13 Jun 2003

Posted at 16:50h in The Friday Brief by
During the next two weeks, as the second quarter comes to a close, we will hear from those corporations who wish to better prepare their shareholders for the actual results they expect to report later in July and August.  The ‘pre-announcement’ season is typically used by corporations to soften the blow of bad earnings news.  Pre-announcements can be vague and, therefore, cause a less a dramatic impact on the stock than the reporting of actual results might.  At this point the companies themselves don’t know their final results, so they must be somewhat vague.

28 Mar 2003

Posted at 15:54h in The Friday Brief by
In just a week the faint signs of optimism have succumbed to the brutal realties of war.  It is not clean and it rarely, if ever, goes according to script.  Investors are realizing that they likely allowed excessive optimism to get ahead of reality.  The war will take longer than earlier hoped. 

13 Sep 2002

Posted at 14:03h in The Friday Brief by
You know from your July and August statements just how badly the markets mistreated long-term investors.  A few statistics from Credit Suisse First Boston help put the period into even better perspective.  A record $29 billion was removed from mutual funds in July 2002.  Stock funds experienced record outflows, while bond funds enjoyed record inflows.  Net outflows from equity funds in July 2002 were almost twice as large as those during September 2001, and more than five times larger than those during August 1998.  Every style of equity funds was affected by investors’ withdrawals in July. 

07 Jun 2002

Posted at 15:23h in The Friday Brief by
It’s getting increasingly difficult to find the silver lining among these ugly, gray clouds.  Stocks have fallen for ten of the past twelve weeks.  The stock-price drubbings have taken their toll on the collective confidence of investors as well as this writer.  Each day brings news of tragedy in Israel and Palestine, or of escalation in the Kashmir region, or setbacks in the war on terror.  If the global news abates, there’s plenty of homespun grief to compensate; from political and bureaucratic finger-pointing over potential advance warning of 9/11, and an ever-growing list of blue-chip corporations admitting accounting transgressions, to company rating downgrades, and securities analysts stumbling over each other to get the bad news out first.