Archive - Jan 12, 2014

Do I hold my nose and just buy, or do I get out now and protect myself from the Fed inspired asset bubble that inevitably gets pricked? 

Do I hold my nose and just buy, or do I get out now and protect myself from the Fed inspired asset bubble that inevitably gets pricked? 

When it comes to socialism, the world's premier promoter of egalite - France's Francois Hollande - is very aware that in a socialist utopia, no property is private. Hence everything can be shared, such as actress Julie Gayet with whom it was revealed last week he had an affair. The problem is that the First Lady, er, Girlfriend of France, Valerie Trierweiler, 48, did not share her boyfriend's Marxist view. And, as Reuters reports, when Trierweiler found out about an affair between Francois Hollande and the aforementioned Julie Gayet, 41, she was hospitalized on Sunday morning "because of exhaustion." But before readers cry for Madame Trierweiler, recall that while Hollande is a fervent fan of socialism, the former first girlfriend some far more interested in being more equal than others. Per the Mail: "She currently has five staff working for her at her office as well as numerous other taxpayer-funded perks, including homes across France, private jets and limousines. As anger at the scandal grew, politicians suggested Miss Trierweiler’s position was already untenable."

As we reported several days ago, for the first time in history the majority of members of Congress currently have a net worth over $1,000,000. Of course, this also means that just under half are still aspiring to get in Wall Street's "preferred politician" rolodex, and says nothing about any one politico's individual's assets. So for all those curious how much their congressional representative is worth, the following comprehensive summary infographic from Vizual Statistix has the answers.

Gross: The age of getting rich quickly is over as is (most likely) the age of getting rich slowly.

— PIMCO (@PIMCO) January 12, 2014

By now most are aware that the primary reason there was EPS growth last year was the relentless buying back of their own stock by corporate treasurers, accounting for 75% of the increase in S&P500 earnings per share even as revenues stagnated for the second year in a row and actual earnings growth was comatose at best. At $500 billion in net stock buybacks in 2013, this was an immense amount of bidding power, equal to half of the Fed's entire annual liquidity injection. And while EPS was artificially boosted by an allocation of capital that most would say is the least efficient in terms of future growth (remember when companies spent on capital expenditures to fund long-term growth, not satisfy activist shareholders?) the only good thing that could be said about the second highest annual corporate buyback in history was that companies still saw their stocks as cheap: after all, not even the most aggressive of CFOs would greenlight a massive buyback campaign if they expected their stock to plunge. That is no longer the case.

If you thought that you got rid of the IMF as a diligent saver, we have bad news for you.