Archive - Dec 2010 - Blog entry

The administration's support for Bernanke's "weak dollar" policy is evident in the way that Obama keeps reiterating his promise to double exports in 5 years. This simply can't be done without ripping the dollar to shreds, which appears to be Obama's intention.

There are 26.2 unemployed or underemployed workers in America today. And the labor participation rate (percentage of employed to total workforce) has gone backwards for the past 10 years. There are forces that continue to discourage job growth and will hinder economic growth for years. Apparently your government hates workers because it is doing everything is can to discourage job growth.

The Little Book of Sideways Markets is officially out.  It was a fun and interesting project.  I took Active Value Investing (my first book), completely rewrote the first half of the book, added three new chapters (“Born Again Value Investor” is my favorite one), updated it to reflect the post-Great Recession economic environment, added new examples, explained some things differently (hopefully better), distilled it, and made it an easier read for a much wider audience.

And won't find in Time Magazine...

It appears as if I wrinkled a few feathers of the birds that are doing God’s work with my missive “Goldman’s $430 Target, Screaming Buy On Apple At Its All Time High Is In Direct Contravention To Reggie Middleton’s Logic – Who’s Right? Well, Who Has Been More Right In The Past?“. This is a good thing! A little creative destruction and anarchy is positive for the complacent masses. I say we take this up a notch, pull down our pants and see who is truly the most intellectually endowed...

Retail traders are notoriously wrong at picking market direction/tops and bottoms. Most retail traders very naturally seem to adopt a counter-trend stance and this offers very accurate signals for individuals looking to trade against this group. This daily report is designed to help traders focus their efforts on higher probability pairs.

The Fed's monthly statement on the economy was out today and it was more redundant than a repetitive semantic pleonasm and less telling than a gay soldier (though it's not clear that anyone asked).

A handy infographic explaining how to get ripped off by giving gift cards as Christmas presents.

California Public Employees’ Retirement System has adopted a new asset-allocation strategy in order to better prepare for risk-adjusted performance in the investment world. And that's not all...

Fortunately they straightened me out and we now know that clearly there is no manipulation in the energy markets – can I have my Grandma back now?).

Got answers?

Stocks were drifting sideways for a second-straight day Wednesday, which is no big deal considering the sharp rally since late August. But it will be a big deal if the market suffers another lost decade, as Vitaliy Katsenelson of Investment Management Associates predicts. "To be honest, I have no idea what [the market] is going to do over the next three weeks. But I think over next 8 to 10 years it will be going sideways," he says.

For the duration of what I estimate to be a 10 year economic slowdown (we are entering year 4), you will hear countless experts proclaim that the economy has recovered. Economic recovery evangelists were temporarily silenced earlier in the year, but they have now come out in force.In today's FOMC statement, the Fed actually had the chutzpah to say: "The economic recovery is continuing, though at a rate that has been insufficient to bring down unemployment".

When $100Bills are being printed faster than rolls of Charmin are being made, your currency is probably on it's way to a crisis. You reach a certain point at which it's cheaper to just wipe your butt with dollar bills than to go to the store and buy toilet paper...

If you own these precious metals because you want to hold them as catastrophe insurance or a hedge against inflation, then issues like short-term drops in price should be seen as buying opportunities.

Indeed, Gold bulls have already ridden out 13 corrections of roughly 7%, six corrections ranging from 10%-16%, and three full-scale Crashes of 22-23% since the Gold bull market began in 2001.

So if you’re a long-term bull, you’re used to seeing some serious dips in the price of Gold holdings. And if you bought more Gold during those dips, you’ve profited handsomely.