What Investors Can Learn From the Recent Celebrity Outbursts

by Marc Lichtenfeld, Advisory Panelist

There seems to be a breakdown in decorum lately. A few very public examples:

Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) yells out, “You lie!” at President Barack Obama while he’s addressing Congress about his healthcare reform plan. Tennis star Serena Williams threatens to shove a “bleeping” ball down the “bleeping” throat of a tennis official when a call went against her. Rapper Kanye West rips the microphone out of a 19-year-old award winner’s hands and proceeds to tell the audience that someone else was more deserving.

Moronic behavior, for sure. And of course, all three have issued apologies. But if you believe that there’s no such thing as negative press, all three have grabbed some free publicity. Wilson received over $1 million in campaign contributions after his outburst.

But what do these situations have

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /br /pa href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SlmdGD2bh-I/AAAAAAAAOoo/P8vnyB3RTno/s1600-h/bulgaria+population.png"img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 258px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357485959172294626" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SlmdGD2bh-I/AAAAAAAAOoo/P8vnyB3RTno/s400/bulgaria+population.png" //abr /br /br /The International Monetary Fund this week forecast the recession in Bulgaria would be deeper than it previously predicted. Such a decision should come as no surprise to anyone, since the country's economic dynamics in both the short and long term look extremely unstable, and Bulgaria is now almost certainly headed towards a series of more or less hair-raising roller-coaster rides. Even the briefest of glances at the population chart above should lead even the most sceptical among us to stop and think a little about the possible economic implications of such an appauling demographic outlook. As can be seen, the opening to the west brought a sharp outflow of people in the late 1980s (mainly ethnic Turks), but the important thing ...

In the energy market on Thursday, oil was higher, with crude for May delivery closing at $49.98/barrel, up 73 cents. May reformulated gasoline rose 2.75 cents, to $1.4743/gallon.

“Crude is following stocks again,” said Phil Flynn, of Alaron Trading. “This market is more choppy than chopped salad. It is so indecisive.”

While traders pondered slivers of hope out of the U.S., and Chinese numbers that, while down, were still well into positive territory, reports out of the eurozone left a great deal to be desired.

Industrial production across the 16-nation zone plunged in February, falling off 2.3% from January, according to statistics agency Eurostat. Worse, year over year production was down 18.4%. That marked the biggest annual drop since record-keeping began in 1990.

“This suggests that even our pessimistic 2009 GDP forecast of [a 4% contraction], while still miles away from the consensus, looks increasingly optimistic,” said Daniele Antonucci, European economist at

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /br /blockquote"Most other countries in the region are faring much better, though....Like Slovenia, which joined two years ago, Slovakia can enjoy the full protection of rich Europe’s currency union, rather than just the indirect benefit of being due to join it some day."br /The Economistbr /br /“Saying that the situation is the same for all central and eastern European states, I don’t see that……you cannot compare the dire situation in Hungary with that of other countries.”br /Angela Merkelbr /br /“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”br /Tolstoy/blockquotebr /br /With Slovakia going to the polls today to elect a new president, I thought this might be a good moment to examine how the two East European economies which have recently enetered the eurozone are getting on in the current crisis. None too well, would be my tentative reply.br /br ...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /br /blockquote"Most other countries in the region are faring much better, though....Like Slovenia, which joined two years ago, Slovakia can enjoy the full protection of rich Europe’s currency union, rather than just the indirect benefit of being due to join it some day."br /The Economistbr /br /“Saying that the situation is the same for all central and eastern European states, I don’t see that……you cannot compare the dire situation in Hungary with that of other countries.”br /Angela Merkelbr /br /“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”br /Tolstoy/blockquotebr /br /With Slovakia going to the polls today to elect a new president, I thought this might be a good moment to examine how the two East European economies which have recently enetered the eurozone are getting on in the current crisis. None too well, would be my tentative reply.br /br ...

The People’s Bank of China continued nipping away at its one-year lending rate, cutting off 0.27 percentage points to 5.31%, its fifth rate cut in three months.

China also lowered its deposit rate by the same amount and reduced the proportion of deposits lenders have to hold as reserves by 0.5 percentage points to 15.5%, Bloomberg reported. All rate cuts will take effect Tuesday.

China’s slow burn of its interest rates is a calculated response to falling numbers across its board: gross domestic product could fall as low as 5% next year, way down from the 11.7% growth in 2007; exports fell for the first time in seven years last month; imports and manufacturing numbers also fell.

Unemployment figures are getting ugly, too. So far, the global financial crisis has taken 4 million city jobs from migrant workers and pushed urban unemployment up to 9.4%, the Chinese Academy

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The People’s Bank of China continued nipping away at its one-year lending rate, cutting off 0.27 percentage points to 5.31%, its fifth rate cut in three months. China also lowered its deposit rate by the same amount and reduced the proportion of deposits lenders have to hold as reserves by 0.5 percentage points to 15.5%, Bloomberg reported. All rate cuts will take effect Tuesday. China’s slow burn of its interest rates is a calculated response to falling numbers across its board: gross domestic product could fall as low as 5% next year, way down from the 11.7% growth in 2007; exports fell for the first time in seven years last month; imports and manufacturing numbers also fell. Sign up below… and we’ll send you a new ...

With an estimated $4 trillion daily, forex trading dwarfs other markets in terms of volume. And stock market chaos is driving more investors to the currency markets. Frank Hemsley says forex trends are prone to overshoot. That means the British pound could fall much further against the US dollar in the coming months. It may be a bold call, but Frank says pound-dollar parity by the end of the year is a real possibility.

This from Fleet Street Daily:

Investors tend to fixate on the stock market as a way to make money. When stock markets are in chaos, they see no way out. I’m surprised that so few investors pay attention to the currency markets. After all, in terms of volume and value, the Forex dwarfs the equity markets. But I get the feeling that’s going to change.

Currency stories are all over the financial pages at the moment — and investors

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I've been talking recently about how the credit crunch may slow project development in both energy and gold. Here are two examples ...Credit Crisis May Block, Delay 20% of Deepwater Rigs, Slow Petrobras Boom As many as 20 of the 100 deepwater oil rigs on order worldwide may be delayed or canceled as loan availability erodes, possibly slowing developments including the biggest petroleum discovery in the Americas in three decades.AngloGold, Gold Fields, Harmony May Spend Less as The Metal's Price Falls AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., Gold Fields Ltd., and Harmony Gold Mining Co., Africa's biggest gold producers, may review spending plans after metal prices tumbled and credit availability tightened. And here are some more stories of interest ...Gold Rises as Equities Pare Losses, U.S. Dollar's Rally Stalls Versus Yen Gold rose in Asia, erasing earlier losses, as equities pared losses and the dollar's rally against ...