Stocks to Watch as Market Leadership Changes Hands [View article]
How will AMZN and NFLX keep their growth up if consumer spending stays weak? Style investing has its drawbacks, among them a disregard for fundamentals that affect all styles and asset classes.
Energy ETFs in Focus Ahead of Key Earnings Reports [View article]
Such disappointing earnings from two of the biggest majors says much about their cost of operations. Strong performances from the energy ETFs are no big surprise in the midst of high oil prices.
Third Quarter Earnings Derby: Stocks Still in the Game [View article]
How many of those positive earnings surprises were induced by the stimulus? Seeing lots of beats in absolute terms does not mean the economy is out of the woods.
Market: Spooked Today, But Panic Attack Is Likely Temporary [View article]
Evidence of deterioration in the fundamentals is easy to find. Start with this weeks' numbers on consumer spending. Then back the Cash for Clunkers effect out of Q3 GDP. Finally, check shadowstats.com for more depressing news.
Today in Commodities: Vindication as Markets Make Sense [View article]
Corn might be a good long-term buy as long as the federal government subsidizes ethanol production. Raising cattle will be more expensive long-term due to rising energy prices, rising corn prices (those are related), and reduced land available for grazing.
"It was a nightmare for me," said Bernard Madoff of SEC probes into his fraudulent dealings, because the scheme was "very basic stuff": this among thousands of pages of a data dump by the agency's inspector general, supporting his earlier report. In a prison interview in June, Madoff expressed shock he got away so many times. (Read the exhibits) [View news story]
Bernie gives too much credit to government workers' ability to master the basics of their jobs. Maybe this insight will embolden him to try to slip past his guards at his prison. If he does a good enough job in the prison laundry they might just let him run the joint.
Bernie Madoff expressed surprise that SEC investigators didn't check basics like his clearinghouse account: "If you’re looking at a Ponzi scheme, it’s the first thing you do." DealBook has been poring over the 6,157 pages of related records released by the SEC inspector general to find the more interesting ones. (earlier) [View news story]
Bernie expresses surprise that government auditors aren't as competent or thorough as those in the private sector. He's obviously never worked for the government.
Equities Update: Averages Tumble as Traders Fret over Economy [View article]
Consumers spending and sentiment are not exibhiting anywhere near the strength they need to demonstrate for holiday shopping to improve over last year. That means a lot of retail chains are in danger of collapsing and taking down their commercial landlords and the banks that hold those landlords' mortgages. The markets are in for a very rough ride in December and January.
Policy Lessons from the Great Depression [View article]
History is written by the winners. Much of the post-WWII history of Depression-era policies was written with the assumption that "something" must have worked. Economists and historians since then have grown up with entitlement programs and deficit spending as unassailable realities, like cosmic background noise. Only now, as Helicopter Ben fulfills his lifelong dream of fighting off another Depression, are revisionists inclined to re-examine what really worked back then.
The WTO is largely a creature of the G-7's dominance. Erosion of Atlanticist dominance by rising emerging powers means regional trade blocs may be more attractive than a global trade regime.
Michael Mauboussin's Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition Is Short but Sweet [View article]
Using counterintuition can help avoid confirmation bias. Investors should always rigorously examine their own thinking for flaws. This is always hard, so making it a habit helps. Bloggers have the advantage of a readily available record of how they felt about investment decisions when they made them.
Jeremy Grantham's Q3 outlook (.pdf) makes for great reading. Grantham, who called the crash, and the bounce, is looking for a painful pullback of at least 22%, though he's not convinced we'll post new bear-market lows. [View news story]
He's in the ballpark. The pullback's speed may be as much of a shocker as this rally but the magnitude is anybody's guess. A lot depends on whether a second stimulus comes to pass.
Oct. State Street Investor Confidence Index:-10 to 108.4, hitting levels not seen since April. "Institutional investors have paused to take stock," index co-developer Ken Froot says. "While the U.S. earnings season has been relatively robust so far, the number of positive surprises that have been observed in employment, retail sales, manufacturing and trade figures has diminished considerably, and this may be influencing investor risk appetite." [View news story]
The smart money (at least, smarter than the average retail investor) is taking a breath and wondering when the bull run will end. They don't want to be the last bag-holders as that's the little guy's job.
Influential bond manager Bill Gross warns that an end to the Fed's debt buyback schemes could add selling pressure to several credit markets, including U.S. Treasurys. Gross also said he believes emerging economies will grow faster than the U.S. [View news story]
Those emerging economies can grow faster than the U.S. as long as carry less debt per dollar of GDP than the U.S. We can learn something from that.
Stocks to Watch as Market Leadership Changes Hands [View article]
Energy ETFs in Focus Ahead of Key Earnings Reports [View article]
Third Quarter Earnings Derby: Stocks Still in the Game [View article]
Friday Roundup: Commodities, Emerging Markets [View article]
Market: Spooked Today, But Panic Attack Is Likely Temporary [View article]
Today in Commodities: Vindication as Markets Make Sense [View article]
"It was a nightmare for me," said Bernard Madoff of SEC probes into his fraudulent dealings, because the scheme was "very basic stuff": this among thousands of pages of a data dump by the agency's inspector general, supporting his earlier report. In a prison interview in June, Madoff expressed shock he got away so many times. (Read the exhibits) [View news story]
Bernie Madoff expressed surprise that SEC investigators didn't check basics like his clearinghouse account: "If you’re looking at a Ponzi scheme, it’s the first thing you do." DealBook has been poring over the 6,157 pages of related records released by the SEC inspector general to find the more interesting ones. (earlier) [View news story]
Equities Update: Averages Tumble as Traders Fret over Economy [View article]
Policy Lessons from the Great Depression [View article]
Insight into Global Trade Systems [View article]
Michael Mauboussin's Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition Is Short but Sweet [View article]
Jeremy Grantham's Q3 outlook (.pdf) makes for great reading. Grantham, who called the crash, and the bounce, is looking for a painful pullback of at least 22%, though he's not convinced we'll post new bear-market lows. [View news story]
Oct. State Street Investor Confidence Index: -10 to 108.4, hitting levels not seen since April. "Institutional investors have paused to take stock," index co-developer Ken Froot says. "While the U.S. earnings season has been relatively robust so far, the number of positive surprises that have been observed in employment, retail sales, manufacturing and trade figures has diminished considerably, and this may be influencing investor risk appetite." [View news story]
Influential bond manager Bill Gross warns that an end to the Fed's debt buyback schemes could add selling pressure to several credit markets, including U.S. Treasurys. Gross also said he believes emerging economies will grow faster than the U.S. [View news story]