Goldman hikes their forecast for the average price of crude oil for H2 2008 …
from 107 to 141(!!!) $ …
If they are right … equity markets should suffer BIG time …
Even if retail sales rise … on gasoline sales
Reason for the Goldman action is higher demand from China due to the earthquake, […]

Today’s news release :
BEIJING (Dow Jones)–China’s domestic banks can invest their clients’ funds
in the U.S. stock market under an agreement with the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said on its Web
site Monday.
The agreement marks a further expansion of China’s Qualified Domestic
Institutional Investor program, under which qualified financial institutions
are allowed […]

Even the European equity markets give up today, selling off around 7% (!!!) on an US holiday … wow
We were not able to go that low last year on very bad news and more uncertainty, now … seemingly ready to have a bounce after 3 down weeks to get the year started, the market jumps […]

Situation:
U.S. Markets: Ended the week down up to 2% despite BoA taking over Countrywide Financial. Over the weekend speculation about new capital inflow for financial institutions from SWFs. Chinese and Arab buyers lining up, especially for Citibank and Merill Lynch. (pls. read my posts here) and here Rumours fly about the possible write offs, […]

How many times will they be able to repeat that?
Every quarter a new investor … OMG
This time, the FT reports, it will be 14(!!!) bln$ fresh money and the estimates for the write offs are skyrocketing … up to 20bln$ is the guess as it is up to 15bln$ for Merill.
Citibank, they say, will […]

Here the 2008 main investment themes as I see them … as expected … EIGHT of them
1. Housing Sector
The housing sector keeps plummeting and no relief yet to be expected. November figures showed that the seasonally adjusted annual rate of 647.000 new home sales (the number is expected to be revised even […]

2008 will be a great year … in the sense of successful, prosperous year … NO, this has nothing to do, where the markets end up December, 31st 2008
1. In China, the number 8 is seen as THE lucky number. The main reason seemingly comes from the pronunciation of the word for the […]

As the fashion of today is setting up SWFs (sovereign wealth funds) … to save the world … or better … to convert earned dollars into knowledge and influence …
HERE COMES SAUDI ARABIA …
Seemingly trying not to be too far behind its neighbors … Saudi Arabia will set up the BIGGEST SWF, I just […]