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Category Archives: Market Trends
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The negative news about the economy continues and yet the stock market has kept going up. This divergence reinforces one of the key lessons of active management, which is that the broader the financial instrument, the less predictable the movement … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Crisis, Investing, Market Recap, Market Trends
Tagged AAPL, Apple, Economy, Market Recap, Risk Tolerance
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Interest Rates and National Debt
The Federal Reserve has been under considerable pressure to provide details for just how it will control all the excess liquidity that it has created through quantitative easing. The Fed’s balance sheet, which can roughly be thought of as a … Continue reading
Employment
With such slow growth, it isn’t possible to get the employment situation to improve significantly, despite the attempts at upbeat headlines. On April 5th we learned that March experienced the biggest monthly increase in people dropping out of the labor … Continue reading
GDP & Corporate Growth
None of the four major components of the business cycle, (real income, sales, production and employment) have managed to get back to their 2007 highs, even now as we enter the fifth year of the recovery. This is truly a … Continue reading
Posted in Investing, Market Trends
Tagged Corporate Growth, employment, GDP, production, real income, sales
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Corporate Earnings
As we head into the first quarter’s earnings season, 78% of companies have issued negative earnings preannouncements, the highest percentage of companies issuing negative earnings guidance since FactSet began tracking the data in Q1 2006. The chart above shows in … Continue reading
Posted in Earnings, Financial Crisis, Investing, Market Trends
Tagged Corporate Earnings, Guidance, Power and Money, Preannouncements
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Your Money
The financial repression exemplified by the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy (ZIRP), that was begun on Dec 16, 2008, has many side effects. One of these side effects is to drive down the interest income that savers and investors … Continue reading
Posted in Investing, Market Recap, Market Trends
Tagged Bond Managers, Bonds, Federal Reserve, International Bond Fund, Market Recap
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Comparative History: 2012 vs. 1998
The first quarter of 2012 was a stunner in the equity markets, giving us the best first quarter since 1998, which begs the question, what did 1998 look like relative to 2012? 1998 2012 Sector trends Beginnings of an enormously … Continue reading
GDP and EFSF, Trick or Treat?
Last week was simply stunning. Barely one quarter of the investing public is now cautious over the market outlook! Well, why not? GDP rose 2.5% and we’re told that there is a plan to save the Eurozone. Phew. Since I’m … Continue reading
Posted in Eurozone, Fed Policy, Financial Crisis, Investing, Market Trends
Tagged eurozone, GDP, Lenore Hawkins, market rally
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Beware of earnings
While the reported earnings for companies the 2nd quarter of 2011 was once again quite strong, with actual beating consensus forecasts by about 4%, be careful of mistaking history for future predictions. GOOD NEWS: Durable goods orders increased 4% in … Continue reading
An E-ticket week in the markets
Growing up I aspired to be a big enough girl to be trusted with an e-ticket at Disneyland. (For those who don’t know that reference, the scarier rides at Disneyland in the 70s required an e-ticket which was clearly something … Continue reading
Posted in Investing, Market Trends
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