The early 80s may accurately capture my transition to adulthood. Yet the 70s have a grip on a treasure trove of childhood memories — from iZod shirts to Schoolhouse Rock to the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. The 70s also bring back a less nostalgic activity… waiting on gasoline lines that stretched about a 1/2 mile down Route 22. Well, to be fair, [...] Continue Reading...
Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish may have fans singing its football praises for pounding an Army squad 27-3. Yet the third weekend of November brought little cheer for Ireland itself, as the country conceded its need for a financial bailout. Meanwhile, the European Union and the world at large have been desperately trying to avoid the dreaded debt scare from spreading. The problem is… [...] Continue Reading...
The Economist Intelligence Unit forecasts GDP growth in 2011 for 40 out of 42 of the world’s largest economies. If those countries are going to contribute positively to the current global industrial cycle, manufacturers will require more oil, gas, corn, wheat, potash, aluminum, coal, silver, rare earth metals and a wide array of commodities. It follows that many thinkers [...] Continue Reading...
The custodian for the overwhelming majority of my client assets under management is TD Ameritrade. So there are few ETF advocates as happy as I am about free trades on vehicles from the Big 3: iShares, Vanguard, State Street. (Note: There are a few ETFs from PowerShares, VanEck and WisdomTree, but they are noticeably small in number.) In [...] Continue Reading...
I try to be open about my investing biases. I prefer Asia ETFs to most Latin America ETFs, perhaps because I’ve lived in Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan. I’ve been a frequent advocate for income-producing U.S. assets like iShares S&P Preferred (PFF) and JP Morgan Alerian MLP (AMJ), often at the expense of reasonably valued common stock [...] Continue Reading...
The PowerShares Dollar Bullish Fund (UUP) has fallen 11% since early June. For worse or for better, the U.S. dollar’s value on the world stage is the same as it was at the start of 2010. By itself, this fact isn’t all that alarming. Yet the Federal Reserve’s orchestrated maneuvers in the light of day — [...] Continue Reading...
Money has been flowing out of stock assets at a steady pace. Macroeconomic data has been decidedly weak. And unless you hopped aboard the gravy “grains” this past week, a Great White took a bite out of your portfolio. (Or maybe a brown bear is responsible for the mauling. I don’t think it was a brown bear, though. So let’s [...] Continue Reading...
As many as 75% of companies are beating their earnings estimates… far above the 65% norm. Yet, consumer, homebuilder and newsletter sentiment have all dropped to bone-chilling depths, pushing pessimism to the forefront of investors’ minds. Indeed, macro-economic anxiety has been dampening the share prices of companies, in spite of some very positive results. One would think that Intel’s “best quarter EVER” could have carried [...] Continue Reading...
John P. Hussman can be remarkably outspoken. He may even be one of the brightest minds in the investment management business, where several hallmark Hussman Funds serve as admirable hedges against market demise. With that said, Mr. Hussman’s recent commentary of 6/14/10 caused my skepticism to perk up. In bold letters he wrote, “unless credit spreads, the S&P 500 or the yield [...] Continue Reading...
The Dow Industrials has dropped below 10,000 for the first time since February 8. Worse yet, the overwhelming majority of stock ETFs are noticeably lower than they were just one month ago. That said, many trend-followers look to the 200-Day moving average to determine the long-term direction of their specific investment. Here are 5 that may or may not surprise [...] Continue Reading...
