The Wall Street Journal – As Confetti Settles, Strategists Wonder: Will Dow’s Rally Last? Now what? The question popped into the minds of securities-firm strategists, professional prognosticators and investors as soon as the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged Tuesday to a new high. Some money managers said they are starting to embrace the stock market’s… Continue reading Will The Stock Market Rally Last?
The Wall Street Journal – A Record Dow The sequester doesn’t seem to worry the stock market. One thing for sure, the stock market doesn’t mind the federal budget sequester. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed to a new nominal record on Tuesday, rising by nearly 1% to hit 14253.77 and finishing for the day… Continue reading More On The Sequester
Zero Hedge – Bernanke’s S&P 500 Year-End Forecast: “Conviction Buy”, $2000 Price Target Given his reiteration last week that the Fed is here to stay – and his fellow dovish lapdogs’ confirmation that we can all rest assured that our ‘wealth’ is being protected – we know that the Fed balance sheet will hit around… Continue reading The Federal Reserve’s Forecast For The Dow
<Click on chart for larger image> Business Insider – ACHUTHAN: Look At These Charts And Tell Me We’re Not In Recession Since 2011, Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) has been taking a lot of heat for his controversial call that the U.S. economy would fall into a recession. In an appearance… Continue reading ECRI Speaks
<Click on chart for larger image> MarketWatch.com – Are speculators really driving up gasoline prices? Commentary: Why the Great Oil Conspiracy doesn’t quite add up Apparently, it’s the one that’s causing prices to skyrocket at the pumps. Gas is up about 50 cents so far this year, hitting an average of about $3.80 a gallon… Continue reading Evil Speculators
Zero Hedge – Druckenmiller: “When You Get This Kind Of Rigging, It Will End Badly” When even Home Depot’s Ken Langone is questioning the reality of this rally (CEO of one of the best performing stocks since the Dow last traded here), you have to be a little concerned. However, it is Duquesne’s Stanley Druckenmiller’s… Continue reading How Will This End?
The Washington Times – RAHN: Locking in the homeowner Low interest rates enrich the government and starve the economy It is estimated that up to a quarter of all American households still owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Many of these people have been able to refinance their home loans with… Continue reading Who Is Helped By Low Interest Rates?
PIMCO – Forecasting Bond Returns in the New Normal While illustrating historical deviations of actual secular real policy rates from optimal secular real policy rates is useful, we are most interested in what our forecast for optimal secular policy rates suggests for the future in terms of bond market pricing and expected returns. To forecast… Continue reading Bond Returns In The New Normal
The Atlantic – The Great Senior Sell-Off Could Cause the Next Housing Crisis Demographers often describe the baby boom generation as if it were an indigestible mammal – maybe a pig, or a rabbit, or a really big rat – slowly moving through the python that is America’s population. As this generation has aged, the… Continue reading Seniors And The Next Housing Crisis
The Wall Street Journal – Are High-Priced Managers Worth It? Investors know they have to pay higher fees for actively managed mutual funds than for index funds. But those portfolio-management fees vary greatly from fund to fund, and investors often wonder if they will get enough bang from a costlier fund to justify the bigger… Continue reading The High Price For Money Managers
The Financial Times – The risky task of relaunching Japan The question is whether inflation can be achieved and managed Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, continues to astonish. He could hardly have chosen a more radical team than the one he has appointed to run the Bank of Japan. Haruhiko Kuroda, a critic of the… Continue reading Japan
MarketWatch.com – What Einhorn and Ackman are and are not ‘Activist investors’ are me-firsters, like everyone else If you haven’t already, read William Cohan’s latest piece in Vanity Fair profiling Bill Ackman of Pershing Square. It’s a timely and illuminating look into the man who’s made a fortune as an “activist investor” — that is,… Continue reading Einhorn And Ackman