This chart scares people. Many of our clients and investment contacts are frustrated by lack of obvious alpha in the market and the industrial sector. The US stock market is above pre–Great Recession peak, and earnings have recovered — but … Read more
Leave a CommentDrivers of Value
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Investment professionals and seasoned investors prize numbers that include repetitive patterns. With these abstractions of reality we can build nice neat statistical formulas that give us a good chance to be correct most of the time. The problem with that … Read more
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This is a bull case for the equity in a subprime lender formerly owned by AIG. David contends the company may be in for a bright future due a confluence of factors that would have seemed unlikely just a few months ago, including the return of the asset-backed securities (ABS) market and the credit quality of subprime borrowers. As you read, imagine how you would have reacted to these same words written just a few years ago. Read more
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As I schlep through my 75th or so earnings season certain things have changed – and for the better – the ease with which we can obtain data and basic information online, dramatically improved corporate disclosure and the ability to … Read more
Leave a Comment This past week we learned that Gene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, and Bob Shiller received the 2013 Nobel Prizes in Economic Sciences. These are relatively new awards that were first awarded in 1969 in honor of the founder of the … Read more
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Are you among the masses of investors who have either lost money or underperformed by putting faith in Japanese equities? Since the end of 1990, the TOPIX Index has annualized a whopping –1.96% through August 2013 in yen terms, trapping … Read more
10 CommentsGridlock Has Cost U.S. Billions, and the Meter Is Still Running New York Times Damage to growth, employment and interest rates has already been extensive, economists say, even without a debt default and a continuation of the government shutdown. shared … Read more
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What if you could invest in something that has retained all the worst qualities from different asset classes? Would you buy it? Let me present what I think is the very worst investment in the world: VXX. The VXX is … Read more
13 Comments Value in the fixed-income markets, as in other asset classes, is driven in large part by fear and greed. The easy monetary policy communicated to the market through “QE infinity” in fall 2012 fueled a chase for yield that was already strong. … Read more
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