Did You Just Miss The Asia Boom?
I have caught myself sounding like a broken record recently, listing all the records that we are setting in the markets.
Let's go for broke: Gold and silver have set new records. The Chinese yuan has set a post-revaluation record high, the Swiss franc and the Singapore dollar have reached a record against the greenback, Indonesia's stock market is at an all-time record high, Brazil's Petrobras set a global record for a share sale.... and the first prize list could go on.
In fact, it's just about to. The Philippine index is just below a record, Singapore... just shy of highest since June '08. Korea is at the highest since May '08, India's Sensex sits at the highest since Jan '08, Thailand is holding around the highest since '96 , and don't even get me started on the Aussie dollar.
And despite the languishing price of crude today, it is noteworthy that in 2011, the IEA expects global demand to climb to 88 million barrels per day — a yep-you-guessed-it... record high!
How did this creep up on us? Have we been so preoccupied with hand-wringing here in the US with our own lousy records....foreclosures, government debt and amounts of cash sitting on America Inc's balance sheets etc etc, that we didn't notice that many of the world's financial markets and economies, particularly in Asia, are BOOMING?
In the same way that deflation and double-dip (what I like to call the Costanza Effect) are two favourite debating topics on CNBC, I'd like to dredge up a third D: decoupling. Yeah, yeah, I know that's sooo '08-'09, when this debate usually ended with the conclusion it was dead, but maybe it should be ressurrected. Yep, then we could really go for broke.
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