Unfortunately, some of the folks can’t go there, like the cheerful bloke, Greg Robb (Senior Economic Reporter for MarketWatch) who penned the following article … “Greek euro exit would be ‘Lehman Brothers’ squared: Economist (Barry Eichengreen, Economic Historian, U. C., Berkeley).” I think what Eichengreen meant, but was not made clear in the headline, was…
Session 139–Three, Two, One … Lift-Off! Rising Interest Rates?
“Lift-Off” is the next ‘big thing’. It is a term the talking heads are giving to the potential future rise in interest rates that will occur when the Federal Reserve begins the process of ‘normalizing’ rates. This nomenclature, “Lift-Off”, is straight out of the NASA and the Space Program and connotes a launching, a rapid…
Session 138–Welcome to the panic!
Panic may be a bit hyperbolic; but, as of Friday’s close, things were getting a bit goofy in the market. Of course, when this happens on the downside it is usually a good thing, signifying that we are a lot closer to a bottom than a top. This is really intriguing, since we are only…
Session 137–“What Tom Lee likes … “
It’s 2:00 PM CST, Wednesday afternoon, December 10, 2014, and the markets are in the tank (DJII -278, S&P 500 -34 and NASDAQ comp. -79). The market is in flight over the continuing drop in crude prices (WTI, @ $61.37/bbl -$2.45). Ali al-Naimi. Saudi Oil Minister responding to a reporter earlier in the day, said,…
Session 136–Collapsing Crude Prices=Systemic Risk?
Though I am not certain that this will be the case (in fact I believe it won’t be), I’m willing to bet that this is the spin (systemic risk) that the media will begin to attach to rapidly falling oil prices. Why? Because there is potential to come to very negative conclusions about the impact…
Session 135–If you can’t say something good … ,
Say something really negative, something really stupid or ‘saw sawdust.’ Today’s headline opinion column in MarketWatch (“The Fed has boxed U.S. into a tough easy-money corner”) hit the trifecta. As it pertains to saying something really negative, the article really hits the bull’s-eye, suggesting that when (and if) the Fed moves to reverse Quantitative Easing…
Session 134–These numbers will blow your mind!
Especially if you’ve been doubting the idea that common stocks are useful as an asset class for healthy long-term returns. Judging from many comments in the media and individual investors that doubt this construct to be real, I am presenting a chart extracted from a headline article in MarketWatch (the on-line service of the Wall…
session 133–Find a Dark Cloud in Every Silver Lining
I’ve come to believe this is Randall Forsyth’s job description, as well as his predecessor, the late Alan Abelson. In the case of both gentlemen, I cannot remember an optimistic article or an article with a positive conclusion emanating from their weekly Barron’s column, “Up and Down Wall Street.” They were at least right five times…
Session 132–What really worries me
It would be a total lack of financial / economic knowledge on the part of the general divesting public … a seeming lack of the ability to think critically about the media inputs they use to make informed decisions. This really hit home hard today as I flipped on CNBC at the close and watched…
Session 131–Adieu Q.E.–Rest in Peace
That is my fervent prayer. But it seems like the media has other plans. Today’s special coverage on CNBC and MarketWatch gives me the feeling, in fact, the much-maligned Quantitative Easing isn’t going to get a rest, even though its long past its prime as a topic. I’m not certain why this is. Maybe it’s…