“La sabiduría de la vida consiste en la eliminación de lo no esencial. En reducir los problemas de la filosofía a unos pocos solamente: el goce del hogar, de la vida, de la naturaleza, de la cultura”.
Lin Yutang
Cervantes
Hoy es el día más hermoso de nuestra vida, querido Sancho; los obstáculos más grandes, nuestras propias indecisiones; nuestro enemigo más fuerte, el miedo al poderoso y a nosotros mismos; la cosa más fácil, equivocarnos; la más destructiva, la mentira y el egoísmo; la peor derrota, el desaliento; los defectos más peligrosos, la soberbia y el rencor; las sensaciones más gratas, la buena conciencia, el esfuerzo para ser mejores sin ser perfectos, y sobretodo, la disposición para hacer el bien y combatir la injusticia dondequiera que esté.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Don Quijote de la Mancha.
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31 de agosto de 2015
Global Stocks Cap Worst Month Since May 2012; Crude Oil Surges
Dow sinks most in August since 2010 amid China growth angst
Oil surges into bull market with best three days since 1990
U.S. stocks joined a renewed selloff that sent
global equities to their worst monthly slump in more than three years,
as confidence waned that China will be able to prop up its markets.
Concern
that slowing Chinese growth will hamper global expansion reemerged as
Federal Reserve officials signaled they are prepared to raise interest
rates as soon as next month. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added
to its August decline, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average capped its
biggest monthly drop in five years and Chinese shares capped their
worst selloff since 2008.
Oil surged into a bull market amid the
biggest three-day rally since 1990, adding 27 percent to ease concern
about persistently low inflation. Treasuries fell since faster price
increases erode the value of long-term debt.
“It seems that the uncertainty from China’s roller coaster is not over yet,” said
Guillermo Hernandez Sampere, who helps manage the equivalent of $167
million as head of trading at MPPM EK in Eppstein, Germany. “Any panic
created out of this high volatility keeps investors out of the
market. There’s still no clear message” on when the Fed will raise
rates, he said.
The S&P 500 dropped 0.8 percent by 4 p.m. in
New York, bringing its August slide to 6.3 percent, the most since May
2012. The MSCI All-Country World Index lost 0.7 percent, while European
shares capped the worst month in four years. U.S. oil jumped 8.8
percent, stoking speculation that inflation may pick up, while the yen strengthened for the first time in five days.
The rout in global equities
this month erased more than $5 trillion from the value of shares as
Chinese policy makers tried to bolster their market amid growing concern
that its economy may be in worse shape than analysts had estimated.
Morgan Stanley reduced its forecast for world growth this year and next
on Monday, citing weakening industrial activity in China.
Trading
in U.S. equities has been volatile. Last week alone, the S&P 500
plunged the most since 2011 to enter a correction before rallying more
than 6 percent over two days for its best back-to-back gains since the
beginning of the bull market in 2009.
Emotional Times
The
gauge tumbled out of the gates Monday, sliding as much as 1.2 percent in
early trading before cutting the drop to 0.1 percent as oil rallied.
The S&P 500 resumed declines in afternoon trading. The Chicago Board
Options Exchange Volatility Index rose 9.1 percent, putting its monthly
surge at 135 percent, the most since the data began in 1990.
“People are happy to tiptoe this week,”
Steve Bombardiere, an equity trader at Conifer Securities LLC in New
York, said by phone. “There’s so much emotion right now and in this
environment you can come in any morning and have something out of Europe
or Asia crossing us and that’s what causes us to move. True there were a
lot of people who wanted to buy a correction but after last week they
paused and are thinking about how long it is going to last.”
Yields on two-year Treasury notes capped a fifth month of gains after Fed Vice Chairman
Stanley Fischer kept speculation alive that U.S. rates could be
increased next month. The last time the yields advanced for that long
was in 2006, which was also the last time the Fed boosted borrowing
costs.
Bets on a September increase climbed after Fischer said
over the weekend there is “good reason” to believe inflation will
accelerate and that the Fed should not wait until it hits its inflation
goal to act. Investor attention will focus this week on the government’s
August jobs report, due Friday, as the last major data point before the
Fed’s meeting on Sept. 16-17.
Bearish Bets
China’s stocks
capped their biggest two-month slide since 2008 as bearish bets in the
options market climbed and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut its forecast for
Chinese growth. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.8 percent, taking
its slump in August to 12 percent after a 14 percent drop in July. Hong
Kong’s Hang Seng China Enterprises Index also lost 12 percent in the
month.
Stocks fell even as people familiar with the matter said
China’s securities regulator had asked brokerages to step up their
support for share prices by contributing 100 billion yuan ($15.7
billion) to the nation’s market rescue fund and increasing stock
buybacks.
The cost of options contracts betting on declines in the
China 50 exchange-traded fund has surged to the highest level versus
bullish ones since they started trading in Shanghai six months ago.
The
yen rose against 15 of its 16 major peers Monday, with the biggest
gains coming versus Taiwan’s currency and the New Zealand dollar. The
Japanese currency appreciated 0.4 percent to 121.23 per dollar, while
the euro added 0.2 percent to $1.1211.
West Texas Intermediate
crude surged to $49.20 a barrel, the highest settlement since July
21. Oil fell below $40 a barrel this month, the lowest level since
February 2009, on concern slowing demand in the U.S. and China will
leave the global markets oversupplied.
The Energy Information
Administration on Monday trimmed its U.S. production forecast by as much
as 130,000 barrels a day for the first five months of the year as it
switches to a new survey, the agency said on its website.
The Bloomberg
Commodity Index jumped 1.8 percent Monday, bringing its three-day gain
to 6.8 percent as oil led other raw materials higher. Metals trading was
muted with trading in London closed for a U.K. holiday.