Just When Investors Thought Europe Was Fixed...

Investors spent most of the summer believing that central bankers would protect them from the looming European debt threat, only to find in recent days that they may be wrong.

Getty Images

Volatility has returned both on Wall Street and in the streets of Europe, where Spaniards have been protesting austerity measures, and, in doing so, sparked the realization that the sovereign debt crisis is far from over.

Stock markets around the world have been trading lower, generating some worries that Europe could put a halt to what has been an otherwise powerful 2012 rally.

"When everybody is all-in and all-long, the market is priced for perfection," says Walter Zimmerman, senior technical analyst at United-ICAP in Jersey City, N.J. "The market will only be able to tolerate good things happening. Anything that starts unfolding in the other direction, the market is going to be extremely vulnerable."

The increased nervousness has come even though European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has assured the markets that he stands at the ready to provide help to euro zone countries struggling with debt issues.

At the same time, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently announced a third round of quantitative easing with the goal of driving down the U.S. unemployment rate.

 

Full article here: CNBC

Take Your Portfolio To The Next Frontier

KEY POINTS

• Frontier markets offer great investment potential with their strong economic growth, low volatility, low correlation with major indices as well as a more "pure play" approach to gaining emerging market exposure
• Risks include political and regulatory risks and illiquidity risks
• Investors may gain exposure to frontier markets throught the Templeton Frontier Markets Fund

FRONTIER MARKETS: “THE NEW EMERGING EMERGING MARKETS”

Frontier markets are considered a subset of emerging markets. Compared to the majority of economies classified as “emerging markets” however, frontier markets consist of less developed, less liquid economies with companies of smaller market capitalisation. Examples of countries that are considered frontier markets include Argentina, Croatia, Romania, Kenya, Nigeria, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

Frontier markets are a relatively new class of investment; of the three major frontier market index providers, the earliest was only launched in May 2009 by MSCI Barra – the MSCI Frontier Markets Index. The FTSE Frontier 50 Index and the S&P Frontier BMI were launched in September 2010 and April 2011 correspondingly.

For the purpose of this article, we will compare the investment merits of frontier markets by comparing the MSCI Frontier Markets Index against its US, developed markets, and emerging markets counterparts. The indices used are the MSCI US Index, MSCI World ex-US Index and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index respectively.

Full article here: FSM 

2689.HK

As we did some coverage on some HK stocks, we have opened a position in 2689.HK as mentioned earlier in the week.

Previous coverage: Hong Kong stocks

As markets seem to be less optimistic after QE3 has been announced, China has been in the limelight with no expansion (luckily with no contraction) on their manufacturing numbers. It is widely acknowledged that China has to grow at least above 50 PMI to show sustainable results but it has been below 50 (ranging around 46-48) over the past 9 months and SSE is at its 4 years all time low (comparable to 2009's financial crisis).

Nevertheless, HSI has shown pretty strong resilience against the figures from China but it's not showing big movements for penny stocks like 2689.HK. Looking at the charts below:

Trending in between $3.82 - $4.30 for the past 1 week, it didn't had an opportunity to actually break above $4.40 and the 100d MA is showing good resistance for breakout (it touched on 21 Sept). Looking at the stochastics, it is still on the high band and looks like more of a upward movement and notice the 20MA which is going near to the 50MA which signals a potential breakout as well. 

Our target price for this counter is at $4.60 - $4.65 depending on market sentiments and cut price at $3.75. 

Your thoughts? 

Apple Seeks US Samsung Sales Ban, Additional Damages

Jung Yeon-Je | AFP | Getty Images Samung flag flies in Seoul

Apple has asked for a court order for a permanent U.S. sales ban on Samsung Electronics products alleged to have violated its patents along with additional damages of $707 million on top of the billion-dollar verdict won by the iPhone maker last month.

Samsung has responded by asking for a new trial.

The world's top two smartphone makers are locked in patent battles in 10 countries as they vie for top spot in the lucrative, fast-growing market.

Apple [APPL  92.00  ---  UNCH    ] scored a legal victory over Samsung in late August when a U.S. jury found that the Korean firm had copied critical features of the iPhone and awarded the U.S. firm $1.05 billion in damages.

In a motion filed late Friday U.S. time, Apple sought a further $400 million damage award for design infringement by Samsung; $135 million for willful infringement of its utility patents; $121 million in supplemental damages based on Samsung's product sales not covered in the jury's deliberation; and $50 million of prejudgment interest on damages through December 31.

The requests together come to $707 million.

Apple wants the injunction to cover "any of the infringing products or any other product with a feature or features not more than colorably different from any of the infringing feature or features in any of the Infringing Products." Such a wide-ranging sales ban could result in the extension of the injunction to cover Samsung's brand-new Galaxy S III smartphone.

Full article here: CNBC

Idea Of The Week: Gaining Access To Frontier Markets

As described in Take Your Portfolio To The Next Frontier, frontier markets offer investors the potential to reap healthy investment gains, helped by their strong projected economic growth, while also providing some portfolio diversification benefit from lower correlations with other financial markets. Nevertheless, their small market capitalisations, lower liquidity and less-developed stock markets mean that there are precious few options for investors who want exposure to this fast-growing segment within the broader global emerging markets. In this week’s “Idea of the Week” segment, we highlight several funds which offer investors exposure to the frontier markets.

TEMPLETON FRONTIER MARKETS FUND

Among the various funds on the platform, the Templeton Frontier Markets Fund offers investors the most direct exposure to the segment. The fund was launched only in October 2008, but has since impressed with its strong outperformance of its benchmark, the MSCI FM Frontier Markets index. As of 31 July 2012, the fund’s largest holdings (by country) were in Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Qatar and Vietnam, deviating significantly from the benchmark (which had almost a third in stocks from Kuwait), and coupled with the strong outperformance since inception, suggests that the manager employs a highly active (benchmark-agnostic) approach to managing the portfolio.

MENA FUNDS

The three MENA (Middle East and North Africa) funds on the platform may also be interesting for investors seeking exposure to the various frontier markets located within the region (which includes markets like Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE and Oman). Nevertheless, these three funds have had rather different fortunes in 2012 so far, owing to the disparity in their investment approaches. The Schroder ISF Middle East SGD A Acc  has delivered a rather strong 19.6% year-to-date return (as of 12 September 2012), helped by its fairly large allocation to Turkish equities – the fund held 35.1% of the portfolio in Turkey, as of 31 July 2012; the Turkish equity market has delivered a 34% return over the same period. The fund’s benchmark is 80% MSCI Arab Markets and Turkey + 20% Saudi Arabia Large/Mid Cap.

In contrast, the Amundi Oasis MENA Fund SGD and ING Inv MENA USD have delivered returns of 5.7% and 4.3% year-to-date, a function of not owning strong-performing Turkish equities (as compared to the Schroder ISF Middle East SGD A Acc). Both have allocation to Qatar and Kuwait, while the ING Inv MENA USD’s fairly large allocation to each of its top-10 holdings suggests a more high-conviction approach vis-à-vis the Amundi Oasis MENA Fund SGD.

EMERGING EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA EQUITY FUNDS

With Nigeria being one of the larger investable frontier markets at present, it is worth mentioning the “Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa” equity funds on our platform. We have previously highlighted the Fidelity EmEur MidEast & Africa A USD in “Idea of the Week: 3 Recommended Funds You Haven’t Heard Of Yet [13 July 2012]”, highlighting the use of the fund alongside a Latin America equity fund for allocation to global emerging markets, to avoid over-concentration in Asia ex-Japan. As of 31 July 2012, we note that the fund held 7.3% of its assets in Nigeria (along with 1.7% in another frontier market, Kenya). Its peer, the JPM EmEu MEast & Africa SGD A Acc, held 3.6% of its assets in Nigeria, with a further 2.2% and 2.1% in Kazakhstan and Qatar respectively.

LIONGLOBAL VIETNAM FUND

Within Asia, Vietnam is one frontier market which is gradually opening up its doors to overseas investors. On the platform, the LionGlobal Vietnam SGD provides exposure to Vietnam stocks, and is benchmarked against the FTSE Vietnam Index. While the fund has generally not fared well since its inception in February 2007, the fund has still delivered outperformance against its benchmark, highlighting the positive impact of an actively-managed strategy (the fund manager has the option to invest in companies listed outside of Vietnam, but which derive part of their revenue from Vietnam and the Indo-China region). 

While the fund has the dubious honour of being one of the worst-performing funds on the platform (over a 5-year period), this may be attributed to the excessive valuations of the Vietnam equity market previously (see Chart 1). Valuations have since receded, and the market currently trades at 9.9X 2012 earnings (as of 14 September 2012), a far cry from the 30 – 40x PEs seen in 2007, suggesting that the market is a far more interesting investment proposition currently.  

CHART 1: VIETNAM EQUITY VALUATIONS

Full article here: FSM

How Many iPhones Must Apple Sell to Keep the Street Happy?

That's alot of iPhones if you ask me... 

Full article here: CNBC

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images Apple's iPhone 5

Apple needs to sell about six million iPhone 5 units by the end of this weekend to ease investors' concern about supply constraints, said Peter Misek, Jefferies managing director and senior technology analyst, Tuesday.

"If they do anything greater than six million, it will be a huge positive," Misek said on CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

Wall Street has been concerned that there are still "significant supply constraints," that would limit Apple [AAPL  701.91    2.129  (+0.3%)   ] to only being able to produce about five to six million of the new phones before the end of the month, he added.

"So if we get a six million unit number, that will really lay a lot of those concerns," Misek said. He expects the tech giant to sell about eight million iPhone 5 units, including pre-orders, by the end of the first weekend.

Tavis McCourt, an analyst for Raymond James, also said he expects Apple to sell about 8 million iPhones during the time period leading up to the last day of Apple's fourth quarter, which is Sept. 29.

The iPhone maker announced Monday that it already had two million pre-orders for the iPhone 5 during the first 24 hours it was available online.

Apple's stock reached $700 a share for the first time in after-hours trading Monday and the stock closed at a record high of $701.91 Tuesday. But the stock could still go higher, analysts said.

IEV

Have you sold yours? 

http://dimitric-trading.blogspot.sg/2012/08/iev-holdings-ltd.html

Watch out for 2689.HK!

We opened a position on this and will cover it soon! Watch out for this space!

Idea Of The Week: Why “Buy Low Sell High” Is So Difficult

This is a very good article talking about buy low, sell high. Many times we are driven more by our emotions than our judgement and how can we control that? 

Full article here: Fundsupermart

Emotions can hinder good decision making, especially when financial markets are turbulent

Having talked about some common investment pitfalls last week (see Idea of the Week: 3 Investment Pitfalls to Avoid [31 August 2012]), we further describe how emotions can hinder good decision making for investors, especially during periods of market turbulence.

BUY LOW, SELL HIGH

CHART 1: MUTUAL FUND FLOWS AND STOCK MARKET PERFORMANCE

Investors who follow the simple mantra of “buy low, sell high” are unlikely to fare too poorly in their investments. Nevertheless, many investors fail to adhere to this simple piece of advice, and often end up doing the opposite – selling low and buying high. As shown in Chart 1, investors have tended to do more buying when markets are high (with strong net inflows observed), while they do a lot more selling when markets tank (note the strong outflows from equity funds in 2002 and 2008). A key reason for this is that most investors tend to succumb to their emotions instead of making rational investment decisions. While investments are made on a forward-looking basis (eg. How much profits will this company earn next year, and the year after?), emotions depend very much on the status quo as investors become influenced by what they read and hear about in the news, which runs counter to logical investment decisions.

SENTIMENT AND MARKETS

CHART 2: INVESTOR SENTIMENT AND STOCK MARKET PERFORMANCE

Highlighting this high correlation between investor sentiment and stock market performance is Chart 2, which shows the “bulls minus bears” percentage of the AAII (American Association of Individual Investors) weekly survey compared against the S&P 500, a gauge of US equity market performance. A positive reading on the gauge is indicative of more bullish respondents, while a negative reading indicates that there were more bearish respondents in the survey. Historically, even as investors have generally been more bullish than bearish, they have tended to demonstrate high levels of negativity when markets were particularly weak, like in 2002 and 2008, which correlates with higher net outflows from equity funds over the same period.

AVOID THE HERD, FOCUS ON RATIONAL INVESTING

More often than not, being successful at “buy-low, sell-high” investing will require you to deviate from the crowd, and make “contrarian” investment decisions. While this can certainly be unsettling (especially when everything you read runs counter to your own investment decision), it can be an extremely rewarding experience. Articles like “Equity Markets at a Bargain, 13 Upgrades to Our Star Ratings! [29 Oct 2008]”, “The Singapore Market Is Nearing A Bottom [20 Oct 2008]” and “Panic Selling, Panic Buying? [15 Oct 2008]” which we wrote in the depths of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis to highlight the attractive nature of equity markets were received poorly by investors who were undoubtedly feeling rather bearish at the time. However, investors who took a more rational approach and considered the bombed-out valuations of global stock markets were well-rewarded in due course. By recognising that listening to your emotions when investing can be an innate weakness, you are taking an important step towards a more successful investment experience.

What's Most Impressive About the New Apple iPhone

It's finally coming ... and are we going to expect Apple to hit the $1000 mark soon? 

Full article here: CNBC

It's not the new and improved features of the iPhone 5 that got the most attention from Wall Street analysts Wednesday, but rather the mass global rollout of the new device and the speed of that availability around the world.

Source: Apple iPhone 5

By the end of the year, the phone will be available in 100 countries through 240 carriers, according to analysts. And there’s hope for an official China launch soon as well. (Read more:iPhone 5 Reactions: The Buzz on Twitter)

“In particular, the velocity at which Apple[AAPL  669.79    9.20  (+1.39%)   ] will distribute the product globally was a positive surprise to us,” said ISI Group’s Brian Marshall, in a note to clients he wrote shortly after leaving the much-anticipated introduction of the product in San Francisco.

Shares of Apple closed on their highs of the day as analyst commentary highlighting the global nature of the phone hit investors’ desks.

“Overall the iPhone 5 announcement was in-line with previews, though we think the phone is launching at more carriers and sooner than many investors expected,” wrote Peter Misek, an analyst with Jefferies. “We believe the launch schedule implies that supply constraints are not as bad as some feared.”

Apple Inc (AAPL) 669.79     9.20  (+1.39%%) NASDAQ

Customers can pre-order the phone, which is thinner and longer than its predecessors, as early as this Friday in the U.S., as well as many other countries, the company said in a release. It will be available in stores on Sept. 21. More availability in more countries will follow in coming months.

The iPhone 5 is “the largest consumer product launch in history,” said Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray. “We are raising our September iPhone estimates from 22 million to 27.2 million units given the confirmation of the iPhone 5 launch on September 21.”

Wall Street Hopes for Romney, but Expects Obama to Win

Full article here: CNBC

Wall Street appears to be planning for a victory by President Obama but hoping for one by Mitt Romney.

Getty Images Barack Obama and Mitt Romney

In an unscientific poll, 46 percent of respondents to the September CNBC Fed Survey said they expect President Obama to win reelection.

Only 24 percent believe Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney will get the job. But asked who they preferred, 53 percent of respondents picked Romney and just 18 percent chose Obama. For both categories, a third said they didn't know or were unsure.

(Read More: Author Michael Lewis' Six Months With President Obama.)

"Like Europe, when it comes to our biggest needs we have tended to kick the can down the road," said Robert Brusque of Fact and Opinion Economics, who favors Romney. "We need someone to kick us in the can to get us going in the right direction on a different road."

The survey is used primarily to gauge both sentiment for future actions by theFederal Reserve and the outlook for economy and markets. It had 58 respondents, including top money managers, strategists and economists.

Noble..

As we mentioned this earlier this week, we were looking at this stock with some potential of uptrend. 

Not in it yet but worth keeping it in your watchlist and wait for clearer signs to come out. 

Company name: Noble Group Ltd

Company code: NOBG.SI

About:  Noble Group Limited (Noble) is an investment holding company, engaged in managing the global supply chain of agricultural, industrial and energy products; ship ownership, chartering and the provision of technical ship management services; trade finance; coal mining, soybean and sugar cane crushing activities and ethanol production. Noble operates in three segments: Agriculture, Energy, and Metals, Minerals and Ores. On December 21, 2011, it acquired a 51% interest in Blackwood Corporation Limited. On June 11, 2012, the Company incorporated Noble Chartering Marshall Islands Limited. On June 14, 2012, the Company’s wholly owned subsidiary, Noble Jade B.V., acquired 90.74% interest in Karakubske Khlibopryimalne Pidpryemstvo LLC. In August 2012, its wholly owned subsidiaries, Temmar Netherlands B.V. and Noble Netherlands B.V., sold 100% interest in Temmar - Terminal Maritimo Do Maranhao S.A. to Terminal Quimico de Aratu S.A. - Tequimar, which is controlled by Ultrapar Participacoes S.A.

Looking at recent movements, there was a small gap up from $1.19 to $1.21 from Thursday to Friday and closed above its 20MA. The 50MA and 100MA has also touched but not showing any clear indication whether it will be an uptrend or resistance point yet. Noting that the Stochastics and MACD seems to be picking up but it is still unclear whether we are expecting a consolidation here or break out. Next week would probably be good to monitor this as Noble has been fluctuating along this price range and $1.27 to $1.29 would be the next potential resistance point since it retracted from there for the past 2 weeks. 

Your thoughts? 

Apple Cuts Chip Order to Samsung for New iPhone

Apple has reduced its orders for memory chips for its new iPhone from its main supplier and competitor Samsung Electronics, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday.

Getty Images

South Korea's Samsung is a core Apple [AAPL 680.44    4.17  (+0.62%)   ]supplier, producing micro processors, flat screens and memory chips — both dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips and NAND memory chips — for the iPhone, iPad and iPod.

Apple has been cutting back its orders from Samsung as it seeks to diversify its memory chip supply lines, although the South Korean firm remains on the list of initial suppliers for the new iPhone, the source told Reuters. The person declined to be named because the negotiations are confidential.

The Korea Economic Daily, citing an unnamed industry source, reported on Friday that Apple had dropped Samsung from the list of memory chip suppliers for the first batch of the new iPhone, the iPhone 5, which is widely expected to be unveiled next Wednesday. The report said Apple instead picked Japan'sToshiba, Elpida Memory and Korea's SK Hynix to supply DRAM and NAND chips.

Full article here: Apple Cuts Chip Order to Samsung for New iPhone

When we were young..

One of the most popular board games that we have played during our childhood is Monopoly, where it teaches you that building hotels will give you the best returns when someone goes in. Just that we didn't really appreciate it much until later stages in our lives.. 

Full article here: As Singapore Reinvents Itself, Hoteliers Reap Windfall

Even as Singapore’s trade-dependent economy faces risks in the wake of a global slowdown, one sector in this Southeast Asian island state stays upbeat.

Roslan Rahman | AFP | Getty Images Marina Bay Sands

In this year’s Forbes rich list for Singapore released in July, 10 of the 40 wealthiest individuals were either hoteliers or property tycoons with a growing stake in the hospitality business – an indicator of the robustness of the industry.

The owner of budget chain, Hotel 81, Choo Chong Ngen made his debut on the list at No. 25 with a net worth of $690 million. Snapping at his heels at spot 26 was another newcomer Michael Kum with a net worth of $670 million. His M&L Hospitality Trust has many hotels in its portfolio.

The largest listing in the city state’s otherwise lackluster market for new issuances was also from the hospitality sector, with Ascendas Hospitality Trust raising $600 million in July.

The hotel industry has had a great year so far with total room revenues over the first half hitting $1.1 billion, according to the Singapore Tourism Board, a jump of 6.6 percent year on year.

Apple is more valuable than MSCI China Index...

A whole new perspective of a company bigger than the international benchmark eh...

Full article here: Big Apple Dwarfs Entire Regions

Which matters more, next week’s rumored iPhone 5 launch or the European Central Bank rescue plan expected this Thursday? Speculation about an iPad Mini or the worsening economic slowdown in China?

Getty Images

Only a wild-eyed camper queuing all night outside an Apple [AAPL  674.97    9.73  (+1.46%)  ] store could argue the tech company’s plans mattered more to the economy. But in purely financial terms, the market value of Apple makes the question less silly.

Apple became the world’s most valuable-ever company two weeks ago. It is worth $624 billion, more than all the listed companies in Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain together. The employer of 63,300 people – each valued at $10 million – is more valuable than all the shares available to investors in the MSCI China index [MCHI  39.36    -0.39  (-0.98%)   ], the international benchmark.

Apple is not as big as the domestic Chinese market. But the comparison is not silly: it is more than half as big as the free float of A shares, where foreign investment is restricted.

Noble..

Looking at Noble.. Will post some comments on that shortly!

Steve Jobs has ...

Ok this is a paradox on the afterlife of Steve Jobs.. What do you think?  

Full article here:  Thai Group Says Steve Jobs Reincarnated as Warrior-Philosopher

KHLONG LUANG, Thailand – When Apple Inc. founder Steve Jobs died after a long fight with cancer last year, software engineer Tony Tseung sent an email to a Buddhist group in Thailand to find out what happened to his old boss now that he's no longer of this world.

This month, Mr. Tseung received his answer. Mr. Jobs has been reincarnated as a celestial warrior-philosopher, the Dhammakaya group said in a special television broadcast, and he's living in a mystical glass palace hovering above his old office at Apple's Cupertino, California headquarters.

Mr. Jobs's death unleashed a wave of grief across the world when he died last October. From Shanghai to Sydney to New York, admirers of his iconic devices laid flowers and lit candles to mourn his passing. Some commentators described the outpouring as an homage to a kind of secular prophet whose innovations changed the ways millions of people live their lives, strengthening the appeal of a brand which already was approaching cult-like status.

Some of Mr. Jobs's admirers in Malaysia later gathered on a tropical island and in a religious ceremony each took a bite from an apple before flinging the fruit into the sea in a bid to speed up his reincarnation.

Now, Phra Chaibul Dhammajayo, abbot at the Dhammakaya Temple here just north of Bangkok, claims Mr. Jobs has already been reborn.

"After Steve Jobs passed away, he was reincarnated as a divine being with a special knowledge and appreciation for science and the arts," the Dhammakaya leader said in the first of a series of sermons beamed to hundreds of thousands of the group's followers around the world.

Our positions so far...

Here is just a review of our positions so far from Aug:

Singapore positions:
YangZiJiang: B@$1.03, S@$1.005 (down 2.42%)
IEV: B@$0.565, S@$0.5575 (down 1.32%)
CNMC: B@$0.345, C@$0.365 (up 5.79%)
Wilmar: B@$3.18, C@$3.15 (down 0.94%) *note that during this period when the buy call was made, there was a dividend of $0.02c!
Genting: B@$1.345, C@$1.36 (up 1.12%)

Hong Kong positions:
2689.HK: B@HK$3.69, S@HK$4.00 (up 8.4%)

Not too bad, noting the fact that markets were turning slightly sour for the past two weeks. We are currently looking at the Hong kong market as it looks to have much more potential than Singapore market so watch out for this space!

Equities still rules?

To be honest, Equities would be the most easiest product that everyone could buy isn't it? There was quite a few articles previously that analysts were all talking about being bullish on Equities and here's another view.

Full article here: Why We Remain Bullish On Equities

Equity markets have had a fairly volatile year, with most markets recording strong gains at the start of the year before giving up gains in a poor 2Q 12 as Eurozone concerns were reignited. Nevertheless, most markets under our coverage remain in positive territory in 2012 so far, with a few (like technology stocks and Singapore equities) having delivered stellar returns on a year-to-date basis. Given that equity markets have fared relatively well over the past month, some investors may be wondering if it is now time to take some money off the table, while others are wondering if it is alright to get back in now. We attempt to address some of these concerns in this piece which reiterates our positive view on equities, and offers our take on specific equity markets.

1. BONDS HAVE DONE FAIRLY WELL IN 2012 SO FAR, WHY OVERWEIGHT EQUITIES?

While we continue to encourage investors to hold both fixed income and equity funds in their portfolios in a proportion commensurate with their investment objective and risk appetite, we still maintain a strong preference for equities vis-à-vis fixed income for several reasons. First, we believe that from a returns perspective, equity markets are likely to deliver far superior long-term returns compared to bonds, aided by a re-rating of PE multiples (from their current depressed levels), alongside decent levels of earnings growth. In contrast, yields on most bond segments remain near historical lows, representative of poor long-term returns for bond holders.

CHART 1: LONG-TERM DECLINE IN YIELDS BOOSTED PERFORMANCE

Also, we caution that investors should not look to historical returns for fixed income segments to project investment returns going forward. Historically, the strong (even “equity-like”) returns for many fixed income segments has largely been driven by the long-term decline in interest rates to current levels; this has aided in the performance for bonds on the whole (see Chart 1). However, from current yield levels, there does not appear to be much more room for yields to decline, which warrants a more cautious approach to investing in the fixed income space. To guard against potential increases in interest rates in the future, investors may wish to consider lower risk short-duration bond funds like the United SGD Fund Cl A or Nikko AM Shenton ShortTerm Bond(S$). We also favour high yield and emerging market bonds which are less sensitive to interest rate changes due to their fairly high coupon rates.

Apple is all out to get Samsung...

It's not over until Apple stops..

Full article here: Apple Targets More Samsung Products in Patent Suit

Bloomberg|Getty Images The new Galaxy S III smartphone.

Seeking to capitalize on a major legal victory over its rival Samsung Electronics, Apple has asked a federal court in a separate case to find that four additional Samsung products, including the Galaxy S III, infringe Apple's patents.

In February, Apple alleged that at least 17 Samsung products infringe its patents. In a court filing made in San Jose federal court on Friday, Apple [AAPL  665.24    1.372  (+0.21%)   ]added four more products to the list of allegedly infringing products that have been released beginning in August 2011 and continuing through this month.

Apple won a major victory over Samsung last Friday in a separate case when a jury found that the South Korean company had copied critical features of the hugely popular iPhone and iPad and awarded the U.S. company $1.05 billion in damages.

Samsung representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case is U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Ltd, et al 12-00630.

Bernanke at Jackson Hole: No More Easing, For Now

The markets didn't move up on a big gap, but didn't respond too badly to what ben has to offer..

Full article here: Bernanke at Jackson Hole: No More Easing, For Now 

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered a mostly somber message on growth Friday, but offered no further central bank action to stimulate the moribund economy.

CNBC Ben Bernanke in Jackson Hole on August 31, 2012.

In his much anticipated speech from the central bank summit in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Bernanke reiterated his position that the Fed's Open Markets Committee stands at the ready to provide help but is not yet unleashing additional stimulus.

As Bernanke's remarks were reported on CNBC, the stock market initially ceded most of its gains but then bounced back on speculation that Bernanke may be building the case for more easing further down the road.

Bill Gross, head of bond giant Pimco, said on Twitter that the remarks make more stimulus "a near certainty" though "increasingly impotent."

Further Fed action is viewed with wariness in Washington as legislators worry about the potential inflationary effects from central bank money printing. But Bernanke contended that the risks are "manageable."

"The hurdle for using nontraditional policies should be higher than for traditional policies," he said. "At the same time, the costs of nontraditional policies, when considered carefully, appear manageable, implying that we should not rule out the further use of such policies if economic conditions warrant."