Over several decades, I have produced content for radio, television, magazines and web sites. And one of my longest-standing themes has been the silliness surrounding what constitutes a “bargain” in a stock market. Advocates for employing price-to-earnings ratios (P/Es) debate whether to use trailing 12 months or forward 12 months or trailing 10 years; some even [...] [...more]
Three months ago, Europe’s never-ending drama and China’s economic slowdown were collectively crushing Asia Pacific exporters. Single-country ETFs representing places like Australia, South Korea and Taiwan had relative strength factors below 50, meaning that half or more of the entire ETF universe were beating them. Then came the bailout dialogues. In late July, the president of the [...] [...more]
The willingness of Greek leadership to throw salt into the wounds of the global financial system is the only thing on Mr. Market’s mind. It follows that the ongoing European debt crisis continues to steal all of the headline space. Yet there are a number of economic data points that investors should not gloss over. For [...] [...more]
Last week, the Dow charted 8 straight weeks of gains. It looks poised to make it 9 consecutive victories. In fact, the media seem more inclined to talk about Dow 12000 than the equally conspicuous difficulties for the MSCI Emerging Market Index. At the time of this writing, the emerging market index tracker, Vanguard Emerging Markets [...] [...more]
Two weeks ago, China hiked interest rates for the first time in 3 years. Nobody had seen it coming. Up to that moment, investors believed that the country would not upset the world’s apple cart, even with its hot-running 9%-10% GDP. Yet they did indeed raise rates on 10/19/2010. The People’s Bank probably felt that… with assets 30% higher than the summertime lows… it was time to [...] [...more]
Accoding to a survey by the Merril Lynch team at B of A, a majority of investors believe that the FOMC will hold interest rates where they are until Q3 of 2010. Assuming the respondents are correct, you may want to stay atop ETFs that should do well if rates stay low for an “extended period.” And, just when you [...] [...more]
