Radio Appearance
Last week I was interviewed on The Wall Street Shuffle: Listen Here Viewing the remainder of this article requires a SubscriptionTags: radio, wall street shuffle
Strategy/Allocation | | 
April 9, 2012 12:32 pm | 
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Jobs report
Ending the week on a low economic note:Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 120,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 8.2 percent.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription
Tags: Bernanke, inflation, us dollar, volatility
Strategy/Allocation | | April 6, 2012 8:35 am | Comments Off
Position updates
Hedging hedges is a never ending game, so sometimes you just need to clean up the portfolio. When managing a portfolio, there is often the danger of adding positions piecemeal.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a SubscriptionTags: allocation, asset allocation, portfolio management, tactical asset allocation
Strategy/Allocation | | April 5, 2012 1:58 pm | Comments Off
Technically
Technically, I'm not a technician. The idea behind technical analysis is that historical price, time, and volume data has some predictive value, and at least from an empirical perspective I've seen some investors who are able to harness that data to gain an advantage.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a SubscriptionTags: new high new low index, spx, technical analysis
Strategy/Allocation | | March 30, 2012 10:29 am | Comments Off
Bonds Yields and Stocks
Why is everyone so convinced the low bond yields will push investors into stocks? Earlier today, I read about an interview with Mobius, the famous emerging markets portfolio manager at Templeton, where he highlighted:“People are now beginning to realize that they cannot be sitting on bonds that are paying one, two or even three percent, when inflation is running higher than that,” Mobius said, adding that investors would look increasingly at equities as an alternative. “If you look at equities of course, the yields are much, much greater than the bonds.”The sentiment has lately been a favorite of pundits on CNBC and everywhere else.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription
Tags: dividend yield, inflation, rates, y curve, yield
Fixed Income/Bonds, Strategy/Allocation | | March 22, 2012 4:36 pm | Comments Off
Sir, Yen Sir
The yen destruction is just beginning, and while it might have second thoughts, the eventual end is clear.
It's got a long way to go to get to where it was five years ago and even further if you look at the currency (not the ETF):
Regardless, everything priced in yen is shooting up.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription Volatility
It's just so low.
It makes no sense to me how it got so low, but it did.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription Tags: volatility, vxx
Strategy/Allocation | | 10:33 am | Comments Off
Central Bankers as The Chosen People
A couple of weeks ago, Dylan Grice at SocGen came out with a piece about how politicians use the time-tested strategy of "marginalize-then-brutalize" to turn blame for society's ills towards a small minority, thereby deflecting any responsibility.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a SubscriptionTags: chosen people, Dylan Grice
Politics | | 10:16 am | Comments Off
Q-Ratio Update
The Federal Reserve released its Z.1 Flow of Funds report earlier today. As the numbers get crunched across the street, here's one number that I always like to look at to gauge where we are and where we're heading.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a SubscriptionTags: dshort, flow of funds, q-ratio, smiths & co., Tobin's q, Z.1
Strategy/Allocation | | March 8, 2012 1:41 pm | Comments Off
Hussman said it better
This week's Hussman letter says it better than me:Last week, the estimated return/risk profile of the S&P 500 fell to the worst 2.5% of all observations in history on our measures. This is not a runaway bull market.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription
Tags: Hussman
Strategy/Allocation | | March 6, 2012 4:03 pm | Comments Off
Now that we have some perspective…
This market isn't pretty . . . China admitting to a slowdown in growth is tantamount to the US admitting that we have bad fiscal policies - it never happens unless things are SO bad that they can't be hidden any more.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription Strategy/Allocation | | 2:44 pm | Comments Off
Putting things in perspective
As readers are probably aware already, I'm no fan of the equity markets in general these days. Valuation metrics are OK, but are betting on continued, if not improving, profit margins, which I doubt.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a SubscriptionTags: equity, volatility
Commodities/Futures, Strategy/Allocation | | 1:16 pm | Comments Off
Cotton Is King
Well, these days, maybe "India is King" may be more apropos. India today announced a seemingly random ban on the export of cotton - India is the world's second largest cotton exporter. While the interesting point about this move are endless (e.g.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a SubscriptionTags: agriculture, commodity trading, cotton, india
Commodities/Futures | | March 5, 2012 6:46 pm | Comments Off
Apple at $500 Billion
It's in the news, so I can't help but point something out. Earlier today I saw the following story about Apple entering the $500 billion market cap club.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a SubscriptionTags: apple, market cap
Company News | | February 29, 2012 10:59 am | Comments Off
MUB – Municipal Bond ETF
Here's one that we haven't talked about in a while. About a year ago, Meredith Whitney was positing the death of municipal governments across the country; I was just predicting a difficult issuing environment. We were early. Today, though, MUB is down 2.5%.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a SubscriptionTags: municipal bonds
Fixed Income/Bonds | | February 23, 2012 2:02 pm | Comments Off