Blog

15 May 2009

Posted at 15:57h in The Friday Brief by
How investor outlook has improved since those dark days of early March. The S&P 500 remains 32% above its March 9th low despite recent announcements that Chrysler and GM are closing 789 and 1,000 of their dealerships, respectively. All signs suggest this is a confidence rally. The huge liquidity pumped into the global economies is driving short-term interest rates to levels that no longer hold any appeal for investors. They are fleeing the relative safety of short government bonds in pursuit of higher returns of higher risk instruments. With real estate down for the count, stocks and commodities represent the only game in town at the moment. Still some argue that the current rally is a trap, a bear market rally that will eventually falter. Our opinion is that the rally is a bit overdone, but it is for real.

08 May 2009

Posted at 16:20h in The Friday Brief by
Since the exaggerated stock market lows of early March, investors have been overjoyed by recent Good news that the trends in earnings, housing, jobs, and the economy may be slowing in their descent. They are glimmers of light in an otherwise dark reality. But this is a Bad Recession, the worst since the Great Depression, and it is unique in numerous ways. Finding remedies that don’t make matters worse poses hugely daunting challenges for government officials. And the Ugly truth is they have bent and even broken good faith promises, contracts, and even the Constitution in the name of remedy. The effects of these broken trusts, the exponential explosion of federal debt, and unprecedented spending on social programs that will not end after recovery will have major and unintended consequences on our future economy.

30 Apr 2009

Posted at 16:29h in The Friday Brief by
The S&P 500 index rose 10% in April, for its largest monthly increase since 2000, despite a steady stream of negative to mixed economic data. Its near-two-month rally has added 29% to the index’s value. The story was more mixed for bonds as short term rates fell and long term increased. But the clear message is that both the bond and stock markets are positioning for recovery. Even Thursday’s announcement that Gross Domestic Product fell by a whopping 6.1% had no significant impact on the markets.

24 Apr 2009

Posted at 16:36h in The Friday Brief by
After six weeks of market gains, we stalled at the beginning of this one. Leading economic indicators released on Monday indicated no clear signals of improvement which promptly sent the S&P 500 down 4.3%. It appeared that investors had lost their willingness to look beyond the bad news toward the possibility of economic recovery. But optimism returned on Tuesday with a significant rally on comments from Treasury Secretary Mr. Geithner that most banks were sufficiently capitalized. Market strength continued throughout the week as one earnings or economic report followed another with enough positive insight to stoke the bulls. State Street's institutional investor confidence index jumped 10 points in April to 79.6. The report, which analyzes trading volumes, said monthly flows into U.S. stocks are in the 98th percentile.

10 Apr 2009

Posted at 16:30h in The Friday Brief by
In the process of investing we spend a great deal of time in linear thinking. We measure, we weigh, we time, and we project. We draw lots of lines as we make our assertions and projections. The regulatory agencies require us to disclaim that past results do not guarantee future results, but we all, to various degrees, subscribe to that very notion. The multi-billion dollar marketing machine we’ll simply call Wall Street spends millions of dollars a day drawing lines which analyze, dissect, compare, measure, and highlight past results. There is an implication that the more colorful and complicated these reports are the better equipped we are to decide their appropriateness for the future.  

03 Apr 2009

Posted at 16:33h in The Friday Brief by
There are two categories of policy available to the government to influence an economy; monetary and fiscal. Fiscal policy employs government spending and taxation. Monetary policy, primarily overseen by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury is used to control and manipulate the supply and the cost (interest) of money in order to regulate the growth in the economy and the stability of prices. Of the nearly $12 trillion lent, promised and spent so far, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke’s program to drive down mortgage rates is delivering on its promise. Fixed 30-year mortgage rates are now down to 4.78% according to Freddie Mac. They are down for the second week in a row.

27 Mar 2009

Posted at 16:36h in The Friday Brief by
This was a good week from both the perspective of strong new monetary remedies as well as economic indicators that the economy may be turning. On Monday, Mr. Geithner knocked one out of the park (market-wise) when he announced his plan to buy as much as $1 trillion of bad assets from banks and avoid nationalization. Bond fund giants Pimco and Blackrock and others say they will participate in the plan. Economic reports on housing and durable goods also added to the prospect that the fourth quarter’s slide of 6.3% might have been its worst.

20 Mar 2009

Posted at 16:44h in The Friday Brief by
Today, there is a strongly held belief that financial markets are efficient. The efficient market hypothesis maintains that prices of traded assets such as stocks, bonds, or property adequately reflect the sum of all known information at any given point in time. With today’s rapid flow of information, we see prices adjusting ever more quickly and with greater volatility. The hypothesis also asserts that it is impossible to consistently outperform the market by using any information the market already knows, except through luck. There are strong and passionate opinions on both sides of this hypothesis and it is not our goal to defend or to debunk them today. Rather we aim to point out that because of the widely held belief in market efficiency there are some exciting opportunities that have strong potential if we lengthen our timeframe beyond nest week or next year. We want you to know about them.

13 Mar 2009

Posted at 16:46h in The Friday Brief by
This afternoon we find the S&P 500 advancing for the fourth day, up nearly 12% for the week. News on Tuesday that Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit’s remarks in an internal memo saying the bank is having its best quarter since 2007 and comments from regulators in Washington suggesting they may reinstate rules that limit short selling sparked the rally. By Wednesday it looked like it would run out of steam when Thursday’s Retail Sales report demonstrated there was still life in the consumer. The possibility that consumer, the largest part of the US economy combined with the picture Bernie Madoff swiftly and justly being escorted off to jail in handcuffs gave the market it’s second powerful boost upward. This week’s move dramatically demonstrates how fast markets can move on relatively little information.

06 Mar 2009

Posted at 13:30h in The Friday Brief by
The free enterprise system that made this country second to none on earth is in the cross-hairs of an increasingly out-of-touch Washington, D.C.  Frank, Dodd, Pelosi, Reich, Schrum, and others boldly, arrogantly, and endlessly flog the whole of in particular Wall Street and free-enterprise in general. As they continue, they risk dousing the spirit of risk-taking which drives our economy. If Mr. Obama places himself in the company of Abraham Lincoln he must better understand that the 16th President was a champion for the protection and nurture of the free enterprise energy of this country. In a famous speech in February of 1859, Mr. Lincoln the patent system “secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things.” Mr. Lincoln observed that the government was not the inventor, the creator, or the risk taker, but rather the protector of the free citizen; protected by this government to take risk in hopes of profit, not vice versa.