Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Where Should You Have Invested This Year? The US Or Italy?

Posted by Peter Quennell





Where should you have put your nestegg at the start of this year for maximum gains?

Sorry to those who picked the US (and Trumponomics).

(1) The chart above shows a bundle of Italian stocks (EWI) against a bundle of US stocks (DOW).

As of today US stocks have gone up around 10 percent - but Italian stocks (green curve) have gone up 12 percent above that.

(2) The chart below shows the dollar against the Euro (Italy’s currency).

As of today, the Euro is about 10 percent up on the dollar for the year.

So you would have been much better off in Italy. It wins hands down - it has gained overall about 20 percent compared to the US.

The overall value of the US - stocks and currency combined - is actually under water.


Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/26/17 at 06:52 PM in

Comments

So I go to check that I am up-to-the-minute on the market news and the Financial Times just posted this below. Gee, thanks, Trump.

https://www.ft.com/content/668c6396-3627-378f-baa6-149cf41ce7b7

Euro, pound leap against the US dollar

The euro and the pound abruptly jumped against the buck in early New York trading on Tuesday, with the common currency coming within a whisker of $1.17.

The euro climbed as much as 0.49 per cent to $1.1699, while sterling advanced 0.37 per cent to $1.3077. The buck managed to hold gains against the Japanese yen, recently up 0.24 per cent to Y111.37.

Tuesday’s moves for the two European currencies appeared to accelerate moments after US President Donald Trump issued the following tweet:

<blockquote>Working on major Trade Deal with the United Kingdom. Could be very big & exciting. JOBS! The E.U. is very protectionist with the U.S. STOP!

</blockquote>

Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/26/17 at 07:14 PM | #

Knox back in the news 8/4/2017. Daily Mail online quotes her op-ed piece in the L.A. Times where Knox argues that Michelle Carter who texted her suicidal friend to get back in the fume-filled truck where he succumbed, was not guilty of involuntary manslaughter. (I may agree with Knox for once, I’m not sure.)

Headline in Daily Mail: ‘She was wrongfully convicted’. Amanda Knox pens op-ed in support of Michelle Carter and says ‘she was left with a sickening sense of deja vu’ as the media painted the guilty teen-suicide-texter as a ‘femme fatale’

Knox thinks Carter’s actions don’t align with the definition of involuntary manslaughter. Carter was 17 at the time of her texts. Conrad Roy III the deceased was 18.

Knox argues that Carter had in the months before his final suicide attempt, urged him to get help, but was not equal to Roy’s tortured depressions and continual longing to take his life. Knox fears Carter will be tempted to commit suicide in prison as Knox recalls her own mental battle when she had suicidal ideation in Capanne.

She says “Carter’s actions might qualify as incitement of a lawless action (suicide is illegal) or conspiracy to commit a crime” but that Carter is not guilty of “involuntary manslaughter….Ultimately it was Roy’s decision to get back in the truck and that makes him his own murderer.”

“Each served as a catalyst to the other’s mental illness.”

Knox is upset with the media’s treatment of Michelle Carter as a femme fatale, which is how Knox feels she was characterized to the detriment of her legal case.

Michelle Carter will serve 15 months in prison but will remain on probation for an extended period after that.

I don’t know what to make of Knox’s support for Michelle Carter. I agree that society is on a very slippery slope to criminalize what amounts to a bad friend. Persuasion and influence and words are not a gun to an adult’s head. Personal responsibility is absolutely necessary in the case of suicide.

We could otherwise cast a wide net and accuse any of the ‘victim’s’ loved ones or acquaintances with some form of verbal coercion or lack of support. Even parents would not be immune.

Did the friend cruelly abandon the person psychologically at his vulnerable time of need? These things are hard to quantify.

An adult of average intelligence and sound mind who is not being physically forced need not take his own life, and therefore is the cause of his own death in the final analysis.

That’s my first instinct although it’s a very sticky question, not sure what I really believe about Carter’s conviction. Roy was 18, not 12 he had a history of suicidal ideation and I think Michelle was on meds for depression herself. She was 17 not yet an adult. She was not a good influence on the young man and seemed cold and heartless about his death, but whether she is a criminal may be another matter.

Posted by Hopeful on 08/04/17 at 10:44 PM | #

Another bleak American stock chart. This shows large firms (black), medium firms (red), and small firms (green) for this year.

_

See the problem? ALL the stock growth this year is in the big firms.

Those are a few giants that enjoy a semi monopoly (Google, Apple) and make most of their profits overseas. Their managers and investors have been hopeful there’d be some tax and regulation “breaks” but with a paralyzed government, fat chance.

The small and medium companies vital to future strong growth are languishing - in fact the stocks of small firms are below water for this year.

Nasty situation. Take care, everybody.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/18/17 at 12:45 PM | #

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Or to next entry Kercher Lawyer Dr Maresca Slams Tin-Eared Knox Over “Inopportune Plans” To Visit Perugia

Or to previous entry Why The Italian Court System Is Very Unlikely To Do Any Favors For Sollecito & Knox Ever Again