Thaksin sister prepares to lead Thailand after stunning win (Reuters)

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thai opposition leader Yingluck Shinawatra, a political newcomer, prepared to lead her country after a stunning weekend election victory but huge challenges lie ahead, including how quickly to bring home her brother, exiled ex-premier Thaksin.

The Election Commission projected their Puea Thai party would win 264 of the 500 seats in parliament, a decisive win that appears to make it hard for Thaksin's die-hard opponents in the army and establishment to stop Yingluck taking power.

"Winning by a big margin would ease the problem of the military intervening and make it easier for them to form the government and implement all their policies," said Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, chief executive of broker Asia Plus Securities.

"We expect a jump when the stock market opens and this is because it is a big win, with less risk of having the military meddling with politics."

The baht rose more than 1 percent against the dollar Monday, outperforming other Asian currencies.

Late Sunday, Yingluck brushed aside concerns about the cost of the promises made during her election campaign, from tablet computers for schoolchildren to a big increase in the minimum wage, which critics say will damage the economy.

"That's not true, we know what to do. We'll reduce costs for people and we know how to generate the income that we'll give back to them," she told Reuters.

Newspapers concentrated on the photogenic 44-year-old businesswoman Monday, momentarily leaving Thaksin to one side, although he was all over the television screens on Sunday,

offering his congratulations from Dubai.

The stridently anti-Thaksin Nation newspaper accepted the result but pulled no punches on the challenge ahead.

"The election is over but the hatred remains," it headlined its leader column. "It's time for ordinary Thais to take reconciliation into their own hands."

Outgoing Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva conceded defeat quickly Sunday. "I would like to congratulate the Puea Thai Party for the right to form a government," he said.

Just over a year ago, the military put down a protest movement by Thaksin's "red shirt" supporters in Bangkok and 91 people lost their lives. Nearly 2,000 were injured.

The election results were a rebuke to the traditional establishment of generals, "old money" families and royal advisers in Bangkok who loathe Thaksin and backed Abhisit, an Oxford-educated economist who lacked the common touch.

THAKSIN BIDES HIS TIME

The size of Puea Thai's victory could usher in much-needed political stability after six years of sporadic unrest since Thaksin was ousted in a coup. He now lives in Dubai to avoid jail for graft charges that he says were politically motivated.

The years of unrest have featured the occupation of Bangkok's two airports, a blockade of parliament, an assassination attempt and last year's protests.

"Chances of blocking Puea Thai in the near term are severely limited," said Roberto Herrera-Lim, Southeast Asian analyst at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. "The instability everyone has been worried about now looks less likely. The military will have to be pragmatic now."

The red shirts accuse the rich, the establishment and army top brass of breaking laws with impunity -- grievances that have simmered since the 2006 coup -- and have clamoured for Thaksin's return.

Thaksin said he would "wait for the right moment" to come home. "If my return is going to cause problems, then I will not do it yet. I should be a solution, not a problem," he told reporters in Dubai.

The former telecommunications tycoon himself scored two landslide election wins and is idolised by the poor as the first politician to address the needs of millions living beyond Bangkok's bright lights.

(Additional reporting by Vithoon Amorn, Panarat thepgumpanat, Jason Szep and Martin Petty)

Fed prepares for last spurt of easy money flood (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The flood of Federal Reserve money that has supported Wall Street and the rest of the U.S. economy for 2-1/2 years will shrink to a trickle with the conclusion of the Fed's bond purchases announced on Friday.

The Fed said it will buy $50 billion of Treasuries, the final series of government bond purchases that marks the last phase of the $600 billion program it launched in November 2010 to prevent another recession.

As a result, once the purchases are concluded on June 30, the financial sector will receive only a fraction of the roughly $100 billion a month in easy money it has been getting from the Fed.

The conclusion of the Fed's bond-buying program, known as "Quantitative Easing 2," does not mean the stimulus will come to a complete stop. The Fed will reinvest maturing securities, mainly mortgage-related debt, which analysts predict will run at $12 billion to $16 billion per month.

"From a psychological standpoint, it is important for the market to still feel the constant presence of the Fed," said Ralph Axel, interest rate strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York.

This gradual approach to unwind policy support is likely needed given investor anxiety over a slowing U.S. economy and the festering public fiscal problem in Europe.

While still a lot of money, it is a huge step down from stimulus levels at the height of the buying campaign, dubbed by markets as QE2 because it was the second round of Fed asset-buying in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

A key aim of QE2 was to hold down long-term interest rates to stimulate investment in capital equipment and risky assets. It came almost eight months after the Fed's first round of bond purchases, primarily in mortgage-related securities.

The initial bout of quantitative easing, worth $1.73 trillion, began in December 2008 and ended in March 2010. It was created to stabilize the housing sector, which was the epicenter of the financial turmoil and has yet to show signs of recovery.

The Treasury bond component of the first round of purchases totaled $300 billion, from March to October 2009.

The Fed's buying assets has been controversial from the start. Critics say it is tantamount to printing money, and it has been credited with fueling a stock market rally but blamed for a surge in oil and food prices.

The end of QE2 has been well-flagged. The Fed said at the outset it would run until the end of June 2011.

Still, investors expect stocks, bonds, gold and the euro to fall after it ends, according to a Reuters poll of 64 analysts and fund managers last month.

HOUSING WOES

Come July, the Fed will rely on cash generated from its $1 trillion holding of mortgage-related securities to anchor Treasury yields and support the economy.

Proceeds from Fed's maturing mortgage-backed securities and debt issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) will fluctuate monthly depending on house sales and mortgage refinancings.

Recent evidence suggested the real estate conditions are deteriorating again with single-home home prices dropping below their 2009 low in March. The double-dip in housing will likely be compounded by an abrupt slowdown in job growth in May.

This grim development portends that a housing recovery is farther than previously thought and would take longer for people to sell their homes and to pay off their mortgages. This means mortgage securities will not be prepaid quickly.

"We are still at least two to three years away from seeing signs of even a baby upturn in home prices," said Anthony Karydakis, senior economist at Commerzbank in New York.

Going back to the 1950s, housing starts have typically returned to their pre-recession levels in 1-1/2 to 2 years after they hit bottom. But the current housing market is showing "atypical" behavior since its euphoric highs earlier this decade, Karydakis said.

Housing starts are stagnant after 1-1/2 years into the current economic recovery and more than a year since the initial bout of bond purchases. They had enjoyed a brief revival due to a federal first-time homebuyer credit program.

"Housing starts have stabilized at very low levels, but there have been no signs of a recovery," Karydakis said.

In April, housing starts fell 10.6 percent to an annualized rate of 523,000 units.

(Additional reporting by Burton Frierson and Chris Reese; Editing by Diane Craft)