The Fed decided yesterday to leave interest rates unchanged (no surprise), since the economy is so weak and fragile, that inflationary pressures are not a concern at this time. Along with a hint that consumers may be starting to spend again was all the confirmation investors needed to pull the market out of a 2-day slump. The S&P; 500 managed …
Back To The Cookie Jar
Despite a weak opening, the markets held up well yesterday considering the menu of bad news ranging from a miserable economy, poor earnings from U.S. Steel, the struggling banking sector and yes, the spreading swine flu. Given that, a break even point on the day is almost cause for celebration. In focus were the banks and the upcoming “stress test” …
Uncle Sam’s Rally?
Bill Fleckenstein posted some interesting thoughts in “Thank Uncle Sam for the Rally.” Here are some snippets: There is nothing like a monumental surge in government stimuli to help boost the markets and, by extension, people’s perceptions of the news. I’ve been struck by how well the recent stock market rally illustrates an old saw — the market writes the …
The Dollar Value Of Rebalancing Your Hedge
Over the past couple of weeks, I have featured two readers’ experiences in setting up a hedge as per my free e-book “The SimpleHedge Strategy.” Both understood the concept and applied it well. Despite the markets having shown dramatic drops (-25%), followed by sharp rebounds (+27%) year-to-date, the hedge concept has held up extremely well. However, when markets move in …
Sunday Musings: Flawed Thinking
A couple of weeks ago MarketWatch featured the “Stupid Investment of the Week.” Here are some highlights: When an investment company fires a fund manager, the typical pitch to shareholders is that they should stick around because better days must be ahead. But if management gave up on a manager it trusted — and who lost the job presumably due …
Bulls vs. Bears
Sometimes it pays to look at the big picture to see where we have been, where we might be going and what has changed. Doing that will at the same time also answer a frequently asked question, namely how much time does the domestic Trend Tracking Index (TTI) spend in bullish vs. bearish territory. As you know, for me, the …