The secular bear market that began in 2000 has seen many investors scratching their heads over where to allocate their investable funds. Stocks have lived up to the secular bear moniker by fluctuating wildly but managing little real price progress over the past decade. In the meantime, bonds have extended a 30-plus year bull run… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: stocks
Better Good Than Lucky: Book Review
Business and investing conditions change. So should your portfolio. ~ Charles Roblut A shamefully large number of months ago an author contacted me through Seeking Alpha to ask if I would review his new book on investing. I happily agreed as I knew of – and had great respect for – his work. I never… Continue Reading
Bulls vs. Bears: Does the Economy Matter?
I haven’t written a Bulls vs. Bears post in a while. Given the tremendous stock market run from the end of last year through the end of the first quarter of this year, it seems like a good time to assess the current position of the markets. I recently read two articles which, on the… Continue Reading
20 Cents from October 2011
It’s hard to believe 2011 is already winding down. Soon we’ll be busy with holiday preparations, year end reviews and goals for 2012. It’s been a beautiful fall in our new city and I look forward to experiencing Christmas here for the first time. Now ~ 1. Where to find a tree? & 2. Where… Continue Reading
Personal Finance in a Secular Bear Market
No one knows what they’ll do in a moment of crisis and hypothetical questions get hypothetical answers. ~Joan Baez When I wrote Another Bear Market: Is It Time to Buy? earlier this week, I tried to summarize the current bull and bear points of view. I also promised to write about how we’re approaching the… Continue Reading
What’s Next for the Markets?
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Teach a man to create an artificial shortage of fish and he will eat steak. ~Jay Leno Today’s quote illustrates why it’s so hard to invest in markets. There are so… Continue Reading
Will the S&P Fall to 400?
The future is an opaque mirror. Anyone who tries to look into it sees nothing but the dim outlines of an old and worried face. ~Jim Bishop Most people would agree that it’s pure folly to try to predict the future – especially that of the financial markets. And yet we don’t want to invest… Continue Reading
Investing: 3 Walls to Watch
Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it’s addressed to someone else. ~Ivern Ball Market and economic commentary over the past few months has contained numerous references to walls. Setting aside the irony of the fact that the seat of American capitalism rests on Wall Street, we’ve also heard… Continue Reading