Word: indexation
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...clear where the banks are getting their prices. Some of the firms derive the asset values from financial models. Others try to gauge how much a group of subprime mortgage loans might be worth by looking at a price index, called the ABX, of related credit-default swaps...
...time of pessimistic forecasts and rising fear, many toxic assets are probably worth more than the bank models or credit-default-swap indexes suggest. For example, a recent reading of the ABX index puts the value of even the highest-rated subprime mortgage bonds created in 2007 at only 27% of their precrunch prices. Yes, Americans are behind on their mortgages, but even the most pessimistic prognostications do not predict that 73% of home loans will become worthless. (See pictures of the dangers of printing money...
...argument that the world's most populous nation will have a strong year can point to that number as an indication of optimism. The trouble with the theory is that when the Asian nation's economy was at its most robust, in 2007 and early 2008, the same index of China's stock fell from a level of 6,000 to 1,700 where it bottomed five months ago. This must be what the head of Pimco meant when he said that investing in Chinese stocks is the best game in town...
That sort of context might prove useful for thinking about the day's broader market moves. To be sure, it was a happy one on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 5.8%. The broader S&P 500 index rose 6.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite gained 7.1%. For investors used to seeing negative signs in front of figures like those, there was cause for celebration indeed. (See the best business deals...
Brazil still faces huge challenges; its education system is dysfunctional, its political system squalid, corruption endemic. But consider: 53% of Brazil's 190 million people now occupy the middle class, up from 42% in 2002. This increased social mobility happened at the same time the country's main stock index soared some 480% before last fall's downturn. Lula seems to have cracked Latin America's chronic conundrum: how to expand underachieving economies while reducing epic inequality. In so doing, he's created a model that's "an insurance ticket, not a lottery ticket," says Marcelo Neri, head...