Last Week In Review: ETF News And Blog Posts To 7/22/2012

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In case you missed it, here’s a summary of the ETF topics and market reviews I posted to my blog during the week ending on 7/22/2012.

After market strength during the early part of the week, some reality set in as the major indexes sold off sharply on Friday ending the past five trading days with a minor gain.

Europe made front page news as interest rates in Spain (10-year bonds) have now solidly broken the 7% level to the upside and are hovering close to the 7.5% mark. This is a level that is unsustainable and Spain, for all intents and purposes, has now been shut out of the public markets to meet borrowing needs.

Saturday, the news got somewhat worse in that 6 out of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions have now essentially run out of cash and need to borrow from the central government, which in turn needs to borrow from whomever they find willing and able.

Clearly, the markets will have to wake up to the fact that the end of the road may have been reached, at least for Spain, and the dreaded “D” word (as in default) may have just been added to public vocabulary, unless some white knight appears and provides fresh can kicking euros. I’m curious how politicians will now deal with this latest setback.

Over past week, we covered the following:

Pactum Asset Management: Are Agricultural Commodities Overvalued?

New ETFs On The Block: Global X Superincome Preferred ETF (SPFF)

ETF/No Load Fund Tracker Newsletter For Friday, July 20, 2012

Weekly StatSheet For The ETF/No Load Fund Tracker Newsletter – Updated Through 7/19/2012

Upward Momentum Slows But Equities Eke Out A Gain On Tech Earnings; USO Pops, VIXY Drops

The Rally Monkey Feasts On Tech Earnings, Bernanke Testimony; PXQ Soars, GDX Sinks

7 ETF Model Portfolios You Can Use – Updated through 7/17/2012

Domestic Stocks Rise In Choppy Trade On Some Solid Q2 Earnings But No QE; PGJ Sinks

US Equities Leak As Retail Sales Disappoint; CORN Pops

ETFs/Mutual Funds On The Cutline – Updated Through 7/13/2012

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Comments 2

  1. Hi,

    Something I don,t understand, perhaps you can help. In mid-eightties I bought a $20,ooo 10 year note from Treasury Direct at 7.5% interest, plus $80.00 coupon.
    The sky did not fall in, Nobody went in default, I prospered, my employer prospered, uncle Sam prospered. What is magical about 7.5% interest?. Many credit card holders today would be delighted with this interest rate.

    Enjoy your e-mails very much and find them valuable.

    PS. In my opinion the real answer to the “European crisis” is simple. Scrap Euro, give up the silly ambitions of political union (The Holy Roman Empire did not work so well), fire all the Brussels clerks, burn all the regulations and restore the old Custom Union, including border control. That worked.

  2. RW,

    That was a great note at 7.5%. One day, we will those again; the timing of it is just the unknown. I agree with your PS comment, but too many politicians/regulators will need to be laid off, and they will fight tooth and nail to keep their jobs… 🙂

    Ulli…

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