Cultivate cheerfulness and optimism in order to help make the world a happier place in which to live. Keeping a cheerful disposition and maintaining a calm unworried state of mind amidst adverse happenings will make any individual feel good and do good, as well whether it be in personal or professional life. Optimism on the other hand will make any individual look at things from a brighter point of view.
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“Common Touch” is an intrinsic quality of a successful leader. It is an ability wherein any executive will never give-up.
The elements of “common touch” are:
SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc began testing a same-day delivery service with retailers in recent weeks, the latest move into Amazon.com Inc’s e-commerce turf by the world’s largest Internet search company.
Google Shopping Express helps local retail stores sell products online and have the items delivered to shoppers the same day, according to a person familiar with the test.
Google arranges for third parties, such as couriers, to pick the products up from local stores and deliver the items to shoppers. Neither the stores nor Google handle the deliveries, the person explained on condition of anonymity because the service is still in the early development stage.
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LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) – Just as you learn to put up with a nagging toothache, this week is expected to provide fresh evidence that the U.S. economy is getting used to life on the edge of the fiscal cliff.
Of course, putting off that trip to the dentist is not necessarily wise. The longer Washington delays, the more painful it will become to narrow its gaping budget deficit.
But surveys of U.S. consumer confidence in January and of house builder sentiment in December are likely to show resilience, buttressing the argument of equity bulls that Wall Street’s firm start to the year is more than a relief rally or a desperate search for higher returns on investment.
Bluford Puttnam, chief economist of CME Group, said the U.S. economy had managed to grow almost 2 percent last year and create about 1.8 million jobs despite stagnation in Europe, a slowdown in China and the deadlocked budget talks.
“So I see a lot of momentum going into 2013,” Puttnam said. “If we can get past this fiscal cliff, the economy is poised to have a much more confident year.”
Despite fiscal tightening, he said growth could reach 2.5 percent to 3.0 percent.
Puttnam said the next rounds in the budget battle later this quarter would again be bitterly fought and the resolution would again satisfy no one. But, as with the showdown at the end of 2012, the economy would quickly move on.
“There is a one-in-ten chance that the government may even shut down for a week. It’s just going to be ugly. And then it will be over. There will be some kind of compromise, and by April it will fade quickly into the background,” he said.
THREE GORGES
U.S. retail sales are likely to have increased only 0.2 percent in December, dampened by the budget worries, according to economists polled by Reuters.
But a pair of regional Federal Reserve surveys and the monthly Reuters/University of Michigan consumer poll are projected to improve, while housing starts, new building permits and builders’ confidence should all show that the housing recovery stands on firm foundations.
“That’s what’s really encouraging consumers to feel that the economy is getting better and that the momentum is broadly positive,” said Jerry Webman, chief economist at OppenheimerFunds in New York.
While the phrase fiscal cliff used by U.S. Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke conjured up an image of an immediate plunge at the start of this year, in truth any austerity was always likely to take effect on the economy gradually.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch describes the challenges the United States faces in coming months rather as three fiscal gorges it must leap over.
The government could hit the debt ceiling approved by Congress as early as mid-February; across-the-board spending cuts are due to kick in on March 1; and the ‘continuing resolution’ to fund all discretionary government spending expires on March 27.
Ideally, investors would like Democrats and Republicans to resolve all three issues with an overarching agreement to slash the deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade.
Instead, given the dysfunctional state of politics, Webman said the best that could be hoped for was another short-term fix that cuts spending and ends some tax breaks.
“The U.S. doesn’t move by grand bargains, by big deals. We move by incremental decisions, and I think we’ll make some imperfect but improved decisions over the course of 2013,” he said.
CHINA ON THE MEND, EUROPE EERILY CALM
Encouraging economic news from China, including stronger-than-expected exports and imports in December, has also supported the start-of-year move by financial market investors out of cash and into riskier assets.
Figures on Friday are expected to show that the world’s second-largest economy grew 7.8 percent from a year earlier, rebounding from the 7.4 percent pace of the third quarter and further allaying fears of a hard landing.
“Given some of the bearish commentary on China a few months ago, this should be a relief for markets and it’s good for the world economy,” said Derry Pickford, macro analyst at investment managers Ashburton in London.
Continuing calm in the euro zone has also helped equities, even though full-year German GDP data on Tuesday will serve as a reminder of the area’s economic malaise.
Europe’s largest economy contracted last quarter as factories slashed output in response to weak demand from Germany’s neighbors, the Economy Ministry said on Friday.
At a news conference a day earlier, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said he expected a recovery in euro zone growth later this year. But he ruled out an early end to the ECB’s crisis policy measures and cautioned that risks were still tilted to the downside. Markets shrugged.
In Europe as in the United States, investors seem to have got used to high levels of policy uncertainty, said Ethan Harris, chief U.S. economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
“It appears that the markets will look past brinkmanship moments unless policy makers break new ground,” he said.
In Europe, that might mean not just threatening to eject Greece from the euro zone but actually forcing the exit. In the United States, that might mean not just threatening to violate the debt ceiling but actually doing so, Harris said in a report.
As long as such extreme events do not occur, Harris expects periodic swoons in confidence but no acute crisis.
“This renewed resilience is important because we expect many brinkmanship moments in the months ahead. A now-regular pattern has been established where deals are only struck at the last minute and often under market pressure,” he wrote.
(Editing by Patrick Graham)
NEW YORK |
NEW YORK (Reuters) – After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street.
The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector – big investment banks and commercial banks – just as retail investors, free from the “fiscal cliff” worries, have started to get back into the markets.
Equities have risen in the new year, rallying after the initial resolution of the fiscal cliff in Washington on January 2. The SP 500 on Friday closed its second straight week of gains, leaving it just fractionally off a five-year closing high hit on Thursday.
An array of financial companies – including Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) – will report on Wednesday. Bank of America (BAC.N) and Citigroup (C.N) will join on Thursday.
“The banks have a read on the economy, on the health of consumers, on the health of demand,” said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.
“What we’re looking for is demand. Demand from small business owners, from consumers.”
EARNINGS AND ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS
Investors were greeted with a slightly better-than-anticipated first week of earnings, but expectations were low and just a few companies reported results.
Fourth quarter earnings and revenues for SP 500 companies are both expected to have grown by 1.9 percent in the past quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Few large corporations have reported, with Wells Fargo (WFC.N) the first bank out of the gate on Friday, posting a record profit. The bank, however, made fewer mortgage loans than in the third quarter and its shares were down 0.8 percent for the day.
The KBW bank index .BKX, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, is up about 30 percent from a low hit in June, rising in six of the last eight months, including January.
Investors will continue to watch earnings on Friday, as General Electric (GE.N) will round out the week after Intel’s (INTC.O) report on Thursday.
HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL DATA ON TAP
Next week will also feature the release of a wide range of economic data.
Tuesday will see the release of retail sales numbers and the Empire State manufacturing index, followed by CPI data on Wednesday.
Investors and analysts will also focus on the housing starts numbers and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve factory activity index on Thursday. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers are due on Friday.
Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said he expected to see housing numbers continue to climb.
“They won’t be that surprising if they’re good, they’ll be rather eye-catching if they’re not good,” he said. “The underlying drive of the markets, I think, is economic data. That’s been the catalyst.”
POLITICAL ANXIETY
Worries about the protracted fiscal cliff negotiations drove the markets in the weeks before the ultimate January 2 resolution, but fear of the debt ceiling fight has yet to command investors’ attention to the same extent.
The agreement was likely part of the reason for a rebound in flows to stocks. U.S.-based stock mutual funds gained $7.53 billion after the cliff resolution in the week ending January 9, the most in a week since May 2001, according to Thomson Reuters’ Lipper.
Markets are unlikely to move on debt ceiling news unless prominent lawmakers signal that they are taking a surprising position in the debate.
The deal in Washington to avert the cliff set up another debt battle, which will play out in coming months alongside spending debates. But this alarm has been sounded before.
“The market will turn the corner on it when the debate heats up,” Prudential Financial’s Krosby said.
The CBOE Volatility index .VIX a gauge of traders’ anxiety, is off more than 25 percent so far this month and it recently hit its lowest since June 2007, before the recession began.
“The market doesn’t react to the same news twice. It will have to be more brutal than the fiscal cliff,” Krosby said. “The market has been conditioned that, at the end, they come up with an agreement.”
(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; editing by Rodrigo Campos)
Reuters