Financial Markets – What to expect in 2012?

The year 2011 has been another unexpected horrific roller coaster ride for financial markets due to financial and political condition all around globe. We still got few more weeks left and don’t be surprised if adds more fuel to the fire. Usually winter is quite with not much surprises, but this year has been exception and market is taking the toll especially due to economic conditions in Europe.

We are going to complete the fifth year of a financial crisis, and investors really want some good news for 2012 with global recovery. But we all know, Europe is still trying to right itself, joblessness stays high in the U.S., and China’s ability to escape the malaise in the West remains an open question.

With this volatile background, we have to see how year 2012 is going to shape up for investors. Luckily we got analyst and experts who does nothing but forecast and market anlaysis for their existence. Last week one of those kinda of report was published by Business week Tom Keene’s. Here is the snapshot of the Econochat which might helps to shed some light on what to expect for 2012.

  • Credit Suisse’s chief economist sees uneven recovery, dangerous joblessness, and struggling central banks. For 2012, I think the U.S. is likely to have a persistent recovery—inadequate in scale, choppy, mixed in terms of sectors—but nonetheless persistent growth. I think China is in much the same circumstance. Europe is the other big block. There, I think you have to anticipate that they’ll have no growth at best for the early part of the year and potentially, of course, something more severe than that
  • J.P. Morgan’s Bruce Kasman on the U.S., The bank’s chief global economist says, its 3 percent growth for the third quarter. For this time next year, it all depends on policy. If we don’t change the fiscal path we are on and we allow all the tax cuts to expire and the other spending to expire, we will have the economy skirt recession but grow at something like a 1 percent pace. And then where we are next year I think depends a lot on how Europe manages its problems. If we can avoid the fiscal tightening, if we can kind of switch from having near-term tightening to more medium-term adjustments and keep fiscal policy neutral, I think the economy could do O.K. here—I would say 2 percent, 2.5 percent growth
  • Barclays’s Julian Callow on Europe, The bank’s head of international economics explains how dangerous a Greek default would be and why Germany can’t bail out Europe.

    Why should Americans care about the resolution of the euro crisis? If you go to your average person, say on Main Street U.S.A., before the crisis, they might not have heard of Bear Stearns. But you can be sure they would have heard of Greece. If Greece is having a substantial default on its debt, that is very big news. And we cannot really predict exactly what the consequences of that will be in terms of confidence through the global financial system. We have had defaults historically from Argentina, from Russia, but this is a much more significant event.

I don’t see a very optimistic view from any one of them. It is not their fault, obviously things happening in recent months made every analyst to be calculative in their expectation. Last year same time, we all expected some growth and recovery in 2011. We did have some good news for the first half of the year after things starts to go back to worse. So now most of them are taking cautions approach in predicting the market.

With high unemployment, US Election year, Europe crisis still unresolved, Arab upraising and unsettled situation and mother nature adding her part starting this winter early and expect to be worse, we are sure to witness another interesting year. With lot more wild rides ahead, just take it slow and take some good holiday time off so you all can get ready to buckle up next year.

To read the full article, click here.

U.S. Economy, Better than It Looks says TRP Chief Economist but…

In August, I posted a blog about an optimistic outlook on US Economy by TRP Chairman. On Oct 24th in their monthly report, TRP Chief ecnomist Levenson has published a positive and more upbeat message about the US Economy.

Here is a snapshot and key points of the message,

Economy Under Pressure
The U.S. economic recovery appeared to be in serious jeopardy during the summer, and equity markets saw across-the-board declines. Anemic employment growth, coupled with Europe’s deepening debt crisis and lingering fears of recession there, prompted fears from investors that the U.S. would suffer a similar fate.

Sectors that typically lead during times of economic recovery remained soft.Overall, private sector job growth, a critical component of recovery, came to a standstill in August after substantial gains earlier in the year.

Moving In the Right Direction
Levenson points to two forces from the early part of the year—the oil supply shock in light of Middle East political upheaval and interruption of global supply chains after Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami—as primarily responsible for squelching growth during the first half of 2011. Going forward, Levenson predicts restrained but positive expansion, estimating a rate of 2% gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2012.

Better Trends in Real Estate and Beyond
Levenson predicts a future doubling of the current level of home construction simply to keep up with the country’s population growth over time. He also points to a meaningful reduction in the number of vacant homes in recent quarters.

On a global scale, emerging markets are continuing to grow relatively fast and are benefiting from favorable productivity and demographic trends. Demand in these regions is likely to be a strong source of growth for global exporters, which will benefit corporations in the U.S. and the rest of the developed world.

Putting the Recession Behind Us
With so much uncertainty in the economic, market, and political environments, it is hard to say when investors will again turn their attention to renewed growth opportunities. But Levenson feels that many of the major problems that led to the 2007-2009 recession are beginning to resolve themselves. He suggests that if policymakers in Europe find a way to stabilize the region’s debt problems, markets will stabilize over the next six months and allow the underlying positive aspects of the U.S. economy to gain some traction.

To read full article, go to TRoweprice.

The message seems to be really upbeat and rosy but after the interview lot more things happened. We saw big decline on the wallstreet on 11/9/2011 because of Italy government unstability and Greece uncertainity on implementing measure suggested by Euro Zone countries to get more funding. If similar type of news continue to hinder the market, I don’t think we will have good smooth 2012.

We can continue to expect a bumpy road and adding to that, 2012 is election year and many don’t expect too much good things to come from deadlocked congress to save the country.

Keep your investing mind and fingers crossed and continue to watch the market and don’t take impulse decision. Take a long term approach as always and invest accordingly.

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