February 2 – The Fed's Decision to Keep Rates Low
What Does It Mean? The Federal Reserve last week surprised everyone by extending its “exceptionally” low interest rate environment until late 2014. This is almost a year later than its previous forecast for interest rates. With many economists saying the economy was improving over the last few months, we have to wonder why the Federal […]
January 17 – Election Cycle Investment Strategy
There is much information suggesting that the stock market will have a great year because of the upcoming Presidential election. One of the reasons for this position is that the President – and to a lesser extent Congress – will do everything in their power to have the stock market rise so that they can […]
December 16 – A World Divided
Throughout the past couple of months, we have heard from analysts and experts that “despite the headwinds from Europe, the U.S. economy is doing well.” We have also heard “if it weren’t for the economic problems in Europe, the U.S. markets would be stronger.” We know there are major problems in Europe that have yet […]
November 30 – A Suckers Rally?
The market today feels like a tale of two worlds. In the United States, the holiday shopping season is off to a robust start. The Chicago Purchasing Managers Index came in at 62% – above 50% means the economy is expanding – and ADP reported 206,000 new private sector jobs in November. In Europe, things […]
November 16 – More Europe
The European train is hitting Italy and is spreading to other European countries such as Belgium, Hungary, Spain and France. Things have not gotten better since our last update and, if anything, have gotten worse. We have attached a flowchart we created internally to assist us in determining the potential ramifications of the events currently […]
September 30th, 2011 – Problems in the Market – Political, Not Fundamental
When analyzing an investment vehicle, there are different ways to determine value. Two of the most basic ways are: (1) determining the price at which assets can be sold in the current market and subtracting from that price liabilities; and (2) determining value based on projected future growth. The first method works in any market. […]
September 1st, 2011 – Euro Union Update
August was the fourth consecutive down month for the stock market. It looks like September has a number of events that could significantly impact the market. We believe the next few weeks in the market could be volatile because of these events. September 7 – Germany’s high court is expected to rule on whether the […]
August 17th, 2011 – Europe’s last Gasp?
News out of Europe yesterday included a proposed plan by France and Germany to solve the EU debt problems. This plan called for the creation of a “collective government” run by the EU President and a tax on every financial transaction. Both of these ideas are significant and, we believe, unworkable. By setting up a […]
August 8th, 2011 – Debt Downgrade
When we mentioned that the market would be volatile last week, we didn’t know that Standard and Poor’s would downgrade US Treasuries late Friday night. The downgrade is having a ripple effect across global equity markets today. What is interesting is the yield on US Treasury Bonds has fallen dramatically today. That is the complete […]
August 4th, 2011 – Debt Deal
All those pundits that said we need to get a debt deal in order to “stabilize” the markets are certainly eating their words. The last few days have been horrendous for the stock market and today is no exception, with the market being down over 450 points so far. As we stated in our last […]