It should be clear to all at this point that the market has, for now, shaken off any concerns about the Fed and tapering. True, when the Fed begins sending its signals again, the market will have a noticeable negative response, but it will be relatively mild and not long-lived, much like what we just witnessed last week.
At this stage of this aging but not dying bull run, the market has other concerns, bigger concerns. Right now, around the globe, in tidy rooms filled with computers, folks who manage lots of money are scouring charts, pouring over numbers, and consulting oracles trying to figure out where best to put their money to maximize returns in a market headed even higher in 2014.
So why am I so optimistic, aside from the fact that I am me? Simply, the world economic forces are starting to congeal in such a way that has not been seen since WWII. If you remember when that war ended, Europe was in shambles, Japan was devastated, and the US was starting down the road to economic supremacy, a trip, by the way, that has brought it to here – king of the mountain. Back then, the world was transforming after destruction, just as it is transforming today after the economic destruction wrought in 2008. The big difference today, however, is the world is so economically interlocked, the transformation to a new economic age will bring fruit to even more people than the post WWII transformation brought. In short, the pie will be bigger offering more opportunity to make your money grow. This, then, is the urgency for money managers, not the stale fear about when the Fed will taper its QE program.
- The World Trade Organization (WTO) reached its first ever trade reform deal on Saturday to the roar of approval from nearly 160 ministers who had gathered on the Indonesian island of Bali to decide on the make-or-break agreement that could add $1 trillion to the global economy and create more than 20 million jobs, mostly in developing countries.
See what I mean. The WTO has been trying since its inception in 1995 to put together a deal that would reduce trade barriers and would help developing countries grow. In 2001, it started the Doha Development Agenda, a program with a goal of creating trade reform that would benefit all member countries, some 159 to be exact. Apparently, the time has come.
- Confidence at Japanese manufacturers rose for a second month to a three-year high in December and is predicted to continue rising, a Reuters poll found, adding to the evidence of steady recovery in the world’s third largest economy.
It appears Japan is coming out of its coma of the last 20 years or so. This only adds to the transformation reality I have been referencing for some time now. As to that …
- It’s time for ad companies to release their year-end forecasts, and ZenithOptimedia is out today with a bullish one – largely tied to big increases it expects for ads on smartphones and tablets. It projects global ad spending in 2014 to hit $532B – a 5.3% increase vs. this year, which is +3.6% over 2012.
When companies spend big money on advertising, it means they believe there is a market to capture. It means they believe in the economic momentum I have been writing about. Furthermore, the large increase in spending on advertising is not only for the old-media boys on the block. Nope, lots of the money is going to the new kid on the block, the smart kid capturing the attention of the consumer.
- It says that global spending on mobile will hit $45.4B in 2016, up from $13.5B this year. In the U.S. ad sales for mobile display will increase 239.4% by 2016 to $6.4B. Smartphone penetration will grow to 77.3% from 54% in 2013, while 37.1% will own tablets, up from 23.8%.
Those are some whopping numbers, folks and they speak to a huge and growing market that has tentacles spreading in every direction. Smart devices are the story of this coming economic age.
- The medium “is now the main driver of global adspend growth,” it says. “This is the first time in the past 20 years that a new platform is expanding overall media consumption without cannibalizing any of the other media platforms.” By 2016 mobile should become the fourth largest ad medium, ahead of radio, outdoor and magazines, ZenithOptimedia says.
Maybe it will, or maybe it won’t become number four. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that smart devices and all of the ancillary support are where the money is going, where major opportunity resides. Oh, along with energy and cars, that is.
Trade in the day; Invest in your life …
