Learning From Tunisia
Charles Kirk kicked off yesterday's daily email with a quote from Seth Klarman from the Baupost Group as follows; "The best investors in the world do not target returns; they focus first on risk." The quote appeals to me intellectually and it is also r...
Sunday Morning Coffee
Today starts something new with Seeking Alpha. They are now paying for exclusive blog posts based on CPM and they've asked me to be involved. There will still be six or seven regular blog posts here every week, same as it has always been but there will...
Wednesday Roundup
I concluded yesterday's post with a joke about repeating that post today by replacing municipal bonds with European stocks. Well I guess it turns out not to be just a joke as things in Ireland appear to be deteriorating quickly creating a visible path ...
Fad, Mania or Bubble?
A very short post as we are taking the overnight flight back to Phoenix from Kauai.A reader asked for my take on a new Rare Earths ETF that is supposed to start trading today with ticker REMX. I have not looked at this at all so for now I can only talk...
Sunday Morning Coffee
Barron's had this to say about Farmland courtesy of TIAA CREF;"From a historic perspective, it has delivered a fairly stable 8% to 12% return" annually, said Jose Minaya, managing director for natural resources.Soybean, corn and wheat prices can be vo...
Australia and Beyond
Barron's had several references, in different articles, this weekend to investing in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. There were a couple of quotes here and there from Kathleen Gaffney from Loomis Sayles and this article in the mutual fund section.Th...
Delayed Reaction
For fear of having my own Jerk Store moment (albeit without the animosity)...Back in March I wrote a post questioning David Kotok's Cumberland Advisors being and ETF-only shop. Per his comments in numerous TV appearances they are not ETF-centric they a...
Definitely A Challenging Time To Be An Investor
Yesterday I had an email exchange with someone in another part of the business and he concluded the thread by noting that it is "definitely a challenging time to be an investor." There are challenges but of course that is always the case. The current s...
Everyone Into The Bunker!
The title for this post comes from a couple of articles from the other day. One was from The Housing Time Bomb blog (great name) and the other from The Business Insider.First from Housing Time Bomb, Jeff (the blogger in question) asks the very reasonab...
Forget Norwegian, How About Asian Fisheries
In watching yet more college lacrosse on Monday I stumbled across a brief article titled Top 10 Most Profitable Food Stocks two of which where Chinese fisheries; China Marine Food Group (CMFO) and HQ Sustainable Maritime Industries (HQS). Over the last couple of years I have written several posts about Norwegian fisheries as...
“You’re Spunky! Quirky… I Hate Spunky Quirky”
I actually don't hate quirky, I think quirky is great but I thought of that scene from what I believe was the first episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show when Mary meets Mr. Grant as I read this article from George Fisher who writes regularly about quir...
China Has A Low Correlation?
The crew at Bespoke Investment Group posted a chart noting the divergent paths taken by the S&P 500 and the Shanghai Composite. The extent of the divergence has ebbed and flowed before and YTD they seem to be moving in different directions.Last wee...
