Wall Street Journal (October 3)
“Investors propelled bond yields to multiyear highs Wednesday as robust economic data and an easing of trade tensions across North America sparked fresh optimism about the global growth outlook. Wednesday’s bond rout sent the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note, a closely watched barometer of investors’ sentiment toward growth and inflation, to its highest level since July 2011.”
Tags: Bonds, Economic data, Growth, Highs, Inflation, Investors, Optimism, Sentiment, Trade tensions, Treasuries, U.S., Yields
Reuters (June 7)
“Despite a torrid start to 2018 and with Brexit uncertainties looming large, British blue-chip stocks have jumped to record highs thanks to a weak pound, a torrent of mergers and acquisitions, and bouts of political anxiety in the euro zone.” This is less the result of long-term optimism and more a re-calibration that UK positions had been marked down excessively.
Tags: Anxiety, Blue-chip, Brexit, Euro zone, M&A, Optimism, Record highs, Stocks, Torrid, UK, Uncertainties, Weak pound
Wall Street Journal (January 9)
“The S&P 500 inched higher Monday, extending this year’s run of records. Stocks have begun 2018 on an upbeat note, buoyed by investors’ optimism over the global economy and bets that central banks are unlikely to pressure markets by raising interest rates faster than expected.”
Tags: 2018, Central banks, Economy, Interest rates, Investors, Optimism, Records, S&P 500, Stocks, Upbeat
Wall Street Journal (August 21)
“Investors are running out of reasons to keep buying U.S. stocks, exposing a growing number of warning signs. The historic calm that enveloped U.S. stocks for much of this year has been upended twice in the past two weeks…. It is too soon to call the end of the eight-year bull market, investors, traders and analysts say, but many agree the indiscriminate optimism that characterized the postelection rally is evaporating.”
Tags: Analysts, Bull market, Indiscriminate, Investors, Optimism, Rally, Stocks, Traders, U.S., Warning signs
Bloomberg (November 24)
“Youthful optimism can be hard to find in Japan, where millennials rank as the gloomiest of those in the world’s biggest economies.” Less than 40% of Japan’s millennials are optimistic about the future, “making them the most pessimistic in 18 countries surveyed by ManpowerGroup. They’re even more downbeat than young Greeks, who have suffered Great Depression-like conditions and political upheaval in recent years.”
Tags: Downbeat, Future, Gloomiest, Great Depression, Greeks, Japan, ManpowerGroup, Millennials, Optimism, Pessimistic, Upheaval
Bloomberg (May 2)
“Money managers turned the most bullish since May as West Texas Intermediate crude climbed to a five-month high on optimism that falling U.S. production and rising fuel demand will trim the global glut.” Their optimism may be both short-sighted and short-lived as OPEC just “boosted production by 484,000 barrels a day to 33.217 million in April, the most in monthly data going back to 1989.”
Tags: Bullish, Crude, Demand, Money managers, OPEC, Optimism, Production, U.S., West Texas Intermediate
The Economist (November 28)
We may be witnessing “the rise and fall of the unicorns” as unlisted technology companies begin to learn that valuations don’t always go up. “Technology companies are unlikely to experience a meltdown as severe as the housing crisis, but an industry that only yesterday was all promise and optimism is showing signs of cooling.”
Tags: Housing crisis, Meltdown, Optimism, Technology, Unicorns, Unlisted, Valuations
The Economist (July 12)
“Electronics companies in Japan are starting to turn themselves around, but they are a shadow of their former selves…. After years of denial that surgery was needed, optimism is rising that Japan’s consumer-electronics firms are facing up to their steady loss of global market share.”
Tags: Consumer electronics, Denial, Electronics, Japan, Loss, Market share, Optimism, Surgery, Turn around
Financial Times (October 25)
“A painful and protracted hangover from the financial crisis has slashed demand for cars in Europe, forcing mainstream manufacturers to close factories, lay off workers and fill their financial statements with red ink.” Despite these measures, however, the industry is still struggling with overcapacity, compelling many global automakers to subsidize European losses with sales elsewhere. Providing a glimmer of optimism for Europe, however, Ford “called the bottom of the disastrous market slump on Thursday, the first carmaker confident enough to turn tentative hopes into official profit guidance and draw a financial line under six years of falling sales.”
Tags: Automakers, Carmakers, Demand, Europe, Factories, Financial Crisis, Ford, Guidance, Losses, Manufacturers, Optimism, Overcapacity, Sales, Workers
Institutional Investor (June issue)
“Optimism is beginning to infect Japan’s corporate leaders–a crucial factor considering that the new policies must spur corporate investment and expansion if they are to succeed in fostering a sustainable economic turnaround.” Corporate leaders have welcomed Abenomics, but the jury is still out. “Corporate Japan will consider the new government successful if it can end the psychology of deflation and stagnation and offer the prospect of renewed growth. So far, business leaders are fairly optimistic.”
Tags: Corporate leaders, Deflation, Expansion, Government, Investment, Japan, Optimism, Psychology, Stagnation
