Hurry! Hurry! Place your bets on the chances of another recession — 25%, 33%, 50%, 66%, 100%! How gloomy are some folks? Perma-bear David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff & Associates believes that a recession is a near certainty (99%), citing the weakness of the consumer and the double-dip in housing. Meanwhile, John Hussman, long-short billion dollar fund manager, expresses 100% certainty in [...] [...more]
Big name strategists like Bob Doll of Blackrock have stated that U.S. equities should outperform emerging market equities. One of the reasons? Accelarating economic expansion here, coupled with stimulative rate policy, may be a ”better backdrop” than decelerating economic activity over there, due to restrictive, inflation-fighting monetary policy. Fair enough. It’s true than emergers like China and India are responsibly tackling inflation today to [...] [...more]
Permabears love to talk about a “lack of conviction” on the part of the share purchasing public. Specifically, when upward momentum in stocks occurs on “low volume,” they dismiss the price movement outright. On Monday, 8/30/10, Dow stocks experienced a triple-digit pullback. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ both gave up more than 1.5%. However, with the trading [...] [...more]
I can’t deny that it is practical to have exposure to both developed world and developing world stock assets. Nevertheless, here are 5 solid reasons to consider Chile before considering more exposure to the U.S.: 1. Creditor Vs. Debtor. Chile was once an impoverished debtor nation. Today, it’s a creditor country through sensible management of its commodity wealth; [...] [...more]
The S&P 500 stayed above its 200-day exponential moving average for a second consecutive day. Chart enthusiasts (a.k.a., technical analysts) find this trend rather bullish for the popular large-cap indicator. Benchmarks for small- and mid-cap U.S. equities have also advanced the bullish cause. Both the iShares Russell 2000 Fund (IWM) and the SPDR MidCap 400 Fund (MDY) [...] [...more]
With Brazil being the “B” in “BRIC” investing, few countries receive as much emerging market consideration. There’s the Claymore BRIC Fund (EEB) for diversified exposure to emerging market king-pins. There’s the long-standing iShares MSCI Brazil Fund (EWZ) for large company concentration. And then there’s my personal “fave,” Small Cap Brazil (BRF), with greater focus on the [...] [...more]
So you’re worried that the stock market’s about to cave in. You don’t know if you should sell now… and wait to see what happens. You don’t know if it’s worth changing anything, since the market may merely pull back 5%-8% like it did in June/July. The answer on when and what to sell should come from [...] [...more]
