After the sell off, stocks may actually be cheap

Sell Off Wall Street - A Silver Lining

Wall Street is finally breathing a sigh of relief after the S&P 500 Index managed to hold on to its first weekly gain of the year. One prominent market watchers had commented that inspite of signs of strength; stocks are still in store for a thundering reset. The ruthless sell off Wall Street had faced during the last few weeks could have a silver lining.

 According to FactSet, the S&P 500 Index is presently trading at around 15 times the earnings; analysts tend to expect constituents companies to post over the next year. This reading is known as `forward P/E on the popular measure of valuation which is compared to a 15 year average forward P/E ratio of 15.7. The conclusion collected from historical comparison is based on the timeframe taken into account.

 It is worth observing, in this case that the current valuation level tends to represent the premium to the average of 14.3 observed over the past five and ten years periods. Since the firm in the meantime is probably using various earnings estimates, IQ of S&P Capital current forward valuation number is 15.7 though they also observed that was under the 15 year average.

Broad Market Trading in Abyss

David Stockman who was the former OMB Director under President Ronal Reagan, is of the opinion that the broad market has been trading in the abyss after breaking beyond 1,870 in 2014, since then with a meagre one percent return. He had commented that they had been there for 700 days and had something like 35 attempts at rallies where all have failed for the `four no’s’. For him the four no’s comprise of a combination of no escape velocity, no earnings growth, no dry powder from the central bank and no reflation.Accompanied together, it leads him to the belief that the U.S. economy seems to be on the point of a full blown recession.

He further adds that they are getting to a point where the chickens are coming home to roost and there is no help from the central banks and that is why these rallies seem to get weaker as well as shorter. He is of the belief that the overflow of easy money from central banks all across the world has shaped a credit crisis which is so severe that it could probable take years to come out of what it has created.

High Powered Money – Enormous Expansion of Credit

Market watchers have pointed out a stunning $21 trillion collective balance sheet built up all around the globe, up from 2.1 trillion only 20 years back. He has said that this is high powered money which has resulted in an enormous expansion of credit as well as financial valuation bubble.

Stockman has observed that the speedy increase of credit has caused debt all over the world of over $225 trillion and has mentioned that they `are at peak debt’. Stockman, at this point considers that the hands of the Fed could be tied up after being on zero interest rates for almost a decade. There is nowhere to go but negative and it is time to get out of the market completely.

The S&P 500 has been progressively in correction territory in 2016and the large-cap index closed the week at around 11% from its 52 week high. However Stockman is of the opinion that it could plunge another 30% from its present trading which takes it back to levels not envisaged since 2012.

3 Investments You Must Make For Your Restaurant

When you own a restaurant, your focus is on product quality and customer service. That means that you are sure to keep essential equipment and materials around that help you to serve your customers better. Instead of hoping that things go smoothly from day to day, you should invest in a few little business tools that will allow you to maintain your level of service, and protect your business at the same time.

Liability Insurance

Responsible business owners have liability insurance to protect their businesses in case something were to happen. But when you run a customer service business like a restaurant, you can never anticipate what may happen on a daily basis. While it is financially smart to get the basic liability insurance you need to satisfy legal requirements, you should consider getting extra liability insurance for the sake of your business and your customers. Additional liability insurance will give you peace of mind when the weather creates slip and fall hazards on your sidewalks, or when a promotion you try goes bad and people get hurt.

Critical Spare Parts

Most restaurants keep spare parts scattered here and there throughout the building, just in case something goes wrong. But what would you do if your main oven went down and you did not have the part you needed to bring it back up to speed again? You could go to a parts website and get to the section that says "click here for overnight service," but you are still losing out on an entire day's worth of business.

To keep your restaurant going, you need to do a critical spare parts assessment and then keep at least one of those spare parts on hand at all times. This requires an extra financial investment on your part, but the payoff comes when having these parts available prevents you from losing thousands of dollars in business in just one night.

Power Generators

While it is unrealistic to expect to be able to power a whole night's worth of business on a single generator, it is possible to serve the customers you have to maintain your high level of service. When the power goes out, most people expect a restaurant to shut down and send customers home. But when your restaurant can finish serving meals that have been ordered before shutting down due to a power outage, then that enhances the restaurant's reputation.

Part of offering excellent service is being prepared for just about anything. When you invest in necessary services and equipment for your restaurant, then you will enhance your reputation as a reliable and top-notch business.

Amnesty International report links batteries used in phones to child labour in Congo

Child Labour in Mines – Extract Material for Lithium-ion Batteries

Children as young as seven are being exploited by crooked mining companies in order to extract material utilised in making lithium-ion batteries which power the smartphones and tablets, according to Amnesty International and Afrewatch. The report found that around 40,000 children worked in mines all over the Democratic Republic of Congo – DRC in 2014 for 12 hours and were paid between one and two US dollar per day.

Authors mentioned that the major electronic companies of the world like Apple, Samsung and Sony have failed to stop this. Their report, state that `this is what we die for: Human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo power the global trade in cobalt. The agencies inform they were able to connect the sale of the material utilised in the making of the batteries, cobalt, to mines, which used child labour.

Mark Dummett, Amnesty International business and human rights researcher had commented that `the beautiful shop displays and marketing of state of the art technologies are obvious to the children carrying bags of rock and miners in narrow man-made tunnels with a risk of permanent lung damage.

No Safety Gears Provided

Millions of people appreciate the benefit of new technologies but seldom tend to ask how they are made. It is high time that the big brands take some kind of responsibility for the mining of raw materials which makes their profitable products.

Over half of the cobalt of the world is from the Democratic Republic of Congo with about 20% of which is extracted utilising a practice called artisanal mining wherein the workers seem to use their bare hands or basic tools like chisels in order to mine materials. No safety gears like hats, protective clothing or masks have been provided for them.

On examining the investor documents of Huayon Cobalt, the group found that after the companies had processed the material, it was sold to three battery component manufacturers, namely Ningbo Shanshan and Tianjin Bamo from China and L&F Materials from South Korea.The manufacturers in turn sold the material to battery makers that tend to supply technology and car companies

Several Accidents Go Unrecorded

Sixteen multinationals had been contacted by Amnesty International which was listed as direct or indirect customers of battery manufacturers mentioned in the report which sourced processed ore from Huayon Cobalt.

They included Ahong, Apple, BYD, Daimler, Dell, HP, Huawei, Inventec, together with Lenovo, LG, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony, Vodafone Volkswagen and ZTE. Mr Dumment had informed news.com.au that other than the use of child labour and the awful conditions put up by the workers, he found it shocking that the big multinationals who have combined global profits of about $125 billion had failed to have systems wherein they could trace cobalt.

Dummet mentioned that when Amnesty had contacted the companies, they were told that they had their policies in place regarding human rights abuses and use of child labour. However when pressed further regarding the cobalt they were unable to provide specifications According to the report, around 80 artisanal miners had died in southern DRC during September 2014 and December 2015. But the true figure is not known since several accidents tend to go unrecorded with the bodies left buried in the rubble.

Mr Dummet had stated that both organisations are coordinating with the multinational to investigate where their cobalt was extracted from and to be more transparent regarding their suppliers.

What markets are really worried about

Dull Start for Global Stock Market

It has been a dull start for the global stock market this year and the first week has been described as the worst start ever, for Wall Street. During the first week of 2016, Frankfurt and Tokyo had dropped by double digit percentages while in New York the drop was 9% and in London 8%. However, China was the eye of the storm where the key index in Shanghai had lost 19% of its value during the same period.

The prices of commodity had also stumbled where crude oil prices for the first time in almost 12 years, had slipped to below $30 per barrel. Share prices, at times had followed oil downwards which is likely for shares of the companies in oil business. However, for the others it tends to reduce costs leaving consumers with more to spend on their products.

There seems to be a slowdown in emerging growth of the economies and China is an exceptional example though certainly not the only one. The instability had begun in the Chinese market, spreading all around the world.The Chinese stock market in itself does not seem to be the ultimate international issue.

Currency under Pressure

Though it is a serious issue for Chinese investors who had purchased shares while the prices were high, they have lost a good amount of money. However there are few of them to have a possible impact on consumer spending in China.

 There are also few foreign investors in Chinese market withthe possibility of serious losses inflicted beyond the country as direct significance. Besides the stock market, the currency, Yuan has also been under pressure and has lost its ground this year though not on the stock market scale. In the first week, the onshore, official rate dropped down by almost 2%. Some had indicated that there could be a possibility of the decline in the Yuan revolving into a full blown loss of confidence.

The financial market pressures on China are in portion at least an indication of the extensive and much discussed economic slowdown. Since the Chinese economy seemed to lose some space there has been some uncertainty on how well the authorities would handle the process. China would certainly need to slow to an added sustainable pace, but would the path tend to be a rocky one with an abrupt slowdown?

Significant But Catastrophic Slowdown in Growth

The official figures so far indicate a significant though not catastrophic slowdown in growth. According to official figures published, after three decades of 10% average growth, China seemed to slow down to 6.9% last year.The new assessment of the economic outlook of IMF tends to predict a further easing of the pace to about 6.3% this year and in 2017 around 6.0%. It records that China has experienced a faster than presumed slowdown in exports and imports, partially reflecting weaker investments as well as manufacturing activity. The apprehensions regarding economic outlook are not only over China. The new forecast of IMF, downgrades the outlook for the emerging as well as the developing countries and the ones which tend to stand out are Brazil and Russia. This is partly regarding the low prices of oil together with the other commodities as well as the political issues, external for Russia and domestic for Brazil. Besides, this there is also a substantial downgrade in the forecast for South Africa.

IMF Cuts Global Growth Forecast As China Growth Slows

IMF Cuts Forecast of Global Growth

Recently the International Monetary Fund – IMF had cut its forecasts of global growth for the third time in less than a year, as the new figures from Beijing indicated that the Chinese economy in 2015, had been at its slowest rate in a quarter of a century. The IMF, to support its forecasts had cited a sharp slowdown in China trade and weak product prices which were hammering Brazil together with the other emerging markets.

 The Fund had forecast that the world economy would tend to grow at 3.4% towards 2016and 3.6% in 2017; both the years would be down by 0.2% point from the earlier estimates made last October. It has stated that policymakers need to consider means of bolstering short-term demand.

The updated forecast of the World Economic Outlook came as global financial markets were shaken by worries over the slowdown of China as confirmed by official Chinese data on Tuesday together with the plunging oil prices. IMF had maintained its earlier China growth forecasts of 6.3% in 2016 and 6.0% in 2017 representing sharp slowdowns from 2015.

Concern over Beijing’s Hold on Economic Policy

According to China’s report, growth for 2015 had hit 6.9% after a year wherein the world’s second biggest economy had suffered huge capital outflows, a slip in the currency as well as summer stock market crash. There was a rise in shares in Europeand Asia and the dollar gained after the China data had been released, while investors expected greater effort by Beijing to spur growth.

 There was concern over Beijing’s hold on economic policy which had shot to the top of global investors’ risk list for the year 2016 after drop in its stock markets as well as the Yuan fuelled worries that the economy would be quickly weakening.

The Fund also mentioned that a steeper slowing of demand in China seemed to be a risk to the global growth. The weaker than expected Chines imports as well as exports had been weighing heavily on the other emerging markets as well as commodity exporters.

Major Risk Aversion/Currency Depreciation/Dollar Appreciation

Maurice Obstfeld, IMF economic counsellor had mentioned in a videotaped statement that `they do not see a big change in the fundamentals in China compared to what is was seen six months ago though the markets are certainly very spooked by small events there that they find it hard to interpret’ He further added that the global financial markets seems to be overreacting to the oil prices drop as well as the risk of a sharp downturn in China and it was critical that China is clear about its overall economic strategy inclusive of its currency.

At a news conference Obstfeld had stated that `it is not a stretch to suggest that markets may be responding very strongly to rather small bits of evidence in an environment of volatility and risk aversion. The oil price puts strains on oil exporters, but there is a silver lining for consumers worldwide, so it is not an unmitigated negative’.

The IMF report states that continued market upheaval would also tend to help in dragging growth lower if it heads to major risk aversion and currency depreciation in the emerging markets. Besides this, other risk would comprise of further dollar appreciation and acceleration of geopolitical tensions.