Everyone’s risk tolerance changes with the environment they’re in. Ask someone how they feel about risk after the market’s just run up and they’ll say “don’t worry about it, I’m cool – let’s put some money to work.” Ask the same guy, no matter how experienced or savvy he is, one month later after a…

A guy got nailed by the Feds a couple of years ago for padding the construction bills he was submitting to hedge fund clients of his architectural and contracting firm. He’d apparently gotten away with it for years before anyone noticed – with billions of dollars sloshing around it’s probably not uncommon for millions in…

It’s not so much a “rotation” from bonds to stocks as it is a vote of confidence for the economic recovery. The below chart, from Ben Levisohn’s MFQ column in this weekend’s Barron’s, shows that over the last 30 days investors showed a clear preference for corporate stocks and bonds – and a continued distaste…

The Nasdaq is now officially in a dip, which I define as a drop of between 5 and 10 percent in price. Many large Nasdaq favorites are in defined downtrends (below major moving averages) and the weakness is starting to spread to the S&P names. We’re not in a correction yet, which would be a…

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Earnings season gets underway shortly as companies begin to report their first quarter numbers. Much will be made about the distinction between weather-impacted reports and genuine signs that the recovery has stalled. Savita Subramanian of Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Equity and Quant Strategy group is saying to watch for management commentary and guidance related…

We have an old saying on Wall Street – “When the ducks are quacking, feed them.”   No one knows exactly who coined this phrase, its first known published usage came from a May 1991 article in which the head of First Boston’s equities desk was quoted as saying it. Keep in mind that 1991…