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Commodity Imports Rise, Giving China Good News

August 8, 2013 by

HONG KONG — China’s trade rebounded in July in a possible sign that its economy is stabilizing after a slowdown over the last year.

The improvement offers small but encouraging hope for China’s leaders, who are struggling to arrest a downturn that dragged growth to a two-decade low in the latest quarter.

China’s exports rose 5.1 percent in July from a year earlier and imports were up 10.9 percent, according to customs data. China is the world’s second-largest economy, after the United States.

Economists had expected trade to grow after it shrank in June, but the rate of growth surpassed expectations.

China’s politically delicate global trade surplus narrowed to $17.8 billion.

Economists said the surge in imports suggested that domestic demand was holding up, a major goal for China’s policy makers, who are trying to reduce the economy’s dependence on trade and investment in favor of more self-sustaining domestic consumption.

Imports of iron ore, an important commodity used to make steel, surged 24 percent by volume, while copper imports grew 12 percent. Both figures were the fastest rates in more than a year, said Yao Wei, China economist at Société Générale.

She said the return to growth was a sign of “some stabilization in external demand, at best — not yet a solid recovery.”

Analysts said the figures were a sign of improvement but cautioned about reading too much into a single set of numbers.

“July seems to reflect a return to a normal, relatively uninspiring trend after a weak June, rather than the beginning of acceleration in growth,” said Alistair Chan, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. “While the worst seems to be over, the upturn will be relatively flat.”

Chinese leaders are facing pressure to meet a goal of 7.5 percent growth for the year, which is far stronger than the forecasts for the United States, Europe and Japan, but would be the country’s weakest performance since 1991.

Exports to the United States, China’s biggest foreign market, edged up 2.3 percent, leaving a trade surplus of $19.1 billion. Exports to the 27-nation European Union shrank 2.8 percent, for a trade gap of $10 billion.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/business/global/rebound-in-trade-hints-at-stability-in-china-economy.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

McDonald’s Reports Lower Sales in April

May 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The company, which had warned of a decline last month, said same-store sales fell 0.6 percent globally. That reflected an increase of 0.7 percent in the United States, where it recently introduced its chicken McWraps.

But sales fell 2.4 percent in Europe, its biggest market by revenue. The company said it was seeking to improve results in the region by emphasizing “everyday affordability” and keeping stores open longer.

In the region encompassing Asia, the Middle East and Africa, sales were down 2.9 percent. The chain blamed the impact of the avian flu in China for the decline, as well as softness in Japan and Australia.

Yum Brands, which owns KFC and is China’s biggest Western fast-food company, has been hurt by the new strain of avian flu as well. It warned late last month that sales at established restaurants in China were down about 30 percent in April. Yum is also trying to recover from a controversy over its chicken suppliers that surfaced late last year.

After years of outperforming rivals, McDonald’s has been struggling to increase sales as it faces intensifying competition, changing eating habits and weak growth in the broader restaurant industry. Late last year, the company reported a decline in its monthly sales figure for the first time in nearly a decade. Soon after, the company ousted the head of its American division.

Sales at restaurants open at least 13 months is an important measurement because it strips out the impact of newly opened and closed locations.

McDonald’s, which has more than 34,000 locations around the world, noted that it had one fewer Sunday and one more Tuesday in April of this year compared with last April. The chain’s sales are generally stronger on weekends.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/business/mcdonalds-reports-lower-sales-in-april.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

Bucks: What’s Important About Money to You?

April 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Carl Richards is a certified financial planner in Park City, Utah, and is the director of investor education at The BAM Alliance. His book, “The Behavior Gap,” was published this year. His sketches are archived on the Bucks blog.

What’s important about money to you?

This is an uncomfortable question because we aren’t used to thinking about money in those terms. But it’s one of my favorite questions to ask. Even before talking about goals or building a personal balance sheet, you might find it helpful to ask yourself this question.

While I’m not certain of the question’s origins, I first learned of it about a decade ago in a book by Bill Bachrach. It was about the importance of understanding your values when making important financial decisions. I’ve been using the question ever since.

The purpose of this question isn’t to think in terms of goals. It’s meant to go deeper than that, or to get at the reason why we have certain goals. The first answers people come up with are usually easy — things like security and freedom. But once we pause and really think, we can move even deeper still, or into what might be called the “why” of money. This question gets uncomfortable because it forces us to get really clear about our underlying reason for doing things. It also forces us to face some inconsistencies in our lives.

Let’s say the first thing you come up with when you ask yourself the question — what’s important about money — is indeed freedom or security. Then, the next question you should ask yourself is, “What’s so important to me about freedom and security?’” From there, keep asking questions until you get to until you get to the thing that is most important to you.

Here’s how it works.

My friend, who we’ll call Sara, was a hard-charging professional whose career required her to be super competitive. She was “type A” to the hilt and worked long hours. So when I talked to Sara and her husband and asked her this question, I was curious what she would say was most important. She said freedom.

When I asked her what freedom meant, she replied, “More time.”

So I said, “Okay, let’s pretend you’re there. Let’s say you have more time. What’s so important about being at that spot?”

With some emotion she said, “I just want the time to raise a child.”

Now don’t get caught up on what Sara said was the most important to her. Her values are just that. They’re hers. Your values may be completely different. The thing to keep in mind is that, like Sara, once you identify what’s most important to you, things get clearer.

The answers to a question like this give you a lens through which to view your financial decisions. And after you’ve identified what’s most important, you’ll have incredibly valuable information to help you make decisions that match your values.

In fact, it can make it easy to say no to things that can distract you from what’s most important. Like the self-help author Stephen Covey said, “It’s easy to say ‘no!’ when there’s a deeper ‘yes!’ burning inside.”

For Sara and her husband, her answer became that “deeper yes.” The same can be true for you. You just have to ask the question.

I’d love to know what’s most important to you. How has knowing the answer to that question changed your life?

Article source: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/whats-important-about-money-to-you/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Your Money Tagged With: , ,

Bucks: Why “I Don’t Know” Is Often Your Best Money Answer

December 19, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Carl Richards is a certified financial planner in Park City, Utah. His sketches are archived here on the Bucks blog. His new book, “The Behavior Gap,” will be out in January.

Of all the phrases in the financial planning world, “I don’t know” may well be the most powerful.

There are other phrases like “it depends” that are similar, but underlying them all is the fact that we are trying to make money decisions without a great deal of certainty. The reality is that we just don’t know what the next five, 10 or 20 years are going to look like.

Sure we can model it based on history, but that would just be a model. One of the most dangerous things I see in the investment and financial planning world is a false sense of precision.

In fact, I think there is a tremendous sense of freedom that comes with recognizing that we just don’t know what the future will look like. At that point, the process of financial planning becomes about making the best guess we can about that future. Then we consistently course correct as we go, before we get too far off track.

You may have heard me use this example before, but I often put it in terms of a pilot’s flight plan. Pilots take the process of preparing a flight plan very seriously, but they also know that the moment they take off, their plan will probably need to be changed. The weather may change, birds may start migrating or the airport they’re headed to may close halfway there. All they know for sure is that they’ll need to make ongoing course corrections throughout the flight.

Accepting the fact that we just don’t know allows us to let go of any anxiety around the idea that we should be able to find someone who does know. And let me share a secret with you about that: There isn’t anyone who knows what the next week, month, year or even decade will look like in the stock market. Anyone who says they do is someone you should run from.

What are some other things we just don’t know?

1) When our certificate of deposit rates are going to move up.

This comes with all sorts of implications. If you are waiting to refinance your house because gurus are telling you that interest rates will go down, please realize that they just doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

How many people have been sitting in money market accounts earning virtually zero because C.D. rates were “only” 1.5 percent and surely they would be going up soon? The reality is no one knows when interest rates will go up.

In fact, the academic evidence is pretty clear. The best estimate for future interest rates is today’s interest rates, meaning we just don’t know.

2) The direction of housing prices.

3) When the economy is going to turn around.

4) What’s going to happen to Apple (or Google or G.E. or Pepsi) stock.

The reality is no one knows. Jim Cramer doesn’t know. The teams of experts from the large banks and brokerage firms don’t know. And we all know what happens when you rely on a Federal Reserve chairman knowing. It turns out he doesn’t know either.

It’s so tempting to believe that there’s someone out there, someone with a big enough computer or access to a huge research staff. But there isn’t. And even if there is, it’s highly improbable that you or anyone will identify them beforehand, when their predictions will be of any value.

Sure, there are plenty of people who can claim that they got a certain prediction correct after the fact. But remember, if you’re in the prediction or forecasting business, you’re bound to get a few right, just like a broken clock is right at least twice a day.

If you choose to get help making financial decisions, look for someone with the experience to help you navigate the uncertainty. Someone who understands that the really important part is the ongoing course corrections based on what you learn in the future.

Sorting out our financial lives involves process, not products, and it means making the best decisions we can, learning new information as we go, making subtle tweaks based on that information and continuing to do so over and over and over again.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=6a6df8d6fbae9856a94f8762d51d26f3

Filed Under: Your Money Tagged With: , ,

Bucks Blog: Why Haven’t You Switched Banks?

October 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

In this gig, I run into all sorts of examples of mystifying consumer behavior. One of the big ones, however, is why people keep their checking accounts at big, national banks.

This is not a knock on the Bank of Americas and Wells Fargos of the world, per se. They are presumably good at some things. But I’ve been happily banking with online banks (USAA, then BankDirect and now Charles Schwab) for more than a decade and have never missed having a branch, let alone the lines at what was then called Chemical Bank back in the 1990s.

My loose checks have headed off to Texas or Orlando for deposit in (postage-paid) envelopes; now I take a picture of them with my phone and send Schwab the snapshots. I can talk to people on the phone if I need help, and they are nicer than the tellers I used to encounter in Manhattan. And the bank reimburses me for many of my A.T.M. fees.

It’s possible that you are among the high-balance crew who still get free checking from big banks and always will. Or perhaps you think their services are worth whatever monthly fee you pay.

As for the rest of you, what’s keeping you from switching? You can read this weekend’s Your Money column for my attempt at knocking down some of the most common excuses.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=9a995f8b90781151fe43444383cd83fd

Filed Under: Your Money Tagged With: , ,