media impact

Why did my stock go down?

November 15, 2008

Don’t worry about “why” your investment is falling. Focus on “what” instead.  What is happening now. Don’t worry about “WHY”…everyone is doing that.  Gyrating stock prices are getting swung around by deceptive news headlines, faulty stories — all designed to play on your emotions. Do we really NEED to know “why?” If a chart is [...]

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Banks and the Bailout

November 1, 2008

One of the side stories coming out of the bank bailout has been this: some banks are actually using the money — to buy other banks! My first reaction when seeing this headline, was “why can’t these banks do what we ask them to do?” I did read a story recently where some banks that [...]

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Futures vs. Stocks

October 25, 2008

It’s a little embarrassing to hear media folks on TV and radio asking questions Friday morning like: “Do you think the stock market will open today?” Wow. First, it shows how clueless many people in the financial media really are about markets.  But questions like that also help promote the fear factor. Just reckless. Many [...]

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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac…not dead…yet?

September 27, 2008

A client called me today, curious about buying shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  He said, “I’m sitting at home, watching the stock market channel and I’m amazed.  I am seeing all of the shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac changing hands.  The stock prices are so cheap.  But, Tom, I thought these [...]

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Who’ll Save Lehman?

September 13, 2008

That was the headline I found over at CBS Marketwatch.  As usual, the news media is whipping (anyone who will read) into a frenzy about Lehman Brothers.  More news may be forthcoming about Lehman — between the time I finish writing this and the time you read this. I have no idea what’s going to [...]

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Point & Figure Charts Tell A Better Story

August 30, 2008

There’s a great story I read in the New York Times. It’s part business/part technology. While it delves into some pretty sophisticated topics, I’ll try and summarize it as best I can right here. The author, Anne Eisenberg, wrote about an experimental website, www.many-eyes.com. This is a site where visitors can upload data they want [...]

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News or Noise? Real Estate Lender Is 10th Bank to Fail

August 29, 2008

A story reported in the New York Times recently talked about the failure of Integrity Bank of Alpharetta, Georgia. The Times reported that integrity Bank was the 10th US Bank to fail so far in 2008. And buried a little further in the story is the fact that another bank — Regions Bank — is [...]

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Auction Rate Preferred: the bail-out

August 9, 2008

In one of my most recent posts I discussed the “ready to explode” product issued by brokerage firms called “auction rate preferred securities.” Well, that didn’t take long. In this past week UBS (the parent company of PaineWebber), announced they are spending $19 billion (yes, billion with a B) to buy back auction rate preferred [...]

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Exxon: Quarterly earnings and stock performance

August 8, 2008

Exxon reported nearly $12 billion in profits for the previous quarter recently. $12 billion! More net profits in one quarter, than ever recorded in the history of mankind. And what did the stock do? It went down. Numbers like $12 billion generate emotional responses: anger, jealousy, envy, and even pride. The media does a good [...]

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Oil stocks: Time to buy?

August 7, 2008

Nearly 20 years ago, when I worked in Chicago, I became friends with a gentleman named Joe Lopresti. Today, Joe is the President of Arlington Capital Management. We’ve remained in touch and share our thoughts and outlooks on the market periodically. Joe recently put together some extremely compelling — and well written article why investors [...]

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