Below are the most interesting comments by Gunlach for procurement professionals.

On the US Dollar: While everyone is whining and crying about the falling dollar, the simple fact is that the dollar actually bottomed three years ago and is now strengthening. "The problems in Europe are wildly bullish for the dollar". "All of our assets are dollar denominated."

On Natural Gas: The all-asset class portfolio is currently legging into a long natural gas position - slowly. Jeffrey says it probably goes nowhere in the short-term but in a decade or two could be a five-bagger just like his gold trade was. Natural gas is very cheap and has a lot of potential in the long-term.

On Copper and Commodities: Copper is still trading at 40% above the marginal cost of production so there is still risk to these prices. Commodities (other than gold) have been terrible over the last three years. Since September 19th 2008 through this week, the DJ UBS Excess Return Commodity Index is down 18.4%, it was up 12.72% during QE1 and 6.73% during QE2.

On Corporate Bonds: Investment grade corporates have done extremely well but the below investment grade (junk) market "has absolutely fallen apart". Junk bonds will really hit the wall and face serious wave of defaults beginning in 2012 as all the refinancing of 2009 and 2010 vintage come due. Many of these companies have improved cash flow by lowering their interest expense with refis but they haven't reduced their indebtedness overall. That said, pension funds are still underfunded and will be forced to use investment grade corporates to make their assumptions, this will keep a "technical bid" beneath that market.

Business Literature: Author's Choice

It Is about You

Jon R. Katzenbach, coauthor of Leading Outside the Lines: How to Mobilize the (in)Formal Organization, Energize Your Team, and Get Better Results, introduces a passage on the importance of self-awareness from Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best…and Learn from the Worst, by Robert I. Sutton.

August 24, 2010

Business Literature: Knowledge Review

What Experience Would You Like with That?

by Theodore Kinni

How a new view of consumers changed the way we think about products, companies, and economies.

August 24, 2010

Business Literature: Author's Choice

Bill Gore’s Formula for Failure

Rich Teerlink, author, with Lee Ozley, of More Than a Motorcycle, introduces a passage on how managers can empower their workforce, from Freedom, Inc., by Brian M. Carney and Isaac Getz.

August 9, 2010

Thought Leaders

Navigating Turmoil in the Global Technology-services Sector

by Vikas Sehgal and Ann Graham

For Girish Paranjpe, co-CEO of India’s Wipro Technologies, the best response to economic crisis was reinvestment: in people, green technology, and expansion.

Books in Brief

August 24, 2010

Prosperity Lost and Regained

by David K. Hurst

A review of The Road from Ruin, by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green.

Prosperity without Growth

by David K. Hurst

A review of Smart Growth, by Edward D. Hess.

Continual Prosperity

by David K. Hurst

A review of The Rational Optimist, by Matt Ridley.

Prosperity Redistributed

by David K. Hurst

A review of The Spirit Level, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.

Here is the link:

http://www.industryweek.com/Media/whitepapers/NewProcurementStrategies.pdf

… consider Ireland, which has suffered an astonishing 16 consecutive months of price deflation. The Irish CPI fell by 2.1% year-on-year in April. This deflation action is beginning to make Japan's experience of the past 20 years look like a picnic because Ireland, unlike Japan in the 1990s, remains in fiscal contraction mode. Thus, the Irish government aims to reduce its deficit to 10% of GDP in 2011 and then to 2.9% in 2014 from 14.3% last year…

Others in the euro-zone will surely follow. Spain has potentially a huge deflationary cycle to endure given its level of consumer leverage and the degree of anticipated fiscal tightening. Spain's household debt-to-GDP ratio was 83% at the end of 2009, and Spain has to refinance €165 billion of maturing government debt by the end of 2011.

Buyers with fixed priced contracts – that thought they had a good deal – actual may not.

These risks are a multi-headed Hydra, ranging from natural and man-made disasters, transportation boondoggles and regulatory changes to political strife, labor strikes and technology failures. Other risk managers are similarly coping with enhanced supply chain risks in the wake of the financial crisis.

Over the weekend, I gave quite a bit of thought -- and had numerous conversations and e-mail exchanges with various colleagues -- to Purchasing Magazine's ...

Breaking Supply Chain News: Reed Supply Chain Publications said to ...

That deal apparently does not include Purchasing magazine, which was not part of the SCM group. If it does not find a buyer, it means the market will not at ...

Breaking Supply Chain News: Reed Publishing Shutters its Supply ...

... group (Supply Chain Management Review, Modern Materials Handling, Logistics Management and Material Handling Product News), plus Purchasing magazine. ...

Classical Values :: Purchasing Magazine Closing

Apr 21, 2010 by sarah-hoyt@sff.net
Reed Elsevier, parent company of Purchasing, announced today that it is closing Purchasing and the magazine's website, purchasing.com, as well as most of its other U.S. publications, effective immediately. ...
http://www.classicalvalues.com/

Purchasing Magazine folds | Supply, Cost & Procurement Management

Apr 16, 2010 by Peter Smith
Purchasing magazine and website ceased publication this week after 95 years (95 years!) Can't say I often looked at it; it was very US manufacturing based,
http://blog.procurement-excellence.com/

How will the closing of Purchasing magazine, purchasing.com ...

Apr 22, 2010 ... Magazine and website will close as part of major divestiture of parent ... announced today that it is closing Purchasing and the magazine's ...
www.govloop.com/xn/detail/1154385:Topic:847718?xg_source...