Several bullish attempts to break through last Friday’s close of 1,148 were rebuffed yesterday during a seesaw trading session. It may very well be an indication that upward momentum is either slowing or that this “Labor Day rally” is coming to an end. Of course, these days you can never be sure as the markets seem to ignore bad news …
Economic Uncertainty Pushes Gold Above $1,300
Hardly a day goes by without some piece of data being released, which casts doubt on the economic recovery. Yesterday, the culprit turned out to be a large drop in consumer confidence, although better-than-expected earnings from Walgreen offset the bad news helping the market close higher. The rally gathered some steam in the last hour of trading as the dollar …
Slowing Down
The bulls tried to keep upward momentum going yesterday, but other than a quick peek above the unchanged line, the major indexes meandered in negative territory and closed to the downside. Profit taking contributed to the sagging of financial stocks in the last hour. Activity was confined within a small trading range, which is not surprising after Friday’s strong breakout …
A Lesson From Cuba
Bill Fleckenstein presented these interesting economic thoughts a few days ago in “Cuba understands what US doesn’t:” As even the Cuban government lays off workers, we can’t seem to face the looming problems posed by our own bloated public payrolls. It might seem obvious, but one of the fundamental rules of investing is “don’t lose money.” That rule is also …
Sunday Musings: The 10 Best Days Vs. The 10 Worst Days
Hat tip goes to reader David for providing the above chart, which was created by Pension Partners. There are a few interesting observations about this data set: • The 10 best days account for 50% of the buy and hold performance (roughly 0.2% of the days from 1993 to August 2010).• Classic “Buy & Hold” nets $324,330.15• Missing the 10 …
A Forgotten Fund Gets Hot
Occasionally, I have posted about a no load mutual fund that should belong in every investor’s portfolio, even if your general preferences are the use of ETFs. The WSJ reports in “Permanent Portfolio (PRPFX): How a Forgotten Fund got Hot in a Hurry:” I’ve been following the ‘permanent portfolio’ theory on and off with one eye for a few years, …