Guess?
Published August 17, 2012 7166 Views
It wasn't long ago that I was in my backyard yelling at my smoking lawnmower that had just stopped working. After calming down, I did some research and tried to fix it myself. After tinkering with the carburetor (making it worse) and unscrewing the motor (felt like a man, didn't help), I had fixed n...
Economic Purgatory
Published August 16, 2012 7150 Views
Mark Twain famously said that he could sum up everything he knows about life in three little words; "it goes on." And so it does. As another earnings season draws to a close what have we learned, what have we confirmed, and where do we go from here?
We Learned
Any earnings season can be broken...
The Patient Is Getting Worse
Published July 31, 2012 6891 Views
There is an old Chinese curse that translates to: "may you live to see interesting times." Interesting indeed as there is no precedent for the environment investors face today. None of the many difficulties the world economy faces are brand new. What's new is the decidedly distasteful stew being ser...
Jargon, Big Words, and Wasting Your Time
Published July 27, 2012 6698 Views
"We are going to allocate your portfolio in such a way to minimize your downside risk while still maintaining strong cash inflows with the potential for capital appreciation."
Did you get all of that? I'm the one who wrote it, and I'm still not convinced!
Now, let's try again.
"Our goal is...
Where to Get Income in a Sideways or Rising Interest Rate Environment
Published July 24, 2012 6648 Views
Interest rates in the U.S. are at all-time lows, and investors are likely on borrowed time if they are positioned in bonds or bond funds. Market volatility has pushed investors, in many cases, too far into fixed income vehicles. As bond prices move inversely to the direction of interest rates, the...
A Difference of Opinion
Published July 23, 2012 7499 Views
There is no more common thing in any market: for every share of stock, for every bond, every option, for everything that someone sells, someone else buys. It is the ultimate difference of opinion: one person wants something enough to buy it while another thinks they're better off without that same t...
Re-defining "Value"
Published July 16, 2012 6575 Views
"Value" is one of those chameleon-like words when it comes to investing. To one person, it may be a stock that has grown in value over time. To another, "value" is the monthly dividend that provides income during retirement. Both are true instances of "value" and things that, as a firm located in th...
Another "Are You Kidding Me?"
Published July 12, 2012 7413 Views
So please let me think out loud here, I need to try and get this Eastman Kodak situation straight. Mr. Antonio Perez was named as President and CEO in 2005 (he was named President in 2003) at which time the company had revenue of about $14.5 billion. Currently the revenue is about $5.6 billion. So r...
All Quiet on the Facebook Front
Published June 22, 2012 7388 Views
Things have certainly calmed down since May 18th when I spent almost two straight hours on the phone talking with folks about Facebook. It was THE thing in the week leading up to its IPO and it seemed like everybody wanted a piece of the action.
At the time, our advice was to be "cautious, not eu...