Emerging market bonds take on safe haven status

By Hibah Yousuf 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- As they cope with the market's twists and turns, investors are finding comfort in a new kind of security blanket: emerging market bonds.

Typically, investors shun these riskier investments during times of uncertainty in favor of "safer" assets like gold and U.S. Treasuries. But that has started to change.

During the weeks of heightened market volatility in early August, bonds issued in local currencies of emerging markets were the only "risky" asset class to attract investors, according to data from EPFR Global and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

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Sweet or Salty, PepsiCo Tastes Success

By ANDREW BARY
Wall Street is giving PepsiCo little credit these days for its dominant position in snack food and its strength in beverages. Shares of the packaged-foods and soda giant are languishing at a discount to other big consumer stocks amid investor concerns over disappointing 2011 profit guidance. The Street also is worried about management's continued commitment to Pepsi's sugary and salty product portfolio as the company develops and emphasizes healthier foods.
PepsiCo shares (ticker: PEP), at around 65, are down 1.4% in the past 12 months, compared with a gain of 18% for archrival Coca-Cola (KO). Pepsi trades for 14.5 times projected 2011 profit of $4.46 a share, and 13 times estimated 2012 earnings of $4.87 a share. Its price/earnings ratio is sharply lower than that of Coke, at 17 times 2011 estimates, and below the P/Es of food companies such as H.J. Heinz (HNZ), Kraft Foods (KFT) and General Mills (GIS).
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Warren Buffett Explains Why Fear Overshadows Greed

By: Alex Crippen - CNBC

It's a good time to remember one of Warren Buffett's classic rules:  "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."

With so much fear in the financial markets right now, it's not a surprise that Buffett is being greedy.

He reminds Fortune's Andy Serwer that "the lower things go, the more I buy.  We are in the business of buying."  (He, of course, won't say exactly what he's buying.)

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Wall Street Warns Tim Geithner That The Dollar Is Starting To Lose Its Reserve Status

Submitted by Tyler Durden
The Treasury's Borrowing Advisory Committee, chaired by such luminaries as JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, which according to some (and by some we mean anyone who cares about such things) is the brains behind the decision-making process of US debt issuance has released its quarterly minutes, in which it has issued one of the most stark warnings about the fate of the US Dollar to date. While it is now a daily occurrence for China and Russia to bash the dollar, for the most part still powerless to provide an alternative (but rapidly gaining), the same warning coming from Jamie and Lloyd has to be taken far, far more seriously. Which is precisely what happened today. As Bloomberg reports, "The Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee... said the outperformance of haven currencies and those from emerging nations has aided in the debasement of the dollar’s reserve status, according to comments included in discussion charts presented ahead of the quarterly refunding. The Treasury published the documents today. “The idea of a reserve currency is that it is built on strength, not typically that it is ‘best among poor choices’,” page 35 of the presentation made by one committee member said. “The fact that there are not currently viable alternatives to the U.S. dollar is a hollow victory and perhaps portends a deteriorating fate.”"
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Investment recommendations (Update1) - Long: C, GM, THQI, JPM, GG ; Short: P, RENN

Lessons From The Brain-Damaged Investor

By JANE SPENCER | Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

People with certain kinds of brain damage may make better investment decisions. That is the conclusion of a new study offering some compelling evidence that mixing emotion with investing can lead to bad outcomes.

By linking brain science to investment behavior, researchers concluded that people with an impaired ability to experience emotions could actually make better financial decisions than other people under certain circumstances. The research is part of a fast-growing interdisciplinary field called "neuroeconomics" that explores the role biology plays in economic decision making, by combining insights from cognitive neuroscience, psychology and economics. The study was published last month in the journal Psychological Science, and was conducted by a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the University of Iowa.

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LinkedIn's Competition Is Growing

NEW YORK (Trefis ) -- LinkedIn(LNKD) has seen rapid growth in its monthly unique visitors, from 4.5 million in 2007 to around 50.5 million in 2010. We expect growth to continue, although at a slower pace, due to the larger base effect. New features like LinkedIn Today, LinkedIn Swarm and LinkedIn Skill have beefed up the number of visitors to LinkedIn.

However, competition from other online recruitment services and social media platforms is always increasing.

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