A nice opening rally almost failed yesterday, as the Federal Reserve’s beige book acknowledged “widespread signs” of a slowing economy. That prompted a mid-day sell off, but the major indexes managed to finish on the plus side. Not helping matters was President Obama’s announcement that he would let the 2001 and 2003 tax breaks for the affluent expire at the …
Back Below 1,100
Yesterday, good old-fashioned profit taking, along with resurfacing worries that European banks may be undercapitalized after all, was enough to end last week’s winning streak. As I posted, the major indexes had rallied back to the upper end of their trading range, which means that very encouraging economic news is needed to drive the market through this glass ceiling. In …
The Bond Bubble Revisited
In last Sunday’s post, I talked about how to deal with media reports that may have you question your current investment allocations. The recent WSJ report on the potential bond bubble had some readers scrambling and making hasty and possibly incorrect investment decisions. Bill Fleckenstein approached the subject in a different way in “The next bubble is in punditry:” The …
Short Post
No investment references today, just a personal note. Labor Day always represents a special day in my life. It was exactly on that day in 1973 that I arrived in NY with 2 years worth of paperwork stuffed in a manila envelope eager to exchange it for my green card and begin a new life in the U.S. after having …
Sunday Musings: A Scared Investor
Reader Dick sent in the following email: I am 72 and retired with about 90% of my portfolio in Vanguard midterm index fund and a smattering in short term equity fund and core fund. I recently read a book “Aftershock” which scared the hell out of me, and I have been looking into Gold bullion and ETFs – specifically GLD …
Don’t Get Fooled
MarketWatch featured an interesting piece this past week titled “Don’t Get Fooled By Bernanke.” In case you missed it, here are some highlights: The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped nearly 200 points (last) Friday after the Federal Reserve chairman’s pep talk on the economy. Worldwide markets followed suit. And long-term interest rates rose on his sunnier outlook. Yes, the Fed …