"Bloomberg's Bob Ivry reports on how bankers failed to mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. He speaks with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television's 'InsideTrack.'" (Source: Bloomberg) … [Read more...]
Archives for November 2011
The $100,000 Range Rover Boom!
You can go to a local U.S. Range Rover dealership this weekend and buy a nicely equipped Range Rover HSE for $85,000 or a Supercharged for over $100,000. If you finance it in U.S. dollars, at least you know what you owe. If you want to be as fancy as your new car, you can borrow in a foreign currency and pay it back with your local currency. You’ll be styling with the best of the hedge fund managers if your currency appreciates. But what happens if the bottom falls out? That’s exactly what happened in Iceland this decade. In his new book, Boomerang, Michael Lewis writes about what happens … [Read more...]
Eurocrats Cry Wolf
It seems as though the half-life of euro-zone bailouts is getting shorter. It was only a month ago that policy makers announced a bailout plan that was supposed to put an end to the region’s debt crisis once and for all. Admittedly, the details of the plan were vague and it lacked credibility, but that didn’t stop equity markets from rallying in October as rumors and speculation about the plan were leaked to the press. If euro-zone leaders were attempting to boost global equity markets by announcing a plan to make a plan weeks in the future, they succeeded. October was the best month for the … [Read more...]
Are Stocks the Best Long-Term Investment?
The two-decade bull market in stocks that ended in 2000 convinced a generation of investors that stocks are the best long-term investment. Dow 36,000 and Stocks for the Long Run became cocktail-party fodder. There is no questioning that stocks put up some impressive numbers in the 1980s and 1990s. From year-end 1981 to year-end 1999, the index rose at an 18.5% compounded annual rate. At an 18.5% rate of growth, you double your money every four years. Of course, the last decade hasn’t been as kind to investors, but despite a decade with almost no return, the S&P 500 has still earned a … [Read more...]
What We’re Reading 11-23-11
Worst-performing stocks of the year down more than 50%, Matt Krantz, USA Today The 32 Rules of Thanksgiving Touch Football, Jason Gay, The Wall Street Journal Central bank gold buying at 40-year high, Jack Farchy, Financial Times … [Read more...]
Billionaire Harold Hamm on the Bakken Shale
Retirement Stocks
You want to be paid well for investing in this market. Young Research’s 32-stock Retirement Compounders portfolio average dividend yield pays 5%. Compound that for 15 or 16 years and you double your money. Run your finger along the black line, the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, beginning in 1965. It’s not until 1982 that it starts turning up. That period before the upturn lasted the whole span of a retirement for some. A similar trend began in 2000. Now check out the gray line and see how federal spending has crowded out the market. High-yielding stocks are one way to make … [Read more...]
Bianco on Europe Crisis, Supercommittee, Stocks
Feldstein Says Euro `Experiment’ Is Proven Failure
Not Your Father’s Stock Market
This is not your father’s stock market. Over the last 10 years, the structure of the U.S. equity market has changed drastically. Gone are the days when the NYSE and its specialists dominated stock market trading. Today, as many as 50 different venues in the U.S. trade equities. Now, almost all stock trades are done electronically. The NYSE specialists who were once obligated to make an orderly market by providing bid and offer quotes during periods of market stress have been effectively replaced by high-frequency trading firms (HFTs). HFTs are opportunistic traders that operate with little … [Read more...]