Getting cold shoulder from foreign investors

Foreigners are turning their noses up even more at U.S. stocks and bonds.

Foreign investors, both private and government, unloaded $56 billion more in long-term U.S. securities than they bought in November, according to the most recent data from the Treasury Department. A month earlier, they sold $36.6 billion more than they bought.

Americans, meanwhile, are selling their foreign holdings, but not at the same pace. U.S. investors sold $34.3 billion more in foreign long-term securities than they bought in November.

Circle of life

The market's a jungle, and a JPMorgan strategist has a rating system more apt for it. Instead of "buy," "sell," and "hold," Thomas Lee rates things on where they are in the "circle of life."

Financial assets, he says, track through the same four stages — they peak, break down, eventually bottom and finally recover again.

So what's peaking now? Treasury bonds, which have surged amid the recession.

A gloomier Davos

This year's World Economic Forum looks set to be a gloomier affair.

Each year, the city of Davos in Switzerland welcomes thousands of business, social and political leaders to discuss policy, and it can be a glitzy get-together in the Alps.

Last year, the meeting's theme was "The Power of Collaborative Innovation," and U2 singer Bono was among the big headliners.

This year's theme is a little more sober: "Shaping the Post-Crisis World." The forum begins Wednesday.

The Associated Press