“Money will always flow toward opportunity, and there is an abundance of that in America,” Buffett wrote in his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders

Guggenheim’s Scott Minerd has released a somewhat controversial piece looking at several steps forward in case the MENA crisis escalates to the point where dominoes start toppling each other. His conclusion: “After all these dominoes fall, global investors will likely find themselves in a world that looks like this: the Middle East is highly unstable, emerging market economies are slowing, and the crisis in Europe has been exasperated by shrinking exports, leading to a decline in the value of the euro. Against this landscape, the U.S. economy and dollar-denominated financial assets will look increasingly attractive on a relative value basis.

http://www.moneytalks.net/pdfs/MB282011.pdf

In this issue

• While you were sleeping: risk premia on the rise; U.S. dollar broke the support to the downside, Asian markets enjoying a bounce from oversold levels

• Random thoughts

• Downward revisions: we are starting to see downward revisions to the data

• Confidence … really? University of Michigan consumer sentiment data surprised to the upside

• It’s not just energy: the grocery bill is also ratcheting higher

• Deflation in U.S. housing a reality for some time to come

• Invoking Bob Farrell’s rule #5

• Critical events calendar 

Please read on HERE

Earlier this month, J.P. Morgan made an important announcement that received scant coverage in the media: the bank would now accept gold as collateral for loans. The move appears to have been well-timed, for in the ensuing weeks, the price of gold and silver climbed steeply, based largely on political turmoil in the Middle East. But why should Morgan’s decision be of interest to anyone outside the bank?