There are roughly 1400 exchange-traded vehicles on the U.S. exchanges. And yet, only a small fraction of them (about 5%) can lay claim to $1 billion in assets under management. These 70-75 influencers often explain the direction of stock, bond, currency and commodity markets. In fact, there have been times when a single asset defines the entire investing landscape. For example, PowerShares DB [...] Continue Reading...
Why are so many ill-informed analysts determined to “reveal” an ugly property bubble in China? For starters, most of those who write about China have never lived in the region; they understand precious little about Chinese culture or the mainland’s government structure. Equally important, empty buildings or high price-to-income ratios may be indicative of future [...] Continue Reading...
The Dow and the S&P 500 may have experienced the worst 2-week losses since November. Still, is it really time to panic? When one considers the reality that the major averages are less than -4% from multi-year highs, abandoning stock assets seems a bit premature. That said, you may want to avoid certain investments. For example, [...] Continue Reading...
Stock assets are at a collective crossroads. The reasons to go higher? Federal Reserve determination to force investors as well as corporations out of cash with their zero-percent rates AND a 7%-plus earnings yield (E/P) for the S&P 500. According to Bloomberg, the spread between the earnings yield and the 2% offered by the 10-year Treasury bond is the [...] Continue Reading...
Back in 2009, a flood of easy money worldwide sparked super-sized gains for the emerging markets… more so than their developed world counterparts. Granted, stock assets for industrialized and developing regions were both remarkable. Yet the best investment profits involved commodities, materials and rapid-fire economies with the most “stuff.” By mid-2010, the industrializing world found itself tightening fiscal and monetary policies to curtail runaway [...] Continue Reading...
There’s a tendency for many writers, analysts and money managers to lump all industrializing nations into a single entity. For better or worse, the popularity of Vanguard Emerging Markets (VWO) and iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM) illustrates the way the developed world chooses to invest money. (Heck, Jim Cramer recently described the investing environment in terms of a 4-legged [...] Continue Reading...
In 2011, the S&P 500 began the year with remarkable fanfare. The benchmark raked in 2.4% in January alone. And yet, in 2012, the S&P 500 has been even more impressive, snagging an eye-popping 4.4%. The reasons for the risk-on gains may be easy to identify, from the notion that U.S. economic prospects are improving to the feeling that Europe will contain [...] Continue Reading...
Popular emerging markets in the BRIC configuration – Brazil, Russia, India, China – suffered through severe bear markets in 2011. Yet far too many writers attribute the 20%-33% declines to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis alone. It is true that the debt mess sent the U.S. dollar higher at the expense of the ruble, “real,” and the rupee. Contagion containment has also damaged the prospects for emerging market [...] Continue Reading...
In 2004, South Korea and Australia began exporting more to China than they did to the United States. By year-end 2008, Japan and Brazil exported more to China than to the U.S. Not surprisingly, when the Chinese government expressed an intention to rein in rampant inflation through tighter fiscal and monetary policy (November 2010), many countries that depend on their exports to [...] Continue Reading...
I represent hundreds of families as the president of my Registered Investment Adviser, taught financial concepts to classrooms around the world, spent years as the CFP on a national talk radio show and receive countless e-mails from wisdom seekers. Yet I would not be able to tally the number of investors who I have encountered in my lifetime. However, there [...] Continue Reading...
