How does one measure a hedge fund manager and determine his (it’s almost always his) place in the pantheon relative to his peers? I like the idea of picking the very best of all time based on how much they’ve earned in profits, on an absolute basis. This metric would preclude younger fund managers who…

  Source: XKCD

Just a quick check on earnings trends versus multiple trends for the S&P 500 via the Indexology blog:   Source: Indexology

With roughly 80% of Q4 2013’s earnings in, this season has been shaping up to be another good, not great one for the S&P 500. It’s good because beat-rates for both earnings and revenue are at historic levels. It’s not great because we’re talking about “beats” of numbers that have been massaged lower for months…

The hottest topic this year so far is whether or not Emerging Markets stocks and bonds are a buy. After more than three years of massive underperformance versus developed markets and a huge disparity in valuation, is now the time to get excited about the foreign investments that no one else will touch? To give…

Cool pair of charts from Zack’s Investment Research in which they show you the percentage share of the index by sector as well as the percentage of earnings they kick in.   Source: How Good is the Earnings Picture? Zack’s Investment Research – February 6th 2014

Just an aside, I don’t have the data to really make this claim, but I’m fairly certain this is the coldest, longest winter of all time. Or at least since I’ve been alive. I can’t get warm. I don’t have any vacations coming up until April (that’s what happens when you launch your own business)…