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stock buybacks

Why Bubbles Are Being Recognized

By |2014-11-12T13:12:15-05:00November 12th, 2014|Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Stocks|

The nature of liquidity under the eurodollar standard is to essentially link “markets” that outwardly seem to have little or no relation. You can see the synchronized ups and downs quite clearly but miss the ultimate connection, especially under the orthodox assumption of the world’s economies and their “natural” finance as mostly closed systems with only tenuous associations. If that [...]

Realistic Economic Context

By |2014-08-04T15:01:47-04:00August 4th, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Following up on the payroll disparities that were updated on Friday, it is still difficult to be confident that the economy is on any kind of solid ground. For starters, though the Establishment Survey shows 4.4 million new jobs in the 21 months since October 2012, for an average of 207k per month, the companion Household Survey is only at [...]

Leverage Channels

By |2014-06-10T11:44:33-04:00June 10th, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Stocks|

Following up on yesterday’s observations about valuations in stocks, margin debt declined in April for the second consecutive month. The absolute change across both March and April is not very large, amounting to $27 billion or 5%. Total cash balances were essentially unchanged, meaning that investors retired margined positions and reduced overall leverage in retail accounts. Since there was little [...]

Do You Feel Lucky?

By |2014-01-05T17:27:10-05:00January 5th, 2014|Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Stocks, Taxes/Fiscal Policy|

Well, 2013 is in the books and it was a stellar year for anyone who had the moxy to ignore all the rules we've been taught about investing. Diversification? Didn't need it last year. All you had to do was buy US stocks, the more speculative the better, and let it ride.  Bonds to reduce risk? Nope, that didn't work [...]

Companies Spending Money Badly

By |2013-03-06T16:36:51-05:00March 6th, 2013|Markets, Stocks|

Stock buybacks hit a record last month according to this post from Cardiff Garcia at FT Alphaville quoting a Birinyi Associates post:             We recorded $117.8 billion in buyback authorizations during the month of February, representing a 103% gain over the same period in 2012 ($118 bln vs. $68 bln). February was the largest month, [...]

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