Juggling Dynamite

The Leaf is the world’s most popular electric vehicle, comprising more than half of all electric car sales. Leaf global sales since late 2010 total 43,000 vehicles, about half of them in Japan. More than 17,000 Leaf cars have been sold in the U.S. and monthly sales are recently at about 1,500 vehicles, according to Nissan. This is a huge growth opportunity as car manufacturers around the world are now racing to catch up to the leadership of Nissan and Tesla. Most exciting is that prices are coming steadily down with the base model Leaf now selling in the $30,000 range. See: Nissan revamps Leaf electric car with more cruise range, cheaper model, and other perks.

Here is an update on the new $5 billion initiative by Renault Nissan to develop a new range of zero emission cars. Here is a direct link.

It is our view the main risk to equity prices today is that they are over-valued relative to global growth and earnings prospects, and that is the case even before the US feels any government cuts slated for 2013. The following discussion explains the issues well. Richard Cookson, global CIO at Citi Private Bank, explains to CNBC the current bubble-like nature of U.S. equities. Here is a direct link.

This clip starts with an update on the latest round of ineffective discussions in Europe this morning, and continues into a very refreshing discussion on the reason that the financial crisis has so far found no healing.

Jon Moulton, chairman of Better Capital, gives his views on why the euro zone crisis never ends: because banks, companies and bankrupt countries are not allowed to fail. Here is a direct link.