Be careful what you wish for! In May of 2015, all the popular averages had tripled off their lows. There was a great clamor among the media and punditry that we needed a correction. A retracement of at least 10% had not happened in 18 months. In August of last year we got the correction, and…
I Love the media!
If you can’t spin a story negative, don’t spin it at all. “Oil’s poised for an ugly start to 2016: analyst” This was the teaser to a story in CNBC on-line: “Oil to fall under $30 before rebounding: Analyst”. Of course, this all depends on whether you are buying or selling. Since the vast majority of the…
If everything is so good, why do we feel so bad?
The continuing, seemingly unwarranted concerns about oil prices, a triple witching event (stock index futures, stock index options and stock options expire the same day) which always roils the market coupled with year-end tax selling and portfolio adjustments on the part of institutional investors, made for an ugly Friday market. Oh yes, and just being a…
“OMG!!!”
It is obvious from Friday’s market action that the end is nigh, or we are on the “eve of destruction”: or better yet, stock market Armageddon has arrived. What tripped this all off? A well-respected value manager, Marty Whitman and his firm Third Avenue Management got themselves a little bit too far out over…
Conventional Wisdom Undone
The end of Quantitative Easing (QE) will spell the end of the post-financial crisis recovery of the U.S. economy with a spike in interest rates and hard times for the stock market. It did not happen. Here is a link to what we were saying in December of 2013 that may add credibility to our post…
‘Even a blind hog finds an acorn now and again’
Not that Barron’s Magazine is a ‘blind hog’, but I get the impression the folks preparing the Up and Down Wall Street column are, at best, very short-sighted…ergo, the title of this post. They finally came up with something worth your attention. This acorn, (don’t be confused by the title–“Presidential Pretenders: Trump, Carson, Cruz and Clinton”…
“Insiders sending an ominous market signal”
I have just returned from a week in Cuba. And, just like Cuba, where the auto fleet and infrastructure have not been changed (except to deteriorate) for decades, CNBC’s efforts to create fear and confusion in the minds of investors (keeping them cringing, glued to the tube), also have not changed…‘plus ca change, plus c’est…
“Eve of Destruction”
Eve of Destruction “Eve of Destruction ” was the cheery title of Barry McGuire’s chart-topping single of September 1965, words and music by P. F. Sloan. This war protest song shot to the top of the charts almost overnight. Take a listen, and I bet you have to agree the more things change the more…
What’s the worst case scenario?
My nightmare scenario would be 2008 redux, an apocalyptic financial crash, coupled with a Fed that has run out of bullets and body-politic, too crippled with infighting (or stupidity) to act on fiscal stimulus to right the economy. Though I do not believe the conditions are right for this type of event, there are many…
Just when you thought it could not get any dumber …
The fine folks on CNBC raised the bar again! Actually, I cannot blame CNBC for cooking up this bit of lunacy. I can only blame them for giving it air time. The new best reason (most absurd thing that I have ever heard of), the reason that the market caught fire the past two days…