David Gaffen of the WSJ had this to say:Don’t like what the stock market is doing? Wait a few minutes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was lately up 111 points, after losing nearly 200 points at one point earlier in the day. Such swings have become commonplace in this period of increased volatility. Through the first six months of 2007, …
A Non Event
Despite all of the hoopla and anticipation of the Wednesday’s interest rate cut, the markets ended on a down note. In a way, it may have been a classic “buy the rumor sell the fact” type of outcome. Personally, I think it’s slowly sinking in that these unprecedented rate cuts of the past 8 days actually represent bad news about …
A Gold Bubble?
As you know from my recent posts and updates, we are still holding a small position (10% of portfolio value) in gold. With the financial markets mired in uncertainty, is there more upside potential for the metal or will the Fed’s easing eventually create a gold bubble? Lance Lewis of Minyanville had this to say: With the equity market now …
Who Is The biggest Subprime Investor?
Ever since the Subprime crises started, I’ve been curious as to whether there was one entity or institution that had the biggest exposure to Subprime slime. I found the answer as I was reading Bloomberg’s article “SEC to Rework Rules After Funds Struggled with Subprime Prices.” A couple paragraphs caught my attention: “Within the $12.1 trillion U.S. mutual-fund industry, the …
Sucker Punched?
This weekend, I was reflecting on some of the wild events of last week, including a rogue trader’s loss of some $7 billion of France’s number 2 bank (Société Générale), and the Fed’s once-in-a-lifetime 75 bp interest rate cut. As we now know, last Monday, while the U.S. markets were closed, Société Générale, unwound their massive market positions before going …
Sunday Musings: The Blame Game
As you know from my writings, I am certainly not in favor of some of the strong-arm tactics or empty promises that are used by certain brokerage firms to land new business at all costs. However, I also believe that there should be some responsibility on the part of the party agreeing to any deal. After all, we are not …