Christmas taper coming? This week will drop a hint

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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With the market nervously wondering whether the Federal Reserve will start to reduce their quantitative easing program, a few critical clues could come this week. Between Chairman Ben Bernanke’s speech on Tuesday night and the release of FOMC minutes on Wednesday, investors will seek to determine whether a December taper is now on the table.

In addition, the intense, taper-related scrutiny of the jobs market will give Thursday’s initial jobless claims data an added importance.

“The week, we really want to be focused on the typical Fed kind of talk—but I also want to look at that jobless claims number, because the Fed is very dependent on data for their December meeting,” said Jeff Kilburg of KKM Financial. “So keep an eye on all the data points once again.”

George Goncalves, the head of US rates strategy at Nomura, expects the minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee’s October meeting to be much more revealing than Bernanke’s Washington speech.

“We believe that Bernanke will continue to emphasize the committee views and be more balanced, so as not to steal the thunder of Janet Yellen as she takes over eventually,” Goncalves wrote to CNBC.com. But “the minutes could be revealing, because the last meeting statement was perceived on the hawkish side, so any insights on the Fed’s next steps and their thoughts on fiscal issues will be keenly watched.”

All eyes are on the Fed’s December 18th statement, which will be followed by a press conference. Just a week before Christmas, the Fed could finally make the long-awaited (and long-feared) announcement that they will reduce the pace of their $85 billion-per-month bond buying program.

Read more: You’re wrong—QE has not boosted stocks: McKinsey

In fact, Andrew Wilkinson, the chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak, said that markets ignore that possibility at their own peril.

“In the market, there is too much emphasis based on the lack of a potential for imminent tapering,” Wilkinson said. “But this is certainly something that could happen at the December meeting.”

After all, Wilkinson hearkens back to the September meeting, when the Fed strongly signaled tapering, before keeping the pace of asset purchases consistent.

“It’s been proven that this is data-dependent and at the mercy of the development of the economy, but we’re back to the sort of data we had in September that created a groundswell of opinion—provoked by the chairman—that the Fed would begin tapering,” he said. “Everyone knows that bond purchases are going to come to an end at some point. And if you look at the payroll numbers, I think they are probably strong enough. It suggests that the Fed is prepared to look at the cumulative improvement in the labor market and say in December that it’s an appropriate time to move.”

Read more: Get ready for a Christmas rally: Trader

So with Bernanke’s speech, the FOMC minutes, and the initial jobless claims all possibly shedding light on the tapering timeline, how are markets likely to respond this week?

“I’m going to look for bond markets to push lower as we get further guidance from the Fed, ” said Todd Gordon of TradingAnalysis.com.

—By CNBC’s Alex Rosenberg. Follow him on Twitter: @CNBCAlex.

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Taper likely in next couple of months: Morgan Stanley

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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A tapering in the US Federal Reserve’s massive stimulus is the right thing to do against the backdrop of a recovery economy and a scaling back of the stimulus program can be expected in the next couple of months, Morgan Stanley Chairman and CEO James Gorman told CNBC on Thursday.

“Every now and then, markets behave like schoolchildren. They overreact, they run around like crazy. We know we’re going to have tapering, we know we are living in an artificial state of excess liquidity right now and it’s happening because the economy is recovering,” he said.

“The best result is the economy is demonstrating it truly is recovering and tapering happens. It’s a good outcome. If someone is surprised by this over the next couple of months and it will occur in the next couple of months, then shame on them. There’s been plenty of warning here,” Gorman added.

Speculation about when the Fed will start to unwind its USD 85 billion-a-month asset purchase program has dominated markets for months.

In September, the central bank took markets by surprise by not starting to taper its monetary stimulus and in October expectations for when the scaling back may begin were pushed back amid a partial government shutdown and political wrangling over the debt ceiling.

Gorman, in Singapore for Morgan Stanley’s annual Asia-Pacific Summit, said that had it not been for the political turmoil, “we would have had tapering by now.”

Morgan Stanley last month reported a 50 percent jump in third-quarter revenue, helping its adjust earnings beat analyst expectations, as higher income from equities sales and trade offset a drop in the bank’s fixed-income business.

Trading activity in the bond market has slowed significantly in recent months on speculation about a tapering of the Federal Reserve’s bond-buying program, hurting Wall Street banks.

Gorman said that Morgan Stanley was moving from a period of recovery to a period of performance.

“It’s been five years since the crisis. Major strategic blocks have been done, we’ve re-balanced the firm in terms of wealth and asset management, shored up the capital base and liquidity and cut our leverage dramatically,” he said.

Gorman said that as the global economy recovers, more companies were likely to list their shares. Last week, the shares of micro- blogging website Twitter soared in their first day of trading on the new York Stock Exchange.

“The Twitter IPO is a great example of bringing innovative companies to investors. I don’t tweet, I stay away from social media because I’ve found people have tried to mimic me,” Gorman said.

Copyright 2011 cnbc.com

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Samsung creams Apple in third quarter smartphone sales

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Samsung sold almost three times as many smartphones as rival Apple in the third quarter, according to Gartner, reflecting the South Korean tech giant’s growing dominance in the increasingly competitive industry.

Vendors worldwide sold 80,357 Samsung smartphones to end users, during the July-September period, compared with just 30,330 Apple handsets, new data from the technology research firm released late Thursday showed.

Samsung’s share of the global smartphone market stood at 32.1 percent in the third quarter, unchanged from the same period in 2012, while Apple’s share fell to 12.1 percent, from 14.3 percent. In the second quarter of 2013, Samsung’s share was 31.7 percent, while Apple’s was 14.2 percent.

“While Samsung’s share was flat in the third quarter, Samsung increased its lead over Apple in the global smartphone market. The launch of the Samsung Note 3 helped reaffirm Samsung as the clear leader in the large display smartphone market, which it pioneered,” Gartner said, referring to Samsung’s latest “phablet” – oversized smartphone handsets that are a cross between a phone and tablet.

Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner said that while the arrival of the new iPhones 5s and 5c had a positive impact on Apple’s overall sales, the boost to sales could have been greater had Apple not started shipping late in the quarter.

“While we saw some inventory built up for the iPhone 5c, there was good demand for iPhone 5s with stock out in many markets,” said Gupta.

Overall, global smartphone sales reached 250.2 million units, up 45.8 percent from the third quarter of 2012, led by growth in Asia-Pacific.

Lenovo shines

While Lenovo (Hong Kong Stock Exchange: 992-HK) lagged the duopoly of Samsung and Apple, the Chinese PC maker’s sales soared 85 percent on-year to 12.9 million units, thanks to robust growth in the mainland market.

Lenovo, which recently accelerated its foray into mobile devices, became the world’s third-largest smartphone maker by shipments in the third quarter, replacing South Korea’s LG Electronics.

Its market share stood at 5.1 percent in the third quarter – up from 4.1 percent in the same period a year earlier – compared with LG’s 4.8 percent, according to Gartner.

Copyright 2011 cnbc.com

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Shoplifting cost the world USD 112 bn last year

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Retail theft, or “shrink”- a loss of inventory due to factors such as shoplifting, employee or supplier fraud and organized retail crime – cost retailers over USD 112 billion worldwide last year, according to the 2012-2013 Global Retail Theft Barometer.

Shrink rose in most countries with global retailers blaming sluggish economic recoveries and organized retail crime for high theft rates, according to a study by retail security firm Checkpoint Systems and market research company Euromonitor.

“As a growing share of the population struggles to meet its financial obligations, the occurrence of both shoplifting and employee theft reportedly rose,” the report said.

“Shoplifting is on average the most important cause of shrinkage in all countries reviewed, followed by employee theft,” it added.

Read more: Retailers track employee thefts in vast databases

The study surveyed 157 companies in 16 countries covering 160,000 stores. The companies generated more than USD 1.5 trillion in sales in 2012.

The highest shrink rates were recorded in Brazil and Mexico at 1.6 percent of overall retail sales, followed closely by the US and China at 1.5 percent.

The lowest rates were seen in Japan and Australia at 1.0 and 1.1 percent, respectively.

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The most stolen merchandise are typically small, easy to steal and hide, have a relatively high value and offer the possibility of resale.

These include fashion accessories, jeans, footwear and lingerie, high-value electronics such as Apple products, electronic games, mobile device accessories and consumer health products including allergy treatments and milk formula.

“Shrink is a multi-dimensional threat for retailers across the globe, with shoplifting and employee theft, including organized crime, on the rise,” said Katharina Kunze, associate consultant at Euromonitor.

“Growing shrink concerns have put loss prevention high on the agenda of retail companies keen to invest in effective and proven loss prevention methods such as collaborating with technology companies and specialists for loss management solutions,” Kunze said.

Read more: Retailers sweeten the pot for Thanksgiving workers

-By CNBC`s Ansuya Harjani; Follow her on Twitter:@Ansuya_H

Copyright 2011 cnbc.com

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New index lets you invest like a billionaire

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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It sounds like the latest get-rich-quick scheme. Invest in the same stocks as top billionaire investors, and you too can become wealthy.

On Wednesday, the New York Stock Exchange and iBillionaire launched the iBillionaire Index, which tracks the blue-chip stock holdings of leading billionaire investors, including Warren Buffett, Dan Loeb, David Tepper, John Paulson, Carl Icahn and David Einhorn.

The index comprises the 30 large-cap equities listed on the S&P 500 in which financial billionaires have allocated the most funds. It compiles information from 13F filings — the quarterly disclosures from investment managers detailing their stock holdings.

Read more: Meet the ‘average’ global billionaire

Buying like the big guns certainly seems to produce better returns, at least during certain periods. Over the past eight years, the iBIllionaire Index would have posted annualized returns of 12.6 percent, compared with 7.06 percent for the S&P, according to iBIllionaire.

As iBillionaire puts it, the index “provides investors an efficient and effective way to follow the smart money. In essence, the index works as though one gathered a group of billionaires and asked them to come to a consensus as to which S&P 500 stocks are the best bets.”

The company is even laying the groundwork for an exchange-traded fund. The iBillionaire Index was created by serial entrepreneurs Raul Moreno, who co-founded Kinetik, and Alejandro Estrada, co-founder of Dineromail, a Latin American version of PayPal.

Is it wise for everyday investors to trade like billionaires?

The returns are hard to argue with. Though 13F filings are notoriously backward-looking—the purchase disclosure can take place more than a month after the stock buy—the iBillionaire Index is based on buying at the time of disclosure. It has managed to rack up strong gains, however, so even buying and selling later than billionaires appears to be profitable.

Read more: Bubble watch: Is this investment about to pop?

But billionaires have completely different time horizons, risk tolerances and financial tools. They can afford to lose big. And they’re investing for decades and even generations, while most people need their money for retirement.

Billionaires also possess all manner of hedging strategies and options to improve returns and reduce risks that average investors obviously don’t have.

Read more: Calls to raise taxes for the rich are growing

Those who want to just vicariously invest like a billionaire—without putting in any real money—can always follow the popular iBillionaire App. It’s only 99 cents.

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Retail theft cost the world $112 bn last year

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Retail theft, or ‘shrink’ – a loss of inventory due to factors such as shoplifting, employee or supplier fraud and organized retail crime – cost retailers over USD 112 billion worldwide last year, according to the 2012-2013 Global Retail Theft Barometer.

Shrink rose in most countries with global retailers blaming sluggish economic recoveries and organized retail crime for high theft rates, according to a study by retail security firm Checkpoint Systems and market research company Euromonitor.

“As a growing share of the population struggles to meet its financial obligations, the occurrence of both shoplifting and employee theft reportedly rose,” the report said.

“Shoplifting is on average the most important cause of shrinkage in all countries reviewed, followed by employee theft,” it added.

Read more: Retailers track employee thefts in vast databases

The study surveyed 157 companies in 16 countries covering 160,000 stores. The companies generated more than USD 1.5 trillion in sales in 2012.

The highest shrink rates were recorded in Brazil and Mexico at 1.6 percent of overall retail sales, followed closely by the US and China at 1.5 percent.

 The lowest rates were seen in Japan and Australia at 1.0 and 1.1 percent, respectively.

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The most stolen merchandise are typically small, easy to steal and hide, have a relatively high value and offer the possibility of resale.

These include fashion accessories, jeans, footwear and lingerie, high-value electronics such as Apple products, electronic games, mobile device accessories and consumer health products including allergy treatments and milk formula.

“Shrink is a multi-dimensional threat for retailers across the globe, with shoplifting and employee theft, including organized crime, on the rise,” said Katharina Kunze, associate consultant at Euromonitor.

“Growing shrink concerns have put loss prevention high on the agenda of retail companies keen to invest in effective and proven loss prevention methods such as collaborating with technology companies and specialists for loss management solutions,” Kunze said.

Read more: Retailers sweeten the pot for Thanksgiving workers

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Too soon to dismiss China’s ‘vague’ plenum?

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The bland statement following China’s hotly anticipated Third Plenum meeting of the Communist Party’s 18th Central Committee has left many analysts feeling flat, but some have warned against dismissing the vague statement.

Hopes were high for this year’s plenum, especially after President Xi Jinping excited investors by talking up a “Master Plan” for reform, and as, historically, third plenums have marked major turning points in economic policy.

Following a third plenum meeting in 1978, for example, President Deng Xiaoping unveiled landmark reforms that triggered three decades of rapid economic expansion, but the importance of his plans were not widely appreciated at the time.

Read More: China’s early-bird investors are left holding the worm

“Looking back at China’s reform history, it was the decisive action that followed the third plenums of the 11th [1978], 12th [1984] and 14th [1993] Party Congress that made those meetings the turning points of the Chinese economy,” said Wei Yao, China economist at Societe Generale.

“The plenum that just concluded has the potential to mark a new beginning of positive changes. Now having said what needs to be said, the new leaders should do what needs to be done,” she added.

Although the 5000-word communiqué published on Tuesday, which precedes an official document set to be released in a week’s time, has come under fire for its vague language and lack of concrete action, analysts have noted some important points were made.

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Most notably, policy makers talk about how markets are set to play a more “decisive role” in the allocation of resources, a marked change from the old language assigning market a “basic” role. Meanwhile, the mention of the creation of a special committee tasked specifically with spearheading reform has also been viewed as an encouraging sign, along with the deadline for achieving decisive results by 2020.

Another important point analysts have noted is talk of reform to the nation`s two-tier system of land ownership, which under current rules means farmers who move to cities are not able to sell land back home. Societe Generale’s Yao described this development as a “major breakthrough.”

However, a lot was left unsaid. In the run up to the plenum, many had hoped to see progress on opening up China’s state owned enterprises (SOEs), a step seen by many investors as vital to fully opening up the economy, but the issue was not mentioned, along with any changes to the Hukou system (a residential registration system that ties citizens to their home towns).

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Also, while the communique talked about improving the financial market system there were no specific references to banks, interest rates or the domestic currency.

Capital Economics chief Asia economist Mark Williams said it was “hard to get excited” about the Third Plenum communiqué, due to its lack of detail and its seemingly conflicting message.

He pointed out that many of the issues that required attention did get a mention, but that a conflict between giving the markets a greater role and the continued strong backing for the state, in terms of no progress on reforming SOEs, presented a confused message.

“Without a clearly-articulated vision to guide officials at various levels of government, we suspect that reformers will struggle to push piecemeal efforts against the opposition of vested interests,” he said.

Read more: China Singles Day could dwarf America`s Cyber Monday

However, Williams added that it was perhaps too soon to view the third plenum as a “flop,” and it was important to see Tuesday`s communique as just an overview.

Analysts at the Royal Bank of Scotland pointed out the communiqué following the plenum was about the “gradual reform…not about rapid change.”

“On several specific areas of reform… this document says little. That does not mean that there is no scope for movement in those areas. The `Decisions document’ [the final document set to be released in a week] that is meant to follow is likely to discuss them,” said the RBS analysts.

Read more: China’s new plan for growth-less government

“It is too early to say whether the reform directions and orientations agreed at the plenum will meet the expectations in those closely watched areas,” they added.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Prince Charles slams supermarkets before 65th birthday

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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By the time most people hit 65, they are thinking of giving up work and preparing for a life of leisure. But what if you’ve yet to start the job you were meant to do?

The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, marked his 65th birthday by slamming the UK’s big supermarket chains for squeezing farmers’ incomes by taking “none of the risk.”

To mark his birthday, the future king guest-edited Country Life, the 116-year-old weekly magazine for the UK’s landed gentry, and wrote an impassioned editorial about Britain’s struggling farming industry, which he said was facing some of its “toughest challenges.”

Read more: Prince Charles: Weneed 21st century pension funds

“Small farmers find themselves in the iniquitous position of taking the biggest risk, often acting as the buffer for the retailer and consumer against all the economic uncertainties of producing food, but receiving the least return,” he wrote on Wednesday.

“It cannot be right that a typical hill farmer earns just £12,600, with some surviving on as little as £8,000 a year, whilst the big retailers and their shareholders do so much better out of the deal, having taken none of the risk.”

The comments were the prince’s most outspoken criticism of the UK’s supermarkets to date. Britain’s food retail is dominated by the four big players – Tesco (the UK’s largest retailer by sales), Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons. The British Retail Consortium, which represents these supermarkets, said retailers were confident their investment in the food chain meant a strong future for farmers, and that a “high proportion” of supermarket food would continue to be sources in the UK.

The prince said the current system squeezes farm incomes, meaning that many small and medium-sized farms could not afford to make crucial long-term reinvestment.

Read more: Money-making Prince George draws a crowd at christening

“I fear this will create huge problems in the near future, especially in the dairy sector,” he added.

Agriculture accounts for 0.7 percent of the U.K.’s gross domestic product, contributing around £26 billion a year to the economy, according to the Office for National Statistics. Output in the sector increased by 1.4 percent in the third quarter of 2013 from the second, but fell 1.6 percent when compared with the same period in 2012.

Prince Charles is a large landowner has long been a supporter of protecting Britain’s countryside, which he described in Country Life as “the unacknowledged backbone of our national identity.” His private estate, the Duchy of Cornwall, consists of over 53,000 hectares of land and includes an organic farm.

He is also known to weigh in on other issues, including the environment, architecture and alternative medicine. Last month the prince raised concerns about the UK’s pension system, arguing that fund managers renounce their short-sighted obsession with “quarterly capitalism” and invest in companies that tackle environmental and social challenges.

Read more: First look at royalbaby as Will and Kate leave hospital

Prince Charles is also no stranger to controversy in his private life, after splitting with Diana, Princess of Wales in the 1990s.

He married Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005 and took the opportunity as guest editor of Country Life to feature a picture of Camilla on the magazine’s infamous frontispiece. The popular “girl in pearls” page has been a feature of the magazine since its launch in 1897.

Prince Charles has been heir to the British throne since he was three, and at 65 will be the oldest heir to the throne for almost 300 years. He will donate his pension to a charity which supports the elderly.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

China’s early-bird investors are left holding the worm

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Being first in China hasn`t always paid off. While it gets easier to buy China`s stocks, some of the earliest foreign investors in the mainland`s B-share market are saddled with an illiquid investment.

Proving that while the early bird may get the worm, good things also come to those who wait, Deutsche Bank last week launched its db X-trackers Harvest CSI 300 China A-Shares Fund. It is the first US exchange traded fund to directly hold A-shares, rather than derivatives and is seen as another sign of the mainland opening up its markets to foreign investment.

“The B-share is kind of a relic from the past,” said Andy Xie, an independent economist.

The markets in B-shares were founded in the early 1990s in Shenzhen and Shanghai and offered hard-currency shares in Chinese companies at a time when capital controls prevented foreigners from buying into the yuan-denominated A-shares.

Once China companies began listing overseas, B-shares became passé, Xie noted, adding that large institutional investors are among those holding the thinly traded B-shares.

“I think they`re stuck,” he said. “Nobody trades B-shares anymore.”

Currently, there are around 53 B-shares in Shenzhen with a market value of around 88 billion yuan (USD 14.4 billion), compared with 468 mainboard A-shares with a market value of around 3.4 trillion yuan. In Shanghai, there are 54 B-shares with a market capitalization of around 784 billion yuan, compared with 943 mainboard A-shares 151 trillion yuan, as of the end of October.

“I don`t think the government had bad intentions,” said Ben Cavender, an analyst at China Market Research Group. “The financial regulations are evolving from unsophisticated to relatively more sophisticated and that means vehicles tried in the past could get dropped,” he said.

“I suspect that one way or another, the B-share market is going to disappear, but I don`t know exactly how they`re going to handle dealing with it,” Cavender said.

For at least the past decade, fresh hopes that B-shares would be merged with their A counterparts have regularly surfaced – only to be dashed.

Late last year, it looked as though the long-suffering B-share holders had caught a break: CIMC relocated its B-shares into Hong Kong-listed H-shares. But any expectation of an imminent end to B-share markets proved exaggerated as no other companies have since followed suit.

“It`s languishing again partly because the market is weak, so it`s not easy to do an IPO,” Xie said, adding it also wasn`t clear if all the B-share companies are qualified for H-share listings.

China`s leadership change this year also put policy on hold, noted Jackson Wong, vice president at Tanrich Securities.

“You have to hope,” Xie said. “They represent assets. These assets are valuable. Eventually the value will come through. It takes time. It takes many years.”

-By CNBC.Com`s Leslie Shaffer; Follow her on Twitter @LeslieShaffer1

Copyright 2011 cnbc.com

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Jack Lew: US is leading world in economic recovery

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The US is leading the way in a global economic recovery and there should be little question about its ability to fulfill its debt obligations, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told CNBC Asia in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.

A political crisis in Washington last month took the world`s biggest economy to the brink of a debt default, unnerving global financial markets and sparking consternation from major economies such as China and Japan, the biggest foreign holders of US government bonds.

Also read: Global liquidity swell to spill into 2014

“We went through a period of some political turmoil, but I have to be clear it was a political, not economic crisis,” Lew said, referring to the wrangling over the debt ceiling and federal budget.

“What we learned a few weeks ago is that it [the budget battle] did get to the 11th hour, but at the 11th hour, there was a broad bipartisan consensus to be where the US has always been. We stand by our obligations and the full faith and credit of the US cannot be called into question,” he added.

Lew said the US economy had proved resilient and was bouncing back.

“The United States is recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression and we`re leading the developed world in the quality of our recovery,” Lew added.

Lew, in Asia for a five-nation trip, emphasized the importance of demand-led growth in Asia, adding that the region cannot rely on the US to support the global economy.

“The message that we are bringing in my conversation is you have to look at how sustainable growth is going to be achieved and it is a similar message here [in Asia] and in Europe. Demand growth is critical. US growth cannot make up for a lack of demand growth,” he said.

Tough side

Lew said he expected talks on implementing the controversial Volcker rule to be concluded by the end of the year. Regulators have been working to agree on the final wording of the rule.

The rule, required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, was proposed two years ago and would block banks from proprietary trading or making risky trades with a company`s own money.

“What I`ve said to a lot of business people is: We have to get this done, and when we get it done, our goal is not to be as tough as possible, or as lenient as possible. It`s to get as close to right as possible,” said Lew.

“Inevitably, we might err a little, in one way or the other. If I had to choose, I would err on just being a little bit on the tough side,” he added.

Fire that third arrow

A day after visiting Japan, Lew said he had urged Japan`s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to press ahead with the “third arrow” of a three-pronged strategy to revive the Japanese economy. The third arrow focuses on long-term structural reforms.

“What they responded is that they are going to use the fact that they`ve consolidated their positions through elections to have a debate on specific proposals to make reforms in the labor market,” Lew said, referring to meetings with Japan`s prime minister and finance minister. “They are moving ahead and what I know is that it is important that they succeed.”

He said that he also made a “strong case” for a need to reach an agreement on the Trans Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement, before the end of the year.

Lew added that he hoped to learn more about China`s plans for economic reform when he meets with leaders from the world`s second biggest economy later in the week.

China`s Communist Party on Tuesday concluded a key four-day policy meeting or plenum, with a pledge to allow markets to play a “decisive” role in allocating resources.

“The communique coming out of the plenum is at a very general level,” Lew said. “It doesn`t spell out all the policies. So in the coming discussions, I hope to learn more about some of the specific polices.”

-By CNBC.Com`s Dhara Ranasinghe; Follow her on Twitter @DharaCNBC
Copyright 2011 cnbc.com

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow