Usually I don't pay much attention to a lot of these end of year or mid year investment predictions because much of the information is very cookie cutter, but Barron's midyear roundup has some interesting folks speaking who don't parrot the normal investment house speak.  Felix Zulauf is especially interesting. 

Barron's is offering the article for free so jump on over following this link if interested.

Before you know it, the Bank of Japan will be delivering their monetary policy announcement. Far less attention has been paid to the BoJ announcement than last’s ECB or RBNZ meetings and for good reason. For the past few years, the central bank has been more reactive than proactive and never one to opt for surprises. The following table shows how economic data has fared since the last meeting and its clearly been mixed. Given the lack of clarity on the state of the economy, there is very little reason for the central bank to act.

This week we look at data from the Bank of International Settlements, by which (if someone does a lot of work) you can figure out how much US banks have written in credit default swaps to banks in Europe on Greek, Irish, and Portuguese debt. The details should not make you happy. I meditate on whether one should buy a house now, and then discuss “the way out” of all this mess and why we will Muddle Through. Oh, and I’ll ask you for help on yet another book project, on creating jobs. And all while trying to finish early enough to go to dinner. So let’s get started.

Interest rate hike for kiwi likely pushed back

Many forex traders have been hoping for an interest rate hike for New Zealand, but that is unlikely, given that there has been another earthquake in Christchurch.

By David Galland, Casey Research
I just had a conversation with constitutional lawyer and monetary expert Dr. Edwin Vieira. I first became acquainted with Dr. Vieira, who holds four degrees from Harvard and has extensive experience arguing cases before the Supreme Court, at our recent Casey Research Summit in Boca Raton, where he spoke on how far off the constitutional rails the nation has traveled. Here is a summary of what he told me…
Dr. Vieira and I covered a lot of ground in our lengthy conversation, most of it related to the U.S.