The expected risk premium for the Global Market Index (GMI) dipped moderately in September vs. the previous month. GMI, an unmanaged, market-value weighted mix of the major asset classes, is currently projected to earn an annualized 4.3% over the “risk-free” rate for the long term (for details on the methodology, see summary below). Today’s forecast is below last month’s 4.7% estimate.
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● German Factories See Sharp Drop in Orders | Wall Street Journal
German factory orders tanked in August, signaling that the rest of the year will feature weak economic output or even stagnation, experts said.
● Eurozone Sentix investor confidence at 17-mo. low | Investing.com
Investor confidence in the euro zone for October deteriorated to the lowest level in 17 months, underlining concerns over the outlook for the region’s economy.
● Surging dollar may be triple whammy for U.S. earnings | Reuters
The suddenly unstoppable U.S. dollar is posing a triple threat to American companies’ profits: driving up the costs of doing business overseas, suppressing the value of non-U.S. sales and, perhaps most worryingly, signaling weak international demand.
● World on brink of an oil price war | New Zealand Herald
A sudden slump in the price of crude has exposed deep divisions within the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) ahead of its final scheduled meeting of the year next month to decide on how much oil to pump.
● The Collapse of the Russian Ruble | Econospeak
There has been little attention to this in the western media, but the Russian ruble has suffered a major decline in the last few months.