How Much Of The Future Can We Borrow For Today?
Ben Bernanke wants you to borrow and spend today. He also wants you to stop buying safe investments like Treasuries, CDs and anything else with a guarantee attached. He wants you to buy corporate...
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By Brian Cronin: I am old enough to remember the horrendous conflict in the Congo in the 1960s. The players: Patrice Lumumba, Joseph Kasavubu, Dag Hammarskjold and Moise Tschombe of the breakaway...
View ArticleLooking For Silver Linings
John Templeton, one of the greatest investors of all time, said that investors should buy at the point of maximum pessimism. Nothing illustrates the adage of something being easy to say and hard to do...
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Batten Down The Hatches
Back in November I wrote a weekly commentary that I called Looking For Silver Linings. The market had been taking a beating in the post election period and I wasn’t feeling particularly good about my...
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Buy Low, Sell High
Buy low, sell high. It is one of the most abused of market axioms and says both quite a lot and nothing at all. Of course you need to buy assets when they are cheap and sell them when they are dear but...
View ArticleWe’re All Monetarists Now
Japan last week announced a radical plan to finally slay the deflation dragon that has stalked their economy for the last 25 years. The sheer magnitude of the BOJ’s program should put to rest once and...
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No Bottom In Europe, A New King of the PIIGS
The bounce for Germany seems to be over, and, much like US manufacturing, there appears the mini cycle. Markit PMI for Germany: Both the ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment and IFO Business Climate...
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The Return Of Volatility
Stocks lost ground last week to the tune of about 1% but the route to that loss involved more volatility than we’ve seen in some time. The volatility index has moved higher by a third since that key...
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Why Recession Matters Now
The idea of recession in the context of a “recovery” is somewhat maddening from a conventional standpoint. A recovering economy is not supposed to be subject to a reversal, particularly in the presence...
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Decoupling?
Remember a few years back when the term decoupling was all the rage? Emerging markets and Europe were supposedly going to decouple from the US economy’s troubles and continue growing while the US...
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A Monetary Cacophony
Well, that didn’t take long. A couple of months ago, Ben Bernanke started the inevitable process of weaning the markets off his monetary methadone. He talked openly about the process of winding down...
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Syria, Jobs & Other Random Thoughts
There are a lot of potential hurdles for the markets in the coming weeks. A potential strike on Syria is foremost on the market’s mind as evidenced by the rapid selloff Friday in the wake of hawkish...
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A Small Dose Of Reality
While I was gone on my short business/golf trip the politicians managed to avert disaster by agreeing to continue arguing about the federal budget for a few more months before we face another self...
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What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
The US stock market, now joined by most of the rest of the world, continues its one way march higher. Those who focus on fundamentals, economic or stock market, have been scratching their heads all...
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Are We Turning Japanese?
After the Great Crisis and Recession of 2008 there were a lot of economic and market commentators arguing that the US was headed in the direction of Japan. Japan’s economy, stock and real estate...
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A Weak Dollar Environment
The US Dollar index exhibits the classic characteristics of a downtrending asset: Declining 50 and 200 day moving averages with the 50 solidly below the 200. Momentum indicators (MACD, PMO) both on...
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The Expectations Gap
The stock market had a good week, up all four trading days, despite the continued mixed picture from the economy and earnings. Last week’s economic reports continued the recent pattern of some...
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Extreme Consensus
This just in: You can’t take the same actions as everyone else and expect to outperform. Non consensus ideas have to be lonely. By definition, non-consensus ideas that are popular, widely held or...
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The New Widowmakers
What is a “widowmaker”? Merriam Webster defines it as “something dangerous to a worker’s life or health”. More specifically the term comes from the logging industry and describes a loose limb hanging...
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The Biggest Razor With Which To Shave Off Peaks
It’s a masterful stroke of near-genius, the kind in which you wish that amazing effort were actually used for “good” instead of continued decay. The American malaise is now a global malaise, and the...
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