Will Summer Spell the End of the Bull Market?
As U.S stock prices continue their liquidity-fueled ascent, the rationalizations for remaining bullish on the U.S. stock market become more perverse by the day. Barron’s is calling this the TINA market, as in There Is No Alternative to U.S. stocks. Click here to read more. How comforting. The best... Read the full story
Escalating Currency Wars an Imminent Threat
With the cabal of central bankers and finance ministers once again denying at the G-20 meetings last weekend that the world’s largest economies are engaged in clandestine currency wars we are reminded of the famous Groucho Marx quote, “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” Click here to... Read the full story
Printing the Path to Prosperity
The Fed is engaged in an unbounded money-printing campaign at a rate of $85 billion per month, but they aren’t the only money-printing bank in town. The European Central Bank has agreed to print an unlimited amount of money to buy any and all bonds from whichever euro-area country needs a bailout.... Read the full story
Covert Global Currency Wars
“The lessons for the present are clear. Today most advanced industrial economies remain, to varying extents, in the grip of slow recoveries from the Great Recession. With inflation generally contained, central banks in these countries are providing accommodative monetary policies to support growth.... Read the full story
Alert: Bernanke’s Sanguine Forecast a Bad Omen
Stocks sold off a bit on Wednesday and Thursday following the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last policy meeting. Investors were apparently concerned that Bernanke & Co. may pull the Free Money Truck back into the garage ahead of schedule. The minutes from the last Federal Open... Read the full story
Investors Ride Shotgun in Bernanke’s Free Money Truck
With a strong start out of the gates in 2013, U.S. stocks have now almost fully recovered from the devastating 57% plunge during the last bear market. Both the Dow and the S&P are once again bordering on all-time highs. Investors have long forgotten the dark days of the financial crisis. Fear is... Read the full story
Confidence Cause for Concern
The Conference Board released the latest Consumer Confidence numbers this morning. The Consumer Confidence Index tumbled to 65.1 in December compared to a downwardly revised 71.5 last month. Consumers are apparently alarmed with the incompetence of their elected officials in Washington. Four days until... Read the full story
Over the Threshold
The Fed held its last meeting of the year yesterday and announced two important changes in policy. First, as was widely expected the FOMC decided to transition Operation Twist—the bank’s maturity extension program—into QE4. So now instead of printing $40 billion per month to buy mortgage backed... Read the full story
How to Increase Shareholder Return Today
The Wall Street Journal ran an article yesterday titled Top U.S. Firms Are Cash-Rich Abroad, Cash-Poor at Home. The piece pointed out that American companies are holding record amounts of cash, but much of it is overseas. By example, “Emerson Electric Co. has $2 billion of cash in the bank. But this... Read the full story
It’s the Spending Stupid!
As congressional leaders and the White House begin to negotiate on the fiscal cliff we are hearing a lot about raising taxes on the “rich.” The debate has morphed from whether or not to tax the rich to how to tax the rich. Apparently, a majority of Americans bought into the President’s dubious... Read the full story
