S&P 500

Jump Back into Stocks Immediately?

October 18, 2008

Take a walk with me down Memory Lane: 1973: S&P down over 17%  (ouch) 1974: S&P down over 29%. (ouch again) The bottom for the S&P was reached in October 1974. And the bottom was reached — yet again — in December 1974. There was no advantage to jumping 100% back in, immediately. October 19, [...]

Read the full article →

Is 1100 for the S&P 500 like the Equator?

October 18, 2008

Like crossing the equator on a ship — should buy and hold investors get some kind of recognition (or have some celebration) for crossing the line?  The S&P 500 crossed 1100 in 1998 (twice), 2001 (3X!), 2002, 2004 and 2008.  Look, when I drive around the same block twice, even I ask for directions!  Oh, [...]

Read the full article →

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 [...]

Read the full article →

Legg Mason Value Trust

July 16, 2008

Ever heard of Bill Miller? He runs the Legg Mason Value Trust (LVMTX). Miller is literally splattered all over CNBC and other media outlets. He’s a value manager, which means he likes to buy stocks at a discount, and then essentially sit on them, until they appreciate. He made a name for himself as he [...]

Read the full article →

Bloomberg Radio Interview

June 22, 2008

OK, no names are used in this post! But holy cow! In the midst of the sell off this week, Bloomberg Radio interviewed a money manager about the current condition of the market. The money manager went on and on making predictions about the market. How would he know anyway? Now, everyone is entitled to [...]

Read the full article →

Exchange Traded Funds becoming more mainstream

June 16, 2008

In just the last month, assets in exchange traded funds increased $17 billion. Total assets in ETF’s now total over $600 billion, according to State Street Global Advisors of Boston. Yeah…so? I’ll tell you why this matters. In 1994, the first ETF’s were launched. The S&P500 clone, called “spiders” or SPDR was launched, followed by [...]

Read the full article →

How Smart is The Crowd?

May 20, 2008

Do you remember the television program, “Who wants to be a Millionaire“?The show was actually featured in a terrific book “The Wisdom of Crowds” by James Suriowiecki. If you remember, the contestants were given three “lifelines” to help them. The first lifeline was the “50/50,” where two of the four possible answers were eliminated. So, [...]

Read the full article →

Why “Average Joe” Can’t Make Money In the Market

May 10, 2008

The period we’re in now is not necessarily a “bull market” or a “bear market” but more like a structurally “fair market.” I didn’t make that up on my own — Tom Dorsey, from Dorsey Wright and Associates in Richmond coined that term. I think that makes a lot of sense. From 1982 up through [...]

Read the full article →

Recession Worse than Expected?

March 25, 2008

There was an article distributed nationwide, written by the Associated Press, and carried locally in the Asbury Park Press on March 22, 2008. I’ve re-printed the article here, but dropped in my own comments after each paragraph. The main point to take away from this exercise is that by the time news reaches Main Street, [...]

Read the full article →

Dow below 12,000

March 7, 2008

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped below 12,000 today, March 7. In technical terms, this is a significant move. On my point and figure charts this represents another sell signal and tells us that the average may have further to fall. Not that I want to be in the prediction business, but it appears there [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →