18 May 2012

Posted at 10:33h in The Friday Brief by
Stock market averages continued down for their third week to levels last cleared in January. The S&P average, which peaked 13% above its January 3rd open is now up only 3.8% trimming more than a trillion in market value in May. The Vanguard Total Market is up 2.4% year to date. Yields on the 10-year US Treasury have tumbled from about 4% just two years ago when Greece's debt crisis began to 1.73% today. The 7-10-year Treasury is up 21% (not counting interest) over the same period.

11 May 2012

Posted at 13:24h in The Friday Brief by
A bumper sticker caught my eye this morning, and quite nearly my front bumper, as the car's driver inserted himself ahead of me. The sticker read "I'm Not Speeding - I'm Qualifying," an obvious reference to NASCAR, which was born in these parts. It occurred to me what a fitting description of market traders at today’s large banks, if not the banks themselves.

04 May 2012

Posted at 13:15h in The Friday Brief by
Unless you are Lance Armstrong (or my son-in-law), as your bike slows down, balance becomes increasingly challenging. That's the picture of where our economy is now - its slowing and investors wonder whether we can stay up or fall back into recession.

27 Apr 2012

Posted at 12:32h in The Friday Brief by
So why is debt such at bad thing? Why all of a sudden is it bringing people and countries to their knees? It's not new, in fact it's been with us as long as money has. Debt can be a really great tool that allows us to buy more of a thing or to buy that thing much sooner than we could with only our cash. And there are some things we might not be able to buy at all without debt, like houses, roads, or college.