The Spoiled Child is Learning

I’m sure you’ve read and heard enough about about yesterday’s FOMC release and attendant press conference so I won’t bore you with more. I’ll just quickly say the most important three points are these: 1. Bernanke stuck to his guns and tried to strike the right balance between hawk and dove. He didn’t give back…

Stocks are Retweeting Bonds

So this is interesting…bonds resume their sell-off after the FOMC plays coy on tapering. Stocks follow suit. The same correction we’ve been in has now continued – led by fixed income and “bond-like stocks”. Note the high dividend payers getting clocked along with the bond markets. Energy and Materials are the very best performers! What’s…

Bill Nygren on Google

Most advertising and media stocks are essentially in a cyclical business – ad growth ebbs and flows with economic growth and the overall pie grows or shrinks accordingly. But web advertising is growing regardless of the overall advertising pie and this makes Google the ultimate secular growth story in the space (unless Facebook someday gets…

Ralph Acampora: Here are your new market leaders

The technical analysis legend makes an important point in his June newsletter on the heels of 2013’s first stock market correction… An old Wall Street adage: “During a market sell-off/correction, the sectors that go down the least and/or suffer minimal technical damage are the new leaders”. Between May 22nd and June 6th, the best performing sectors…

Chart o’ the Day: The Cost of Holding Cash

In the short-term, having a strategic cash pile can be an excellent way to take advantage of opportunities – but in the intermediate to long-term, “sitting in cash” can cost you a lot more than you think. Today’s chart comes to us from BlackRock, burn this image into the back of your eyelids for the…

Too Big To Wean?

From Jamie Dimon’s annual letter to JPMorgan shareholders this past April (via Sam Ro): “As we currently are positioned, if rates went up 300 basis points, our pre-tax profits would increase by approximately $5 billion over a one-year period…Remember, however, that all things are not equal, and that $5 billion of improved income should be…

Jason Zweig: UR Doing It Rong

One of the things you learn about asset allocation is that the unemotional defeat the emotional over time by fading their highs and lows, their greed and fear, on a consistent basis. A majority of people in the marketplace don’t understand this or can’t put it into practice. Or they mistake their timeframe for someone…