percent. It has been declining steadily since a double digit level in the early 1980s, a decline that has been in part driven by rising asset prices, which masked the need for saving out of income rather than relying on credit-driven boosts to apparent wealth.
But instead of encouraging savings, the Fed is hell-bent on bailing out Wall Street by reducing its lending rate to 3.5 percent, barely above the (well-massaged) rate of consumer price inflation. The resulting dollar weakness will help entrench inflation.
Meanwhile, if the attempt to stimulate consumer demand succeeds, the U.S. import bill will remain around current levels. The current account deficit will gradually decline as exports rise, but will probably remain above $500 billion a year (compared with around $700 billion in 2007).
This will have two very damaging effects. Firstly it will enable Asian governments to continue to put off domestic stimulus to offset what should be declining U.S. import demand.
Secondly the continued generation of vast surpluses by Asian and oil exporting countries will lead to a backlash against their Sovereign Wealth Funds. These will be on the prowl for U.S. assets other than low yielding Treasuries or the dubious financial institutions that have already caused them massive sub-prime losses. Bailing out Citi may be welcome, but will China be allowed to buy 3M and Coca-Cola?
There is already a growing sense in the United States, and elsewhere in the West, that whatever the theoretical benefits of freer trade may be, it is partly responsible for the increased income differentials against which democratic societies eventually tend to rebel. Anti-trade sentiment will be further fueled by foreign acquisition of U.S. icons on a scale far in excess of the Japanese purchases in the late 1980s.
U.S. profligacy has also spilled over into unsustainable credit booms in China and India originating in the massive global oversupply of dollars and hence of the monetary base and foreign reserves of these countries. When the dancing ends, there may also be a re-think of market-driven economics in those countries too.
There is a direct connection between easy credit in the United States, Wall Street irresponsibility, consumer excesses, unsustainable trade imbalances, the return of global inflation and the worldwide asset price boom.
Yet instead of addressing the cause, U.S. policymakers are addressing the symptoms - the collapse of credit quality, which had been going on for years but was masked by the creation of new and poorly understood new credit instruments. Instead of addressing the savings imbalance, the government proposes to make it worse by substituting government debt for any reduction in consumer debt.
One can only hope that Fed and Washington policies fail and the American consumer adjusts on his own to his true situation, returning the U.S. to a sustainable path and forcing its Asian trade partners to respond appropriately.
Why the Fed can't save us
Bernanke and company are using up their limited ammunition, but genuine problems remain with the low dollar and U.S. debt, argues Allan Sloan.
By Allan Sloan, senior editor at large
January 22 2008
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Forget all those rational explanations about why foreign stocks markets, especially in Asia, have been melting down for two days. Despite what you've read, seen and heard, those declines weren't caused by fears of what a recession in the U.S. would do to the profits of companies whose stocks trade in places like India, China and Russia.
Rather, the meltdowns were flat-out market panics, where rationality gets tossed out the window as everyone tries to head for the door at once and gets trampled. Go-go markets, especially in Asia, had risen to ridiculous heights - they were going up because they were going up, and momentum fed on itself. Now, they're going down because they're going down, and momentum is feeding on itself again.
The fact that the Federal Reserve Board announced an emergency cut of 0.75 percent in short-term rates shows that the Fed thinks the problem is a market panic rather than economic fundamentals. Normally, the Fed would have waited until mid-day next Tuesday - the second day of its scheduled two-day meeting - to announce a rate cut. Announcing an out-of-schedule cut today before the stock market opened shows that its motivation is to calm the markets rather than to reinvigorate the U.S. economy.
Here's why. First, it won't be clear until the summer whether a recession is in fact underway in the U.S. Even though the nation's economy seems likely to have shrunk in December, there's no such thing as a one-month recession. "A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months," (my italics) according to the definitive authorities on such things, the business cycle dating committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Second, even if you believe that the Fed's cut in short-term rates will stimulate the economy, that won't happen overnight. If you took a Fed economist out for a few drinks and promised not to quote him, he'd tell you that the benefits of a cut take at least six months to percolate through the economy. There have been market panics and freeze-ups all over the world since last summer, when the junk mortgage meltdown in the U.S. started gathering speed. These have been confined mostly to the debt markets, which - unlike the Dow Industrials - don't resonate with most people and can't be summed up neatly in one familiar number, as the Dow is.
But now there's a panic in the stock markets, where it's visible for all to see. Last year, 41 of the 100 best-performing stocks were from India, according to Russell Indexes. The Shanghai stock market almost doubled.
This makes no sense unless you consider the Indian and Shanghai markets to have been undiscovered before 2007 - which they weren't. Had the Fed not done anything today, the Dow could easily have fallen 600 or 800 points. Instead, it closed down less than 130.
The problem is that the Fed has only a limited amount of rate-cut ammunition, and expended a lot of it today. It's expected by the markets to cut rates again next week, and will have used up most of its bullets.
I don't want to get into the what-should-the-Fed do game - I'm a recovering English major, the Fed is full of brilliant people with doctoral degrees and access to information that I don't have - but I'm growing increasingly uneasy watching short-term rates in the U.S. fall when we're so dependent on foreign money to cover our trade deficit and the U.S. budget deficit.
I'm also less than thrilled watching commodities prices rise, although oil has been drifting down lately. There are already worrying signs that foreigners, who keep score in their home currencies, have grown tired of losing money because the value of the dollar's dropping. Should the dollar's decline turn into a rout, a distinct possibility, things are going to get really messy.
Look. We can't depend on the Fed - or any individual institution - to save us. The Fed isn't all-powerful - and wasn't all-powerful under Alan Greenspan, either. Current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke doesn't have a magic wand he can wave to make everything all right on both Wall Street and Main Street. He's doing the best he can, but the Fed's influence isn't what it was when financial markets were much smaller than they are now, and far more regulated.
Because of its budget and trade deficits, the U.S. has to worry about what the rest of the world thinks. That's what happens when you're a debtor nation. There are huge risks in cutting short rates, and risks, too, in having Uncle Sam borrow another $150 billion to $200 billion (primarily from foreigners) to finance a short-term stimulus package.
The bottom line: In the long-term, markets are generally rational. In the short term they are...well, markets. They're prone to irrational run-ups and irrational declines. Don't expect them to act the way you want them to. And don't expect the Fed to save you if they don't.
Earnings illusion threatens Chinese market
By Wei Gu
23 January 2008
HONG KONG (Reuters) - This is one of those columns that predicts a bitter end to China's stock market party.
Stop reading now if you're tired of those "what-goes-up-must-come-down" sirens that the Shanghai Composite Index has blithely ignored, having quintupled in just two years.
But the logic for a precipitous fall is just the same as the logic that has driven the market ever-skyward, except in reverse.
Much of the stellar growth in Chinese corporate earnings has been generated by the rise in stock values because many companies have invested heavily in the market rather than core businesses.
It's a virtuous circle: if the market goes up, earnings go up, and if earnings go up, the market goes up. Neat. Now replace the word "up" with "down".
A consolidation of Chinese stocks would be like a snowball building on itself. Even a mild fall in the broad market would trigger a huge earnings shortfall for some firms whose earnings are top-heavy with investment returns.
Unfortunately, the average investor does not appear to be fully discounting this possibility right now.
"The snake is eating itself," says Jerry Lou, Morgan Stanley's China strategist. "Any potential negative news could blow up the largest equity bubble we have today."
Many analysts argue that it's hard to be bearish when the average growth in corporate earnings is a staggering 70 percent.
But after adjusting for investment gains, average profit growth for the first nine months of this year drops to 41 percent, according to calculations by HSBC bank. Put another way, price-earnings ratios based on core earnings would be double what the market sees now.
Worse, the problem is becoming more pronounced.
Investment income for all non-financial companies listed in China has more than tripled from a year ago. HSBC found that after stripping investment income out, about 130 companies would have sunk into the red in the third quarter.
REMEMBERING JAPAN
So where will the falls be hardest?
Consumer and healthcare companies are likely to feel the most pain on the downside. They almost doubled net earnings in the third quarter, but their core earnings actually fell 20 percent and 7 percent, respectively. Now both sectors trade at above 100 times forward core earnings, while energy firms, telecommunications companies and banks are trading below 40 times.
Banks' earnings have also ridden on the stock market, and so they might be vulnerable too. Much of the Chinese banks' robust fee income growth has come from distributing mutual funds and selling equity-related products. Meanwhile, two-thirds of brokerage industry profit has derived from highly volatile commission income that is subject to swings in the market mood.
To make matters worse, a new accounting rule is also inflating earnings. China now allows companies to mark certain assets on their books at their present market value, in line with the international standard. The rule is supposed to be applied prudently, but many Chinese companies treat 'mark to market' as a tantalizingly easy way to boost profit.
Those with a memory of not-too-distant times will recall that widespread cross-shareholdings were a big factor when the bubble burst in Japan.
At the market peak in 1989, Japanese companies traded at price-to-earnings levels of about 40 to 50, similar to where China stocks are now. After the crash, even after the companies had lost about a third of their stock value, the PE ratios soared to about 70 -- a result of inflated "earnings" evaporating.
So what can investors expect from regulators? China's market watchdogs are clearly aware of the problem.
Qi Bin, head of research at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said recently that the commission urges companies "to stay in their main business", without providing further details about how that prescription might be encouraged or enforced.
But if that reflects the extent of the government's preparation for a market downturn, Beijing, too, may be in for a shock. The broad market has fallen 18 percent from its October peak, and the trigger for the unwinding cycle may already have been pulled.
Societe Generale to Raise EU5.5 Billion After Fraud
By Gregory Viscusi
Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Societe Generale SA, France's second- largest bank by market value, plans to raise 5.5 billion euros ($8.1 billion) selling shares after a trading fraud and subprime- related writedowns depleted capital.
The bank found out last weekend that a trader in Paris had secretly set up positions that will cost the company 4.9 billion euros before tax, Societe Generale said in an e-mailed statement today. The trader, who wasn't identified, went beyond permitted limits on futures linked to European stock indexes.
``It's an enormous number,'' said Jean-Paul Pierret, a strategist at Dexia Securities France.
Societe Generale will also take 2.05 billion euros in writedowns related to credit market turbulence following the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market. The bank will post a profit of between 600 million euros and 800 million euros for 2007 and pay a dividend equal to 45 percent of its earnings.
An offer by Chairman Daniel Bouton to resign was rejected by the board, the bank said. Societe Generale shares are suspended, according to Euronext.
The stock yesterday fell 4.1 percent to 79.08 euros, its lowest since May 2005, valuing the bank at 36 billion euros. The shares have fallen 20 percent since the start of the year, hurt by expectations of further writedowns.
The company said it plans to raise the capital by selling shares in a rights offer underwritten by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley. The sale is needed to maintain the bank's capital ratios, it said.
Trading Loss
Societe Generale's report of fraud comes four months after French competitor Credit Agricole SA said an unauthorized proprietary trade at its investment-banking unit in New York cost it 250 million euros.
Societe Generale said that it's already closed all the positions set up by the trader, who had used his experience working in the back office to hide his trades through fictitious transactions. The fraud was discovered Jan. 19 and 20.
Societe Generale said it's taking 1.1 billion euros of writedowns linked to the U.S. residential real estate market, 550 million euros linked to U.S. bond insurers, and 400 million euros on other unspecified risks.
In the third quarter, the bank reported 375 million euros of writedowns and trading losses linked to turmoil in financial markets. The world's biggest financial companies have announced more than $120 billion in writedowns and credit losses as the U.S. housing slump rattles debt markets.
Societe Generale's exposure to bonds backed by home loans is now down to 35 million euros, the bank said.
Will the cure be worse than the disease?
Politicians are scrambling to offer a stimulus package, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is slashing interest rates. But they may be paving the way for a bigger calamity down the road.
By Shawn Tully, editor at large
21 January 2008
(Fortune Magazine) -- The wobbly economy is overtaking Iraq as the issue weighing most heavily on the minds of America's voters. And Washington has noticed. The White House and Congress are almost certain to enact some kind of stimulus package. But like all such temporary, feel-good measures, it will generate a quick blip in growth that will quickly evaporate. In reality only one player has the power to do anything swift and decisive: the Federal Reserve. And its chairman, Ben Bernanke, has already made his intentions abundantly clear. Unfortunately, the cure he's prescribing may be worse than the disease.
Just how low will the economy go? There are conflicting signals. It's clear that the economy is losing steam. The plummeting value of America's houses is chilling consumer spending, layoffs are mounting, and banks and other creditors burned by the subprime crisis are far more reluctant to lend to everyone from small-business owners to private equity firms. But GDP increased by 4.9% in the third quarter, and economists estimate that GDP was still growing in the fourth quarter. Exports are strong, thanks to the weak dollar. The Fed did a brilliant job last summer by flooding the banks with money to prevent a full-scale credit crunch. Credit is far more expensive today, but it's also becoming more plentiful, as demonstrated by the falling rates on everything from LIBOR - the rate at which international banks lend to each other - to junk bonds. So while a recession is a real possibility, it's not inevitable - even the Fed is not forecasting one this year. And if we do get one, it may be brief and shallow, like the one we had in 2001 - with economic growth falling by perhaps half a percentage point for a couple of quarters, and unemployment rising from its current 5% to 5.5% or 6%.
By cutting rates early and often, Bernanke is acting as though a recession - even a mild one - would be a calamity that must be avoided at all costs. He has already reduced the Fed funds rate (which banks pay when they borrow from each other) by one point, to 4.25%, and promises to "take substantive additional action as needed to support growth," a pledge that Wall Street interprets as meaning at least another half-point cut at the Fed's meeting on Jan. 29, if not sooner.
Many on Wall Street back Bernanke. "I'll defend the Fed," says Bear Stearns chief economist David Malpass. "Part of the slowdown is the result of banks' tightening credit, and you help that by lowering the Fed funds rate." Mickey Levy of Bank of America agrees: "You need to lower rates to offset the drag on housing."
But Bernanke is setting the stage for an even bigger recession down the road. Just as the ultra-low rates of the early 2000s created many of the problems we're experiencing today, pumping money into the system would probably stoke inflation, forcing the Fed to hike rates sharply in the near future. "It's better to take a small recession and kill inflation immediately instead of facing high inflation and a really big recession later," says Carnegie Mellon economist Allan Meltzer.
Meltzer, who is finishing the second volume of his history of the Federal Reserve, warns that Bernanke is risking a disastrous replay of the 1970s, when high oil prices fueled double-digit inflation. Every time the Fed started to tighten and unemployment jumped, chairmen G. William Miller and Arthur Burns lost their nerve. They lowered rates to boost job growth, and inflation inevitably revived, causing a vicious price spiral. The Fed let the disease rage for so long that it took draconian action by chairman Paul Volcker in the early 1980s to finally defeat inflation. The price was a deep recession, with unemployment hitting 11% in 1982. "The mentality is the same as in the 1970s," says Meltzer. "'As soon as we get rid of the risk of recession, we'll do something about inflation.' But that comes too late."
Indeed, while the economy is sending mixed messages about growth, the signs of increasing inflation are flashing bright red. For 2007 the consumer price index rose 4.1%, the biggest annual increase in 17 years. Gold, historically a reliable harbinger of inflation, set an all-time high of more than $900 an ounce. The dollar is languishing at a record low against the euro and a weighted basket of international currencies. "Flooding the market with liquidity is a disaster for the purchasing power of the dollar," says David Gitlitz, chief economist for Trend Macrolytics.
The Fed's supporters tend to downplay those dangers. They contend that the inflation surge is being driven largely by energy costs. Since oil isn't likely to rise from its near-$100 level, inflation is likely to tail off in 2008. "That argument is wrong," says Brian Wesbury, chief economist with First Trust Portfolios, an asset-management firm. "As people spend less to drive to the golf course, they will spend the extra money on golf clubs or other products. The Fed wants to reflate the economy, so the money that went into higher oil prices will drive up the prices of other goods."
Fed supporters also point out that the yield on ten-year Treasury bonds stands at just 3.8%, a figure that implies that investors expect inflation to be around 2% in future years. So if inflation is really expected to rage, why aren't interest rates far higher? The explanation is twofold. First, government bonds are hardly a foolproof forecaster. For example, five years ago Treasury yields were predicting 2% inflation over the next five years, and the actual figure was 3%, or 50% higher. Second, investors are so skittish about most stocks and corporate bonds that they're paying a huge premium for safe investments, chiefly U.S. Treasuries. "It's all about a flight to safety," says Meltzer. Stand by for a major rise in yields as the reality of looming inflation sinks in.
So what is the right course for the Fed? Bernanke should hold the Fed funds rate exactly where it is now, at 4.25%. Standing pat might well push the economy into a recession. But the Fed's newfound vigilance on inflation would boost the dollar, effectively lowering the prices of oil and other imports. America would suffer a short downturn and restore price stability, paving the way to a strong recovery in 2010 or 2011.
Sadly, the Fed has already chosen sides. It's likely to lower rates every time growth slows or joblessness rises. As a result, it will never tame inflation until it becomes a clawing, bellowing threat. Then we'll have to suffer a real recession, the kind we suffered in the aftermath of a time we should study and shouldn't forget - the 1970s.
罗奇：美联储降息将创造又一泡沫
《财经》杂志网络版
2008年01月24日
罗奇评价美联储在做降息决定时依靠的仅是股市的反应，而并非有新的信息
【《财经》网专稿/特约记者 陈晋 发自瑞士达沃斯】在一场关于美国经济的讨论中，美国纽约大学教授、罗比尼全球经济研究所创办人诺里尔·罗比尼和摩根士丹利亚洲主席斯蒂芬·罗奇均表示悲观。
罗比尼说，鉴于仍在持续的次贷危机和高企的油价，现在的问题并非我们将经历一个软着陆还是硬着陆，而是这个着陆会多硬。他形容目前的情形使美国看起来像是一个新兴市场。罗比尼同时认为，世界其他地区不可能和美国经济脱钩，他担心欧洲也将遭遇衰退。
罗奇和罗比尼观点接近。他认为，美联储一天前做的降息75个基点的决定，等于是为了恢复经济但又创造了另一个泡沫。这只能使美国继续储蓄不足、过度借贷消费的结构性缺陷。罗奇认为，美联储在决定大幅降息的时候，除了股票市场的暴跌，并没有其他新的信息。
“这不是央行正常运作的方法。”罗奇说，美国2007年的消费达到了9.5万亿美元，相当于美国GDP的72%，创下新高。谈到美元走势，罗奇说，美元可能会在不久的将来反弹，因为世界其他地区的经济并不一定有迅速反弹的能力。但从长远趋势来看，美元将继续走弱。
中国社会科学院世界经济与政治研究所所长余永定则表示，美国国内消费的下滑将对中国产生非常严重的影响，但中国政府目前的首要任务是通过紧缩货币政策来抑制通货膨胀。余永定认为，中国的通货膨胀由价格和需求两个要素同时推动。但他也指出，在实行紧缩的货币政策时，也应该对中国的就业增加需求敏感。中国每年需要创造2400万个工作机会，但去年只新增了1000万个。
余永定还认为，中国人民银行几乎已经穷尽其抑制流动性过剩的手段。中国应该采用财政政策来刺激国内消费。中国已经允许人民币更大幅度的升值以抑制通货膨胀，但也试图避免过快升值。
再战明天：今晚及明天需关注重要信息
中金在线/港股编辑部
2008年01月24日
港股今天(24日)表现极为反覆｡恒指高开逾300点后,沽盘即涌现,指数瞬即倒跌,其后有买盘吸纳,又再度重拾升轨,一度大涨逾800点升近25000点水平,,惟高位遇阻力;恒指午后抽落抽上,尾市跌势再转急,最终以接近全日低位收市,收报23539点,跌550点或2.3%,主板成交减少至1424亿元｡国指收报12933点,跌346点或2.6%｡
明天(25)联太工业(0176)公布末期业绩,黄河实业(0318)公布中期业绩｡
美国今晚将公布多项重要数据,其中包括美国上周新领失业金人数,市场预期为32.5万人;美国12月房屋销售数据,市场预期为495万户｡
美股方面,今晚将有多间企业公布季度业绩,其中包括微软､福特､升阳计算机､Lockheed Martin Corp等,市场预期每股盈亏分别为+0.46､-0.24､+0.31､+1.70美元｡
欧洲今晚并无重要数据公布｡澳洲明天亦无重要数据公布｡
日本明早公布12月全国核心消费物价指数(CPI),市场预期为0.6%｡
Sales of U.S. Existing Homes Probably Fell the Most Since 1989
By Courtney Schlisserman
Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Sales of existing homes in the U.S. probably dropped in December, capping the biggest yearly slump in almost a generation, economists said before a report today.
Purchases fell 1 percent to an annual rate of 4.95 million, the fewest since records began in 1999, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 71 economists. The National Association of Realtors projects the median price of a house declined last year for the first time since at least 1968.
Falling property values and tougher borrowing rules may lead to more foreclosures and depress housing for most of this year. The worsening real-estate recession is at the core of the economic slowdown and will probably prompt the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates again in coming months, economists said.
``The housing market in general is still struggling through a slowdown and that struggle is going to continue well into 2008,'' said Adam York, an economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. ``The Fed knows the housing market is in poor shape.''
The real estate agents' group is scheduled to issue the report at 10 a.m. in Washington. Economists' estimates in the Bloomberg News survey ranged from 4.75 million to 5.15 million.
Sales probably dropped 13 percent last year, the most since 1989, according to the Realtors' forecast.
The median price has never declined in a full year since records began four decades ago, the group said. The last time prices dropped was probably in the 1930's, during the Great Depression, according to Walter Molony, the NAR's spokesman.
More Claims
A report today from the Labor Department may show first- time claims for jobless benefits rose last week to 320,000, from 301,000 a week earlier, according to a Bloomberg survey. The figures are due at 8:30 a.m. in Washington.
An unexpected drop in claims over the prior three weeks reflects the difficult task of adjusting the figures for the year-end holidays, economists said. As a result, most forecast the number of applications will probably rebound in coming weeks, confirming the labor market has weakened.
The housing slump is one reason employment has deteriorated. According to Chicago-based placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., financial-service firms, such as mortgage companies, announced 153,105 job cuts last year, more than triple the number reported for 2006.
The housing slump ``may continue to be a drag on growth for a good part of this year,'' Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke testified to the House Budget Committee on Jan. 17.
Fed Action
Policy makers on Jan. 22 cut the benchmark overnight lending rate between banks by three-quarters of a percentage point in the first emergency action since 2001. Futures markets suggest the central bank will probably lower the rate again at the next scheduled meeting on Jan. 29-30.
Mortgage rates are also dropping, making homes more affordable to those able to get financing. The Realtors group's affordability index in November and October was at the highest level in more than two years.
Still, concern that prices will keep falling may continue to keep many buyers out of the market, economists said.
Meritage Homes Corp., a builder whose biggest markets are Texas, Arizona and California, said last week that that fourth- quarter revenue fell 25 percent because of declining orders. For all of last year, closings fell 28 percent.
``It is clear that these are extremely difficult times for all homebuilders,'' Chief Executive Officer Steven J. Hilton said in a statement.
The Commerce Department is scheduled to report new home sales next week. Builders broke ground in December on the fewest houses since 1991, making last year's decline in homebuilding the worst in almost three decades, the department said Jan. 17.
Spending on residential construction projects will drop 21 percent this year after declining 17 percent in 2007, according to a forecast by economists at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
The fed only looks out for its own the banksters.
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