Invest or Die Poor
Do I have your attention? Good. This is serious stuff. If you are like the vast majority of Americans, you are primarily responsible for your own financial future. And the deck is stacked against you. In the old days, before the 1990’s or so, it used to be that you got a job, worked there for 20 or 30 or 40 years, retired at 60 or 65 with a nice pension, then lived your remaining lives playing golf, tending your garden or doting on your grandchildren. Unfortunately for you, the rules have changed and you must change with the times,...
read moreThe Market Continues To Climb A Wall Of Worry
As I write this 10 minutes before the market opens after the Memorial Day weekend, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stands at 16,606, down a mere 110 points from the record high established on May 13. On the other hand, the Dow Jones Transportation Average registered a new high of 7,986 on Friday, the same day the S&P 500 closed over 1,900 for the first time. So as you can see, things are remarkably good. Yet if you listen to the news or watch the TV, the mood does not match the reality. It appears to me that the majority of market...
read moreTech Stocks Going On Sale
There is a sale going on right now in technology stocks: are you buying? Since hitting a high on March 6, the tech sector, as represented by the NASDAQ, has dropped 6.25%. More recently, the index has dropped 4.58% in just the past four trading days alone. Previous high-flyers like FireEye (FEYE – down 49%), Twitter (TWTR – down 43%), Rackspace (RAX – down 38%), Yelp (YELP – down 32%) and Netflix (NFLX – down 25%) are just a few of the examples of the recent carnage. So what’s a growth investor to do? Do...
read moreIt’s Still Not Time To Panic
Even though the market has dropped for four straight days, with losses on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (#DJIA) yesterday exceeding 200 points, it still isn’t time to panic. It would appear that, once again, the turmoil is principally related to the unrest in the Ukraine, with additional worries about stagnating growth in China. The bottom line to me is that all of this is simply noise. What investors should must focus on is that economic growth in this country is modest but stable. The Federal Reserve remains committed to a slow and...
read moreI Hope You Didn’t Sell Last Month
Last month I wrote a blog entitled “Don’t Panic” on February 5 in which I stated that “I believe that this is simply a long overdue correction in a bull market that began in March 2009 and remains in place today.” As it turns out I was fortunate enough to have written this the day that the correction ended. Since that time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by 6.2% to within a scant 200 points of its all time closing high. At the same time, the S&P 500, the Wilshire 5000 and the Russell 2000 have all...
read moreDon’t Panic
As of the close of business yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,136 points, or 6.8%, since the end of 2013. The venerable average was down 5.3% in January, which lead many seers to warn that the market would therefore be down for the full year. I’m here to disagree with that sentiment. I believe that this is simply a long overdue correction in a bull market that began in March 2009 and remains in place today. Quite simply, the fundamentals underpinning this bull market remain in place. Corporate balance sheets remain...
read more2014 Fearless Forecasts – Looking Back and Gazing Ahead
Each year in my January newsletter (“News and Views”) I make a number of predictions about the stock market, the domestic economy and maybe a few key trends. At the same time, review the accuracy, or lack thereof, of my Fearless Forecasts from the prior year. So let’s first see how my prognostications from last year panned out before I make this year’s prognostications. The forecasts are in black and the actual results are in red. I think the broad markets will be only modestly higher in 2013. Put me down for an 8%...
read moreWhen Good News Is Really Good News
The Department of Labor today announced that the unemployment rate in October dropped to 7.0% as 203,000 new jobs were added in the month. Almost 300,000 fewer people were counted as unemployed while the labor force participation rate increased, both of which are good things. In addition, the average work week increased a bit, as did average wages. To sum it all up, this was probably the best employment report since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008. In recent months, this type of good economic news was often seen by the market as...
read moreMarket opens sharply lower, down 80 with
Market opens sharply lower, down 80 with broad weakness. Bond yields rise and dollar up. KORS and REGN had blowout qtr results. TWTR coming.
read moreThe Market Still Doesn’t Care That The Government Is Closed
We are now in the third week of the government shutdown and we’re careening towards the first “deadline” of October 17 with no deal in sight. By that day the Treasury will reportedly have about $30 billion with which to pay its bills. That will leave less than two weeks to scrimp and scrounge before the next big deadline of November 1, at which time the government will no longer be able to make social security, Medicare, pension and other benefit payments. Then, on November 15, the government could default on about $30...
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