Deflazione e dividendi. Skype si quota in borsa.

Il Wall Street Journal è attratto dai dividendi pagati da molte società europee, in particolare nei settori delle telecomunicazioni, delle utilities e dell'energia. Il dividend yield delle azioni in Europa è circa il doppio di quello delle azioni che compongono l'indice S&P500. Se siete in cerca di protezione dalla deflazione prossima ventura potreste trovare le azioni ad alto dividendo attraenti, e cercare altre idee qui: Deflation--if it happens--could cripple global economies and world stock markets. But, there are some stocks that could offer a safe-haven move for investors, companies with plenty of cash, low debt, steady dividends and products that people will buy even in tough economic times. Sempre secondo un sondaggio del WSJ il rischio di deflazione negli U.S.A. è concreto: A Wall Street Journal survey found that by a two-to-one margin Wall Street economists see deflation as a bigger threat to the U.S. economy over the next three years than inflation.
“Deflation is dangerously close,” said David Resler of Nomura Securities, one of 53 economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal. Among economists who answered the question, nearly two-thirds said that deflation poses the bigger risk to the economy over the next three years; the remainder said inflation is the bigger threat. That compares to an April survey, when the economists were split 50/50 over whether inflation or disinflation posed the bigger risk over the next year.
The survey, conducted earlier this week ahead of today’s meeting of Federal Reserve officials, found that half of the economists expect the Fed to keep its target for short-term interest rates unchanged at least until the middle of 2011. A month earlier, the survey found 70% of the respondents expected the Fed to begin raising rates before June 2011. The Fed has been holding its target for short-term interest rates close to zero since December 2008.
Nel video qui sotto un analista di Morningstar argomenta a favore di portafogli di azioni con alto dividend yield per difendersi dal rischio di un altro decennio perduto. Il punto di vista condivisibile è che  the advantage of having a 30-year Treasury bond or say a 10-year Treasury bond that's going to yield 3%, is that you know exactly what you are going to get, 10 years you are going to get the money back. But you don’t know is what that money will be worth. We don’t know how high inflation or for that matter how low inflation may be. There is still a lot of uncertainty.
If you are buying stocks and at least hypothetically, you are getting the claim on a real operating business that if the economy does move in a higher inflation, you should be able to benefit from that. So to me I would still prefer to own stocks, because of their longer term inflation threat, even if its 3, 4, 5 years out. I don’t want to line up with a 10- or a 30-year commitment to a fixed income instrument.






La decisione di ieri della banca centrale USA di reinvestire i proventi dal mercato dei mutui in obbligazioni del Tesoro a lunga scadenza viene commentata in questo articolo sul WSJ di oggi. La posizione ufficiale relativa al dibattito inflazione/deflazione è così riassunta nell'articolo:
The Fed statement noted that "measures of underlying inflation," already low, "have trended lower" lately and are "likely to be subdued for some time." Some Fed officials, as well as private economists, have been warning that the risk of deflation—broadly falling prices and wages across the economy—is rising. A Wall Street Journal survey of economists, mostly from Wall Street, found this week that, by a two-to-one margin, they see deflation as a greater risk over the next three years than inflation.
With interest rates as low as they can go, the Fed has few attractive options to resist deflation. The main one is to print money—electronically—to resume large-scale purchases of securities.
Qui potete leggere una sintesi delle reazioni di numerosi analisti ed economisti alla decisione di ieri della Fed.

Seguo da alcuni anni con simpatia l'evoluzione di Skype che iniziai ad usare per le telefonate VOIP quando partii per un viaggio di lavoro in Corea del Sud e Giappone nell'autunno del 2005. Non posso allora fare a meno di segnalarvi come Skype abbia annunciato l'intenzione di quotarsi in borsa: se volete un piccolo riassunto dei numeri di Skype potete dare un'occhiata qui. Attenzione al debito che al momento è circa uguale ai ricavi (non i profitti) di un anno.