Fear and Greed: Read the Market like Warren Buffet
If you tune into to CNBC regularly, you’ve likely come across a segment where the commentators are talking about the VIX Index. You may have wondered what the significance of the VIX was and what its implications are for your portfolio. The VIX isn’t like the Dow Jones or the S&P 500—it doesn’t... Read the full story
Is This What a Recovery Feels Like?
A slew of industrial reports were released by the Federal Reserve this week. All of the releases’ headline numbers missed analysts’ estimates. The picture painted by the charts below indicates an uneven recovery hampered by residual weaknesses in certain sectors of the economy. The Empire State Manufacturing... Read the full story
Income Investors: Be Not Afraid
The Problem Without congressional action the Bush tax cuts will expire in 2013. Expiration would lead to higher income taxes for all brackets, and lead to dividends being taxed at marginal income tax rates for middle-and upper-income filers. The potential for higher income tax rates on dividends is scaring... Read the full story
A Dubious Tax Proposal
President Obama is on the campaign trail promoting the Buffett Rule that the Senate will likely vote on in coming days. The Buffett Rule would slap a minimum tax rate of 30% on anyone who makes more than $1 million per year. Billionaire Warren Buffett came up with the idea. Apparently, he was disturbed... Read the full story
Facebook’s Fatal Flaw Exposed
Has he gone mad? Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO announced this week that his social networking company is buying Instagram. Facebook is paying $1 billion—a 100% premium to the company’s valuation only one week ago. Instagram is the creator of the identically named photo sharing / editing app for... Read the full story
Jobless Claims Spike: Will the Fed Overreact?
According to today’s report, initial claims for jobless benefits spiked to 380,000, the highest since January (See chart below). Compounding the fear about the recovery in jobs was the less than stellar growth logged in payrolls last week. Only 120,000 jobs were created in March, substantially underperforming... Read the full story
VIDEO: U.S. Is Losing Its Competitiveness, Ferguson Says
April 5 (Bloomberg) — Niall Ferguson, a history professor at Harvard University and a Bloomberg Television contributing editor, talks about the U.S. economy. He speaks with Erik Schatzker and Sara Eisen on Bloomberg Television’s “InsideTrack.” (Source: Bloomberg) Read More →
Gas Prices Threaten the Economy
Tight global oil supplies and tensions with Iran (among other factors) have pushed retail gasoline prices back above $4 per gallon. When gasoline prices surged to near $4 per gallon last year, economic growth slowed as purchases cut into consumers’ discretionary spending power. Should we expect another... Read the full story
FOMC Minutes Paint a Dismal Picture for Savers
If you were unlucky enough to have to read the minutes of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) released yesterday, you may have been disturbed by what you found. Within the notes on the view of the Federal Reserve Governors and Presidents in attendance (a.k.a. participants) you would have... Read the full story
Manufacturers Giving Markets Mixed Signals
The ISM Manufacturing Report on Business was released this morning and produced a composite index result that was slightly better than a survey of economists surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted it would be. You can see on our chart that the index is trending up slowly. The components of the index were... Read the full story
