New Years Day Morning Coffee
Just a couple of random thoughts this morning.My base case for 2012 is some sort of range busting rally that then mostly retraces. If this scenario plays out then I think we would be lucky to finish out 2012 100 SPX points higher but I think a smaller ...
The Big Picture for the Week of January 1, 2012
After listening to the umpteenth segment on CNBC where both guests extolled the virtues of some version of dividend stocks, dividend growers or high yielders or the like, it has become clear that we have a very popular theme here. Over the last couple ...
The Big Picture for the Week of January 1, 2012
After listening to the umpteenth segment on CNBC where both guests extolled the virtues of some version of dividend stocks, dividend growers or high yielders or the like, it has become clear that we have a very popular theme here. Over the last couple ...
Trade Executed
We executed a (mostly) across the board trade for large accounts on Thursday buying ASX Limited (ASXFF) which is the stock exchange in Australia. The trade obviously increases our exposure to financial stocks and takes us back to Australia after having...
Getting to Know the Future You
A writer named Doug Carey had a post at Seeking Alpha called 3 Pitfalls To Avoid When Retirement Planning. He says don't wait to start saving, don't count on Social Security and make sure you beat inflation. Obviously all three important but as I read ...
It’s The End of the World and Paul Farrell Knows It
Paul Farrell had a column up yesterday that detailed ten reasons why 2012 will be a doomsday. Included in the list are failings of US democracy, class warfare and some disturbing prognostications about global warfare.If you read the paragraphs that Far...
What Do You Think?
From Larry Swedroe's 2012 outlook piece for Seeking Alpha (similar to what I did with them a week or so ago. The following is offered without comment from me (this time), only a question. What do you think of the approach outlined in his answer?Seeking...
Christmas Morning Coffee
Barron's cover story was about the rough ride of Gap Stores (GPS} over the last decade. I was surprised to see that for ten years GPS is up 41% versus 10% for the S&P 500 and for five years GPS is down 6% versus a 10% drop for the index. That all a...
The Big Picture for the Week of December 25, 2011
In my 2012 outlook piece for Seeking Alpha and in the upcoming 2012 Roundtable for Bespoke Investments I have some positive things to say about investing in China. As the chart below shows, investing in China has been rough for the last few years. Sinc...
Concessions A Comin’
The other day I found this article about beneficiaries of a public pension (retired police and firefighters) agreeing, by necessity, to a reduction in their payments. While I don't know whether the cuts will be big enough I do know that the idea of of ...
ETFs in the News
IndexUniverse reported that Global X will be closing several ETFs for lack of AUM. Included in the list are the Fishing ETF (FISN) and the Farming ETF (BARN). Both fisheries (although subtle, I think this would have been a better name than fishing) and...
Small Trade
Yesterday we executed a trade for large accounts selling American Tower (AMT). We bought the stock in October 2009 at about $38.60 and sold it yesterday near $59.35. It was generally a great hold for over the two years and the gain obviously was a nice...
