Fed Fear Panics the Herd
Imagine an African wildlife scene. A herd of peaceful zebras surrounds a watering hole. Suddenly they all perk up and look toward the adjacent trees. Something lurks there, something threatening — or so they think. As soon as one member of the herd decides to run, a stampede will follow. It does...
Thank You Warren Buffet – WWY Buyout!
Way back on March 19th, this little-known publication called “Invest With An Edge” issued a buy recommendation on a well-known consumer staples stock. This stock had been steadily rising and showed signs of breaking out. The value of this company appeared secure, but for some reason we thought...
Sector Rotation and IYW
Snapshot: IYW — Dow Jones U.S. Technology iShares ETF Today’s stock market debate is whether or not there is sector rotation from materials, metals, energy and so on and so forth into things like technology, financials, and retailing. I took a snapshot of a broad-based technology fund to...
Good News
The way markets react to news is often instructive but frequently counterintuitive. News that seems good can drive stock prices down. Likewise, stocks often react to bad news by going up. Discerning the reasons for these things keeps armies of analysts busily employed. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud is...
Of Marathons and 15% Baselines
Someone in cyberspace picked up our name from a recent Forbes article and called our shop today. This particular caller was both curious and somewhat informed about energy, commodities, and international ideas. He wanted to know how well our picks had performed this year and last. Finally, and most disturbing,...
Starving For Profits
Today is Earth Day. I hope everyone celebrates in an appropriate manner. One of the many reasons to be grateful for our planet is the wide variety of tasty and nutritious food that it provides. Sadly, some of us have more food than we need while others go hungry. The rapidly globalizing economy is changing...
Crude Oil Cracks $117/Barrel
Today, Nigerian terrorists sabotaged a pipeline in Lagos slowing crude exports from the West African nation. After the attack, traders at the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) saw clear skies for the price of crude, sending it up to close at $117.48/barrel. To give you some perspective, Crude Oil...
Google Primer: Stock Rockets 19.99%!
For anyone doubting new advertising mediums, let your fears be assuaged. Google (GOOG) reassured the market that its way of doing business brings in solid revenues – consistently. Bear in mind, this is at a time when the New York Times Company posted one of its worst quarterly losses in history....
Mother Merrill Cuts the Cord
Earnings season continues to unfold, bringing surprises both positive and negative. Today the headlines belonged to Merrill Lynch (MER) which posted its third consecutive quarterly loss and wrote down about $6.5 billion in loan losses. Gross revenues for the first quarter fell 69% from a year earlier....
Pick of the Week: CNX
Clean energy is all the rage. In 2006, Al Gore presented his Hollywood spin on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. The press took it from there. Now that everyone knows what carbon offsets are and which cars have the best MPGs, Green has become mainstream. Despite the press, Green has not become...
