By Jason Simpkins Managing Editor Money Morning

Concerned with accelerating inflows of so-called “hot money,” more emerging market nations are considering new capital controls to keep their currencies from appreciating and prevent asset bubbles from becoming a problem.

Loose monetary policy in the United States and Europe has flooded fast-growing Asian economies where Western investors are seeking higher yields. India, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Indonesia are among the regions investigating options to combat the rapid inflows of foreign capital that are driving up stock prices, and threatening their export sectors by forcing their currencies to appreciate.

“With interest rates exceptionally low and with abundant liquidity around the world, Hong Kong faces the potential risk next year that asset prices may go up sharply and become increasingly disconnected from economic fundamentals,” the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said on its Web site.

Hong Kong attracted a record $73 billion (HK$567.5

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This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Telegraph): Is $6,300 fair value for gold? November 19, 2009. The last parabolic spike in gold took off when central banks joined the fray in the 1970s, hoarding bullion with the same enthusiasm as gold bugs. Dylan Grice from Société Générale says it smells much the same today. He sees an eerie similarity between the decision of India’s central bank to buy half the IMF’s entire sale of gold, and the move by France’s central bank to start converting dollars into gold in 1965.

• Gregory Zuckerman (The Wall Street Journal): John Paulson making big new bet on gold, November 19, 2009. John Paulson, who scored about $20 billion of profits between 2007 and early

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Don Miller, Associate Editor of Money Morning, reviews the process and implications of the Fed’s possible plan for raising intereste rates without actually raising the rate itself.

Don Miller (Money Morning): The U.S. Federal Reserve may take an unorthodox approach to raising interest rates by paying interest on bank reserves rather than relying on traditional open market remedies, as it exits from its long-term fiscal stimulus programs, Reuters reported today (Tuesday).

Paying interest on reserves is mostly untested and would represent an unexpected twist in the Fed’s response to the financial meltdown.

“In the old days … the Fed controlled the federal funds rate with open market operations,” Antulio Bomfim, a former Fed economist now with Macroeconomic Advisors LLC in Washington told Reuters. “Now, at least in this period when reserves are over-abundant, the way the Fed hopes to raise the federal funds rate will be primarily by raising

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This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• OUPblog: Oxford Word of the Year 2009: Unfriend, November 16, 2009. Every year the New Oxford American Dictionary prepares for the holidays by making its biggest announcement of the year.  This announcement is usually applauded by some and derided by others and the ongoing conversation it sparks is always a lot of fun, so I encourage you to let us know what you think in the comments.

Without further ado, the 2009 Word of the Year is: “unfriend”. “Unfriend” - verb - to remove someone as a “friend” on a social networking site such as Facebook.

• Martin Wolf (Financial Times): Grim truths Obama should have told Hu, November 17, 2009. Obama

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The November edition of Donald Coxe’s Basic Points research report (subtitled “The Power of Zero”) has just been published. His investment recommendations, as summarized in this document, are listed in the paragraphs below, but I do recommend you also read the full report at the bottom of the post. (Also note that Donald’s weekly webcasts can be accessed from the sidebar of the Investment Postcards site.)

1. Remain underweighted in US equities-as a percentage of total equities within global portfolios, and as a percentage of assets in US balanced portfolios. Underweight US bonds in global portfolios.

The Obama long-term financial projections for the US are high risk and unsustainable. Forthcoming elections-or a currency crisis-could induce some discipline, but within the OECD, the US should probably no longer be accorded top ranking for bonds and stocks.

2. Within the US market, underweight US economy-related

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I have a trick question for you, especially if you’re interested in emerging markets: Among the four BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — which offers the best stock market performance for American investors? Be careful how you answer, because appearances can be deceiving, especially if you focus strictly on one year. Looking at year-to-date results, for example, it might seem that the answer is Russia. From the close of trading at the end of last year through the closing price this past Friday … FXI, the exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking China’s blue chips, is up 45.87 percent … PIN, representing India’s major stocks, is up 64.16 percent, and … EWZ, the leading Brazil ETF, is up 104.25 percent. But …...

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Jennifer Hughes (Financial Times): Visibility improved but storms may lie ahead, November 13, 2008. The fog is beginning to lift. All year executives, analysts and investors have talked of a “lack of visibility” on the outlook for the economy, earnings and financial markets. By “visibility” they are in essence complaining about the uncertainty that clouds all forecasts all the time, but which we had increasingly managed to ignore during such a steady run of good times. Investors are becoming more confident that the fog is lifting, but that does not necessarily mean there is sunshine waiting just behind it.

• Doug Kass (TheStreet.com): Market ignorance is bliss, November 12, 2009. I do believe with some certainty that the market’s vulnerability

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Why are the prices of so many commodities rising in an economy that seems to remain quite weak?

% change butter35 coffee21.8 cocoa20.2 copper89.1 corn-8.3 cotton38.6 gold32.1 hogs2.7 oats13.4 oil63.2 lead81.9 palladium75.9 platinum61.7 silver59.1 steel-0.9 sugar73.6 tin22.5 wheat-26.6 zinc55.4 average37.4 euro12

The table at the right summarizes the percent change between January 6 and November 11 in the cash prices of 19 commodities reported in the Wall Street Journal (downloaded via Webstract). The average commodity in this list has appreciated 37% since the start of the year.

A recent paper by Ke Tang and Wei Xiong documents an increasing tendency for commodity prices to move together over the last few years. A decade ago, what happened to oil prices was largely unrelated to movements in most other commodity prices. The graphs below show how the correlations between oil prices and

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Ever come across something so brilliant you wish you had thought of it yourself? Well that's what Seth Hettena has just put together, via sourcing from Vedomosti: an aggregation of the preferred timepieces worn by high-level Russian officialdom as a possible proxy for corruption. There are several questions raised from this little survey, not the least of which is: to those of you contending that Igor Sechin is the real master string-puller, I ask you, have you considered Moscow's Deputy Mayor Vladimir Resin? More importantly, could any of these men hold it together under the mind-bending microscope of Vesper Lynd?

A partial list of who prefers which wristwatch:

Vladimir Putin: Blancpain, Leman Aqualung Grande Date, $10,500

Dmitry Medvedev: Breguet, Classique Moon

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The report below comes courtesy of Nouriel Roubini’s team of analysts at RGE, taking a look at some recent monetary policy trends in advanced economies. This content is excerpted from a longer piece, “Global Monetary Policy Review,” which includes in-depth analysis of when the world’s emerging markets might shift interest rate strategy. However, the longer piece is available only on a subscription basis.

Last week was a busy one for the Federal Reserve (Fed), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England (BoE). Policymaking is tricky when different asset classes are sending very different signals about the economy. However, those different signals are themselves a byproduct of policy. In the US, bond markets are discounting a sluggish U-shaped recovery or even a double-dip recession, while risky markets are signaling a strong V-shaped recovery ahead. Which is right? While RGE leans towards the

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