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

• Gillian Tett (Financial Times): Rally fuelled by cheap money brings a sense of foreboding, October 22, 2009. It is crystal clear that the longer that money remains ultra cheap, the more traders will have an incentive to gamble (particularly if they privately suspect that today’s boom will be short-lived and want to score big over the next year). Somehow all this feels horribly familiar; I just hope that my sense of foreboding turns out to be wrong.

• Doug Kass (TheStreet.com): The earnings season racket, October 21, 2009. If end demand doesn’t pick up (and pick up quickly), the 2010 earnings outlook for many industries (such as semiconductors and other beneficiaries of restocking) will be in jeopardy, as

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Asian economies are recovering faster than previously thought and will lead the charge out of the worst global downturn since the 1930s, according to new forecasts by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) – a Manila-based institution that promotes economic and social progress in the Asia-Pacific region.

After slashing its forecast for the region in March, the ADB reversed course in its updated Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2009. The bank said developing economies in Asia would grow by 3.9% this year, up from its previous forecast of 3.4%.

“Despite worsening conditions in the global economic environment, developing Asia is poised to lead the recovery from the worldwide slowdown,” said ADB Chief Economist Jong-Wha Lee.

However, the growth will not be evenly distributed. Economic growth in East Asia will be driven largely by China’s dynamic economy. But economic growth in Southeast Asia will be sluggish, because the recoveries of Vietnam and

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Here are two bits of  business news that investors should factor into economic recovery projections.

Hindustan Times (September 2, 200) Exports dip again, down 28.4% in July

India’s exports contracted for the 10th successive month, plunging by 28.4 per cent in July as order books continued to dry out from two of the biggest growth regions—the US and the European Union (EU)—which are still in the throes of a recession, reports

China Daily (August 31, 2009) Industrial enterprises in 22 Chinese provinces, regions and municipalities generated 1.11 trillion yuan ($163 billion) of profit in the first seven months, down 17.3 percent from the same period last year, according to the latest official figures.

The decline is 3.8 percentage points lower than that in the first six months, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement Friday.

Daily charts shown below use 1 month (21 day), 1 quarter (63 day), 6 month (126

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Brazil’s largest iron ore miner Vale S.A. (VALE) recently announced plans of resuming its Canadian Sudbury operations with temporary employees. On July 13, about 3,100 employees out of the 5,000 at the company’s Sudbury plant had gone on strike. Another 120 workers at its Port Colborne refinery and 450 at Voisey’s Bay in Newfoundland had also joined the strike.

Vale has decided to stop negotiating with Chinese steelmakers on prices of iron ore. It now plans to offer provisional prices on ore shipments, whenever there is one.

China imported huge volumes of iron ore to build inventories at attractive prices. According to Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics, China bought 58.1million tons of iron ore, up 32% from a year ago. Due to higher inventories in China, Brazil experienced a 6% drop in iron ore export in July compared to the previous year. The situation can even hurt prices

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Understanding that high-speed rail (HSR) could provide millions of Americans with a cleaner, more efficient way to travel, President Barack Obama allocated $13 billion to its development over the next five years as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) passed in February.

But Obama’s high-speed rail initiative has gotten off to a sluggish start, while a much bigger, $300 billion plan to create the world’s largest and most sophisticated high-speed rail network is already rapidly unfolding in China.

“Railroads were always the pride of America, and stitched us together. Now Japan, China, all of Europe have high-speed rail systems that put ours to shame,” Obama said in April.

In a proposal called “A  Vision  for  High-Speed  Rail  in  America” Obama and the Federal Railroad Administration outlined a plan to develop 10 “potential” 100-600 mile corridors in the United States, “similar to how interstate

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How do you say bubble in Mandarin?

Chinese property sales are up over 60% so far this year, the nation’s National Bureau of Statistics proclaimed yesterday. That puts the housing bubble here to shame. We’ve heard a bunch of nosebleed data points come outta there in the last few weeks… check these out:

New loan issuance has tripled in the first half of 2009, to $1.1 trillion. That’s more than half of the entire Chinese GDP over the same period. 95% of those loans went to state-owned enterprises or provincial entities The Shanghai Composite is up 79% year to date, the best major market performance in the world Stocks on the Shanghai Composite trade for 35.4 times earnings, double that of the MSCI Emerging Markets index M2 money supply rose over 28.5% in the first half of the year The seven largest bond sales in the world this year were domestic transactions in China.

Damn near everything is

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China’s economy grew by 7.9% in the second quarter, exceeding most analysts’ expectations, and lending credence to Beijing’s goal of 8% annual growth. Now, with the nation awash in liquidity and the economy picking up steam, the only task ahead of the central government is deciding when to rein in lending and let the economy stand on its own two feet.

The momentum behind China’s economy is staggering.

“China is increasingly becoming a responsible citizen in the global community,” economist Allen Sinai of Decision Economics told The Associated Press. “No longer lawless, no longer difficult to deal with, much more responsible. It is now a powerhouse among economies and finance. And it’s a rich country.”

In just the past few weeks, two of the world’s key global institutions – the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – and a large swath of investment banks raised their 2009

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According to figures released by China's National Bureau of Statistics, China's retail sales in the first half of 2009 reached about CNY5.871 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 15%. The bureau stated that the growth rate was 3.7 percentage points higher than the same period of last year. By region, the retail sales in China's urban areas were [...]

According to statistics jointly published by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics and the National Bureau of Statistics, Beijing's consumer market maintained a stable growth in May 2009 and realized retail sales of CNY43.63 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14.7%. By industry, Beijing's wholesale and retail industries realized sales of CNY39.44 billion, an increase of 14.5% [...]

American markets at a standstill… can the Far East drive stocks forward? … Chris Mayer on buying “what China needs, but can’t make for itself” … Dan Denning’s pair trade for the next decade … Bill Bonner and Goldman Sach’s CEO on the current “bull market” … Plus, a CEO pay debate fills our inbox… your letters and our response, below…

The Dow crashed 1.4 points yesterday, wiping out Monday’s 1.3 point moonshot. Desperate for something beyond these 0.014% “swings,” the market’s putting China in the driver’s seat today… and these guys still have quite a lead foot:

Chinese auto sales soared 34% in May, year over year. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the Red Nation scooped up 1.12 million vehicles last month, outpacing any nation in the world. Consider the course of the last 12 months,

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