July 5th, 2011 Newsletter
Dear Friends,
Tangents: Amazing day today….I was dazzled by the story this morning of the discovery in the vaults at a temple in Kerala.
Devotees throng Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, capital of the southern Indian state of Kerala. Five vaults were opened and revealed a ton of gold coins, precious stones, statues, some coins date back to Napoleon Bonaparte.
The discoveries have catapulted the Hindu shrine, renowned for its intricate sculptures, into the league of India’s richest temples.
It was built hundreds of years ago by the king of Travancore, and donations by devotees have been kept in the temple’s seven vaults ever since.
Kumar Shankar Roy writes from New Delhi:
If Travancore king owned temple treasure…
The jaw-dropping discovery of untold wealth ($22 billion so far, and still counting) in underground vaults of the Kerala temple of Sree Padmanabha Swamy, the presiding deity of the erstwhile Travancore kingdom, raises one question: where would current Maharaja Marthanda Varma be in the in the league of the richest royals of the world, had his distant forebear not placed unto the Lord all his kingdom’s wealth and render himself just its custodian?
For an answer, you have to make one presumption – that Forbes, which compiled a list of the richest living kings and queens last year, knew of the Travancore wealth at the time.
So, if the Maharaja were to be included in the list, the newfound $22 billion worth of wealth would have placed him as the second richest living royal in the world, after King Bhumibol of Thailand, who tops the league with $30 billion.
But, alas, that is not to be, for in 1750 the current Maharaj’s namesake ancestor rendered everything he and his kingdom had to Sree Padmanabha Swamy. The king of yore merely ruled the state as the servant of the Lord thereafter. And to think that all that money could have been the current Maharaja’s, if only….
So, he does not technically own the wealth. Still, under the same presumption, the Maharaja would be just a whisker ahead of the Sultan of Brunei, whose recorded wealth is worth $20 billion.
But the ranking may yet change. Mind you, assessment of the Travancore wealth is still work in progress. Once that is over, the Maharaja may find himself breathing down the neck of the Thailand King.
It comes a bit of a downer that the most famous, most reported and most talked about monarch in the world, Queen Elizabeth II of England, is worth only $450 million, way behind Prince Albert II of tiny Monaco, who is worth $1 billion.
That Travancore would unearth such a gigantic horde comes as a bit of a surprise, for the kingdom, though one of the most famed and ancient, was certainly not among the top league of Indian royals of yore. The British Raj had its own way of ranking them — in the most aural way. It devised gun salutes for living royals of the time, as a yardstick of where a princely state stood in its eyes…
CULTURE: First Bikini Swimsuit, July 5th, 1946…skimpy two-piece swimsuits get their name from Bikini Atoll in the south Pacific. French fashion designer Louis Réard chose the name to upstage rival designer Jacques Heim who had started selling a two-piece called the Atome. On July 5, 1946, four days after the United States tested an atomic bomb over Bikini, Réard launched his explosively small creation under the suddenly well-known name.
–from the playwright Tony Kushner’s convocation address to graduates at Muhlenberg College a few weeks ago:
Everywhere, the world is in need of repair. Fix it. Solve these things. You need only the tools that you have learned here, even if you didn’t pay as much attention as you should, even if you’re a mess and broke and facing a future of economic terror: Who isn’t? Who doesn’t?
Help. Help. Help. The world is calling. Heal the world, and in the process, heal yourself. Find the human in yourself by finding the citizen, the activist, the hero. Down with the brutal-minded misadventurers. Go after them. You know where they are….
Duty calls. The world calls. Get active. No summer vacation, no rest for you. We have been waiting too long for you. We need your contribution too desperately, and if they tell you your contribution is meaningless, if they tell you the fix is in and there’s no contribution to be made, if they tell you to contribute by shopping your credit card into exhaustion, if they tell you to surrender the brilliant, dazzling confusion your education should have engendered in you, exchange that quick-silver prolificity for dull monotone certainty, productive only of aggression born of boredom and violence, born of fear, born of stupidity, they’re lying. Don’t trust them; get rid of them. You know who they are. Shout down the devil.
Photos of the day
July 5, 2011
Students react after looking at the results of the baccalaureate exam at the French Clemenceau Lycee in Nantes. The baccalaureate is the final secondary school examination to qualify for university.
Models wear creations for the Giorgio Armani Fall-Winter 2011-2012 Haute Couture fashion collection presented in Paris. Jacques Brinon/AP
Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo, displays a mud sample extracted from the depths of about 4,000 metres (13,123 ft) below the Pacific ocean surface where rare earth elements were found, at his laboratory in Tokyo. Vast deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial in making high-tech electronics products, have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and can be readily extracted, Japanese scientists said on Monday.
Market Commentary:
Canada
By Matt Walcoff
July 5 (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks rose for a sixth day, the longest streak since April, as oil and gold’s gains drove rallies in their producers.
Suncor Energy Inc., the country’s largest energy company, rose 0.9 percent after Barclays Plc boosted its 2012 price forecast for Brent crude. Kinross Gold Corp. gained 3.4 percent as the metal advanced after Moody’s Investors Service said China’s national auditor is understating banks’ loans to local governments, spurring demand for havens. Imax Corp. fell 8.8 percent after a Janney Capital Markets analyst said 3-D movies may be losing popularity.
The S&P/TSX Composite climbed 38.81 points, or 0.3 percent, to 13,425.30.
“The last week or so, we’ve gotten a much better indication the data is not slowing as much as once feared,” said Barry Schwartz, a money manager at Baskin Financial Services Inc. in Toronto, which oversees C$420 million ($437 million). “Even if China is cooling, the demand for commodities is not going to abate.”
The S&P/TSX increased 3.7 percent from June 24 to yesterday as Greece approved an austerity package and a gauge of U.S. manufacturing rose. The index has slipped 0.1 percent this year. Crude oil climbed to a three-week high today in New York. “Forecasts show a continuation of robust emerging market demand,” Barclays analysts led by Paul Horsnell in London wrote in a report today. Suncor rose 0.9 percent to C$38.83. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the country’s second-largest energy company by market value, advanced 1.5 percent to C$41.51. Niko Resources Ltd., which produces oil and gas in South Asia, rebounded 6.4 percent to C$63.67 after closing at a 26-month low yesterday.
Gold and silver rallied on speculation that a deteriorating credit outlook in China will boost demand among investors for a hedge. Moody’s said non-performing loans in China may rise to as high as 12 percent of total credit.
Royal Bank of Canada said in a report it sees potential for a second-half rally in gold producers’ shares.
Kinross climbed 3.4 percent to C$15.91. Eldorado Gold Corp., which mines in China and Turkey, rose 5 percent to C$14.86. European Goldfields Ltd., which explores in Europe, jumped 8 percent to C$10.88. Novagold Resources Inc., which is developing gold and base-metal properties in Alaska and British Columbia, soared 9.7 percent to C$9.76.
Sino-Forest Corp., the forestry company fighting a short seller’s assertions of financial manipulation, increased 27 percent to C$5.29, a day after Wellington Management Co. disclosed a stake in the company. The shares have more than doubled in price over the past five days. Wellington, a Boston- based money manager, bought an 11.5 percent stake in the company, according to a filing to Canadian regulators yesterday.
Shares of Sino-Forest remain down 71 percent since June 1, the day before Muddy Waters LLC said its stated land holdings don’t match Chinese city records.
All eight S&P/TSX banks retreated after Moody’s cut Portugal’s credit rating to a junk level. Royal Bank, Canada’s largest lender by assets, lost 1.3 percent to C$54.85. Toronto- Dominion Bank, its biggest competitor, slipped 1.1 percent to C$81.01
Imax, the maker of giant-screen movie-projection systems, tumbled 8.8 percent, the most in almost a year, to C$29.12. Tony Wible, an analyst at Janney Capital, cut his ratings on U.S. movie-theater owners Regal Entertainment Group and Cinemark Holdings Inc.
In a note to clients, he said 3-D screens’ market share is dropping due to children’s difficulty with the glasses and a “lack of unique high-quality 3-D content.” The $14 million in domestic opening-weekend revenue from Imax 3-D showings of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” probably disappointed many investors, Benjamin Mogil, an analyst at Stifel Financial Corp., said in a note to clients.
Pharmacy-benefits manager SXC Health Solutions Corp. rose for an eighth day, surging 4.5 percent to a record C$61.25.
Arthur I. Henderson, an analyst at Jefferies Group Inc., called the company a “top idea” in health care in a note to clients.
US
By Nikolaj Gammeltoft
July 5 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, ending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s five-day winning streak, as a Moody’s Investors Service downgrade of Portuguese debt rekindled concern the economy will slow and offset gains by energy producers.
Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, and General Electric Co. lost 0.8 percent as shares of financial and industrial companies led losses in the S&P 500. A gauge of banks dropped the most in the S&P 500 within 24 groups, falling 1.2 percent, as Citigroup Inc. said 2012 industry earnings estimates may be too high. Energy companies in the S&P 500 advanced 0.5 percent, the most among 10 groups.
The S&P 500 slumped 0.1 percent to 1,337.88 at 4 p.m. in New York. The intraday move in the S&P 500 between its high and low was 0.5 percent, the smallest move since April 29, when the index peaked for the year. The benchmark equity index rose 5.6 percent last week, the biggest rally since July 2009. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 12.90 points, or 0.1 percent, to 12,569.87 today.
“The market is correcting a little bit after a strong run last week, using the headline about Portugal’s debt rating as a catalyst,” said Tom Mangan, who helps oversee $2.7 billion at James Investment Research Inc. in Xenia, Ohio. “Portugal’s economy has virtually no impact on U.S. markets, but the question is whether this is the continuation of a problem that began in Greece. It raises fear of a contagion effect in the market.”
The S&P 500 fell 1.8 percent in June, spurring the first quarterly loss in a year, on concern that Greece will fail to repay all of its debt and that the U.S. economy will weaken further. Even so, the index has gained 6.4 percent in 2011 as government stimulus measures and higher-than-estimated corporate earnings lifted investors’ confidence.
Stocks reversed gains after Portugal’s long-term government bond ratings were cut to Ba2, or junk, from Baa1 by Moody’s, making it the second euro-region country with a non-investment- grade ranking.
Equities declined earlier as the Commerce Department said orders placed with U.S. factories increased 0.8 percent in May, while economists projected a 1 percent increase, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey.
An unexpected pickup in American manufacturing growth helped ease concern last week that the world’s largest economy is faltering, sending benchmark indexes to their highest levels since May and their biggest weekly gains in two years. Alcoa Inc., the largest U.S. aluminum producer, will become the first Dow company to report second-quarter earnings on July 11.
The “earnings season is right around the very close corner,” said Richard Sichel, who oversees $1.6 billion as chief investment officer at Philadelphia Trust Co. “The past number of quarters it’s definitely helped the market with surprises on the upside, and we could see more of that.”
Bank of America lost 0.8 percent to $11 as financial stocks in the S&P 500 slumped 0.8 percent, the most among 10 industries. The KBW Bank Index retreated 1.2 percent as 22 of its 24 stocks retreated. Wells Fargo & Co., the largest U.S. home lender, dropped 0.9 percent to $28.42. Regions Financial Corp. slid 2.1 percent to $6.17.
“We believe that a prolonged low rate environment is consistent with weak earning asset growth,” Keith Horowitz, an analyst at Citigroup, wrote in a note to clients today. “While we believe the large regional banks in our universe should report 2Q results largely in line with consensus, we do see significant downside to 2012/2013.”
GE, the world’s biggest maker of jet engines, power- generation equipment, medical imaging machines and locomotives, slipped 0.8 percent to $19.04. A gauge of industrial companies lost 0.6 percent, the second-most within 10 groups in the S&P 500.
Energy shares climbed as crude oil jumped 2.1 percent to a three-week high of $96.89 a barrel after European finance ministers approved an 8.7 billion-euro ($12.6 billion) aid payment to Greece on July 2. Marathon Oil gained 3.4 percent to $34.07 and Peabody Energy advanced 2.2 percent to $60.69.
Chevron Corp., the second-biggest U.S. energy company, rose the most in the Dow, adding 1 percent to $105.12.
The S&P 500 Insurance Index of 22 stocks slumped 1.1 percent, the second-biggest decline in the S&P 500 among 24 groups. MetLife Inc. lost 1.5 percent to $43.72, while Genworth Financial Inc. decreased 2.7 percent to $10.28.
MetLife and Genworth Financial units are among nine companies subpoenaed last month as part of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s probe of the life insurance industry’s handling of so-called abandoned property, a person familiar with the matter said.
The probe is seeking to determine whether the companies do enough to determine whether someone has died and benefits are due, the person said. About 35 other states are looking into whether the insurance industry is adequately handling abandoned property such as unclaimed life-insurance proceeds.
Google Inc., the world’s largest Internet-search company, rose 2.2 percent to $532.44. The shares were raised to “overweight” from “equal weight” at Evercore Partners, which said they may reach $670 as the company grows in social media and other product initiatives.
SanDisk Corp. climbed 1.5 percent to $43.45. Deutsche Bank AG analysts Bob Gujavarty and Ross Seymore raised their recommendation to “buy” from “hold,” saying profit margins will become “far more sustainable.”
General Motors Co. gained 0.9 percent to $30.86. The biggest overseas automaker in China said its June sales rose in the country, reversing a two-month decline, as customers bought more Buick and Chevrolet passenger cars.
Have a wonderful evening everyone.
Be magnificent!
The like and dislike is the result of my culture, my training, my associations,
my inclinations, my acquired and inherited characteristics.
It is from that center that I observe and make my judgments,
and the observer is separate from the thing he observes.
-Krishnamurti, 1895-1986
As ever,
Carolann
To succeed in the world, it is not enough
to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
-Voltaire, 1694-1778