Very interesting article from Forbes about Apple, Google, and Facebook.

It is not an exaggeration to say that all roads of growth lead to or through China. The obvious question for some of today’s most popular growth stocks is, “Out of Apple Google,, and Facebook, which company will do better in China?”

The bread and butter of Google and Facebook are selling advertising.  Apple on the other hand makes money by selling devices.

Chinese mentality regarding digital marketing is also not well understood by western analysts.  A typical American or European company is either spending 8% to 10% of its advertising budget on digital marketing or is heading in that direction.

In contrast, a typical large Chinese company spends only 2% to 3% of its advertising budget on digital marketing.

The point is that even if Facebook and Google could expand in China there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in China.

On this count Apple gets the pot of gold.

A Nielsen survey of Chinese consumers found that are cooling towards discretionary spending, preferring to salt money into savings or education for their children.

Savings and education were the only areas in which survey respondents were more willing to allocate additional cash.

China demand for gold hit an all-time high in the first quarter.

China remained the world’s top gold consumer for the second quarter in a row, with its gold consumer demand up 10 percent to 255.2 tonnes, beating India’s 207.6 tonnes.

On today’s podcast, Phil and I talk about what’s happening in gold, where it might go next, and what I’m doing to protect Red-Hot Global Resources subscribers. Listen here: http://talkdigitalnetwork.com/2012/05/bear-market-for-gold/

General Motors has decided to stop advertising on Facebook. Why? According to GM, Facebook advertising “just doesn’t work.”

General Motors, the third-largest advertiser in the United States, decided toer  discontinue its Facebook advertising, worth about $10 million annually.

That is pretty damning news but to put some perspective on it, Facebook had $3.7 billion worth of revenues in 2011 so this $10 million isn’t a big loss. If other advertisers follow suit, Facebook is going to get killed.

The operator of the world’s largest container ship fleet reported net profits up 1 per cent at $1.18bn on revenue down 1 per cent to $14.3bn compared with the same quarter of 2011. But the profits were entirely the result of a $900m exceptional gain following settlement of a tax dispute in Algeria and $324m in investment gains in the quarter.

This is a very interesting look at where the world’s largest economies are headed. This CNN page shows how the 10 largest economies have performed since 2000 and what they are expected to do each year up to 2017.

Take a look. It will help you decide whether to include Asia or not in your portfolio.

Hey, maybe I should step up my criticisms of the Obama administration to get a free vacation at a luxury resort. It worked in China.

China has moved a prominent ethnic Mongolian rights activist to a “luxury resort.”

Hada, who like many ethnic Mongolians in China uses a single name, was tried in China’s vast northern Inner Mongolia region in 1996 and jailed for 15 years for separatism, spying and supporting the Southern Mongolian Democratic Alliance, which seeks greater rights for ethnic Mongolians.

He was released in December 2010 and then had to serve a separate sentence, “four years of deprivation of political rights”, Tao Jian, the deputy Communist Party boss of Inner Mongolia’s law and order committee, said in March.

Hada has since been transferred to the resort in the Chifeng municipality of Inner Mongolia, the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre (SMHRIC) said in an emailed statement, citing Hada’s uncle, Haschuluu.

This factoid about China’s trade numbers worries the heck out of me. This is one of the first data points that I’ve seen about the economies of China’s neighbors slowing down.

Shipments to emerging economies experienced a drop alongside well-flagged European weakness.

 

Exports grew by 4.9% but imports only increased by 0.3%. That puts a big question mark on how strong China’s domestic economy/domestic consumption really is.

China’s exports and imports both grew considerably more slowly than expected last month, the Chinese government announced on Thursday, in one of the clearest signals yet of lingering and possibly worsening weakness in the world’s second biggest economy.

I talked to Phil at HoweStreet.com, and our talk covered a range of topics.  You can listen here:

http://talkdigitalnetwork.com/2012/05/good-news-on-gas-prices/

The Chinese love their pork and there is money to be made by investing in the right companies.

US pork exports will jump 23 percent or more this year because of surging demand and prices in China, the world’s top consumer.

Indonesia is one of the strongest growing economies in the world and expanded by 6.5% in the first quarter.

Indonesia’s economy has grown at an annual rate exceeding 5% in seven of the past eight years, thanks largely to its increasingly affluent middle class. The sprawling archipelago’s population of more than 240 million ranks fourth in the world, behind only China, India and the U.S. And a growing number of Indonesians are seeing their incomes rise to a level that allows them to spend more on everything from motorcycles to instant noodles.

Calculated Risk points out that gasoline prices are now down 15 cents per gallon year over year, and offers this chart from GasBuddy.com …

In just the past two weeks alone, gasoline prices are down 6.75 cents a gallon.  Now, part of the reason for lower gas prices may be previously high gas prices choking economic activity.  The Bonddad Blog calls it “the oil choke collar,” and says that the lackluster jobs numbers we saw last week are directly related to higher gas prices tightening their grasp on the throat of the economy.

So if higher gas prices hurt the economy, lower gasoline prices should help it.  According to an analyst from Cameron Hanover, for every penny the price of gasoline increases, it costs consumers an additional $4 million per day. That equals $1.4 billion over an entire year. So it follows that for every penny the price of gasoline goes down, consumers get an extra $1.4 billion a year to spend.

We’ll need to see if lower gas prices lead to more hiring.  If so, that could send gasoline prices higher again (as economic activity picks up).  And I think the next Presidential election could depend a lot on whether gasoline prices are higher or lower.

Go to http://www.johnmauldin.com/frontlinethoughts to read the entire article.