Thinking Things Over January 29, 2012 Volume II, Number 4: Obama and Bernanke are Not on the Same Page on Our Future By John L. Chapman, Ph.D. Washington, D.C. The week just passed witnessed an extraordinary disconnect. Tuesday night President Obama delivered his annual State of the Union address, and argued that the economy is "getting stronger." He pointed out that [...]
We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. (Applause.) For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. (Applause.) For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. (Applause.) Most of al Qaeda’s top [...]
I have had the pleasure of working with my new colleague Patrick Manning helping him reformulate our strategic (passive) portfolios for future clients. The exchange of ideas with a 40 year Wall Street veteran has been extremely satisfying. Pat has shared many insights picked up over the years and I have been able to relate to him many of the [...]
The S&P 500 continues to creep up on no news from Europe and further monetary easing here in the US. While the move up has been nothing to write home about, the markets do find themselves overbought, and sentiment is quite positive, which may signal at least a short term top. The VIX index hit levels not seen since July [...]
Joseph Gomez, Sr. Investment Advisor Companies are clearly having a tougher time living up to analyst expectations this season. Currently, only 58 percent of companies have managed to beat estimates. Even though we are in the middle of earnings season, analysts have continued to lower their earnings estimates at a quickening pace. There is a factor of seasonality at play here too. [...]
by Joseph Gomez, Sr. Investment Advisor
Dr. John Chapman put together a wonderful PowerPoint presentation for the Laffer Center for Supply-Side Economics. In it, he describes the current conditions of the US economy and how they deteriorated since the Reagan years. He also discusses the possible solutions, in particular what the best policy mix should be going forward. It is definitely a great read if you want [...]
The IMF is clearly not satisfied with the current state of affairs in Europe. Not only has the global "agency" reduced growth forecasts across the board, it is predicting a global contraction absent comprehensive solutions to the PIIGS problems. Setting aside the obtuse idea that the world's economic problems only reside within the PIIGS, the stakes are very high in [...]
Joseph A. Gomez, Sr. Investment Advisor WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve said on Wednesday that it was likely to raise interest rates at the end of 2014, but not until then, adding another 18 months to the expected duration of its most basic and longest-running response to the financial crisis. As I pointed out in last week's post, Ben Bernanke will do [...]
One of the basic tenets of the Strategic Approach to investing is that it is very difficult to predict future movements of securities or securities markets. As matter of fact many academic studies over many years have demonstrated that Wall Street and its army of professionals who earn a handsome living trying to pick winning stocks and forecast market movements [...]
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