Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Thursday April 10 Housing and Economic stories


Americans Can’t Retire When Bill Gross Sees Repression - (www.bloomberg.com) Twelve years after retiring as a telephone repairman, Roger Wood clocks 12 to 15 hours a week at a Lowe’s Cos. hardware store near Glen Allen, Virginia. “About the same amount I made 30 years ago,” Wood, 69, says of his $12 hourly wage. “I’m worried about my portfolio because of low interest rates, even to the point of considering full-time again.” Feeble returns on the safest investments such as bank deposits and fixed-income securities represent a “financial repression” transferring money from savers to borrowers, says Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund. Workers 65 and older, struggling with years of depressed yields, are the only group of Americans who are increasingly employed or looking for jobs, according to Labor Department participation-rate data.

Grad Students Driving the Growing Debt Burden - (online.wsj.com) The surge in student-loan debt in recent years has been driven disproportionately by borrowing for graduate school amid a weak economy and an open spigot of government credit, according to a report that raises questions about the broader debate about how to resolve Americans' growing burden. The typical debt load of borrowers leaving school with a master's, medical, law or doctoral degree jumped an inflation-adjusted 43% between 2004 and 2012, according to a new report by the New America Foundation, a left-leaning Washington think tank. That translated into a median debt load—the point at which half of borrowers owed more and half owed less—of $57,600 in 2012. The increases were sharper for those pursuing advanced degrees in the social sciences and humanities, versus professional degrees such as M.B.A.s or medical degrees that tend to yield greater long-term returns. The typical debt load of those earning a master's in education showed some of the largest increases, rising 66% to $50,879. It climbed 54% to $58,539 for those earning a master of arts.

China Internet Funds Called Vampires Draw Calls for Rules - (www.bloomberg.com) It has been labeled a “blood-sucking vampire” by a prominent commentator on state-run television. Executives at China’s largest banks have called for regulators to curb its rapid expansion. The focus of this ire is Internet financing, specifically Yu’E Bao, the fund pioneered nine months ago by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s online-payment affiliate Alipay. Its ease of use, involving a few taps on a smartphone, has drawn deposits from 81 million customers, more than the population of Germany, as they chase returns higher than China’s banks can offer. The total exceeded 500 billion yuan ($80 billion) as of Feb. 28, according to the official Xinhua news agency, double the amount reported by Alipay in mid-January. At least six other technology firms, including Baidu Inc. (BIDU) and Tencent Holding Ltd. (700), have embraced Internet financing with similar products offering returns as high as 10 percent and threatening to drain more cash from China’s banking system. Bank executives, unable to stop the outflow of their cheapest source of funding because interest rates on comparable deposits are fixed by the government at 0.35 percent, are calling for more regulation, saying that lack of oversight and risks related to account security, yield volatility and liquidity management threaten China’s financial stability.

Russian Oil Seen Heading East Not West in Crimea Spat - (www.bloomberg.com) Russia’s drive to send more barrels to China, leaving Europe with pricier imports and boosting U.S. dependence on fuel from the Middle East. China already has agreed to buy more than $350 billion of Russian crude in coming years from the government of President Vladimir Putin. The ties are likely to deepen as the U.S. and Europe levy sanctions against Russia as punishment for the invasion of Ukraine. Such shifts will be hard to overcome. Europe, which gets about 30 percent of its natural gas from Russia, has few viable immediate alternatives. The U.S., even after the shale boom, must import 40 percent of its crude oil, 10.6 million barrels a day that leaves the country vulnerable to global markets.

Loneliness of Kiev Bond Trader Shows Market Was Wiped Out - (www.bloomberg.com) For 29-year-old Fyodor Bagnenko, a fixed-income trader at Dragon Capital in Ukraine, selling bonds has become a lonely business. From his seven-story office in central Kiev, about 20 minutes from the barricades on Independence Square that were the epicenter of protests that triggered the worst crisis between Russia and NATO countries since the Cold War, he would trade more than $20 million of bonds a day last year. Since the revolution, there have been days where he couldn’t close a single deal as trading in Ukrainian financial assets dried up. “We’ve had days where the market’s dropped five points or more and not a buyer in sight,” he said as he headed to his morning meeting March 14. “People have gotten whiplash, with the market jumping from complete indecision to frantic action, with the whole world trying to buy, or sell, simultaneously.”





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