New York Times (April 28)
“California is awash in cash, thanks to a booming market. In a single year, the state’s financial outlook has gone from surplus to deficit to surplus as capital gains tax collections have risen amid a soaring stock market and I.P.O. boom.” At the worst, the state “anticipated a $54 billion shortfall,” but it now expects a $15 billion surplus in the fiscal year that starts July 1.
Tags: Booming, California, Capital-gains, Cash, Deficit, Market, Outlook, Soaring, Stock market, Surplus, Tax collections
Businessweek (December 6)
“With the Nikkei stock average down 76 percent from its 1989 peak and 1.5 quadrillion yen ($18 trillion) in wealth erased when an asset bubble burst, a generation of Japanese investors has grown up convinced that stocks only go down.” They have become too risk averse. There’s a strong “case to be made for Japanese stocks. The country has the lowest taxes on dividends among developed nations and a 10 percent capital-gains tax, which compares well with 15 percent in the U.S. and 28 percent in Britain. Shares of companies in the Topix Index, a broader measure of stocks than the Nikkei, trade for less than the value of their assets.”
Tags: Capital-gains, Investors, Nikkei, Risk aversion, Stocks, Topix
