Ross Perot is Back Online
Do you remember the last serious 3rd party contender for President?It wasn’t long ago that a little-known Arkansas governor entered the White House despite running against a popular sitting President. How did it happen? A Texas businessman, tired of Washington ways, organized a populist campaign...
Inflation Nation
The Consumer Price Index jumped 0.6% in May and climbed 4.2% in the last twelve months. The CPI is a complicated statistical compilation with a lot of room for error, of course. Your personal inflation rate might be different based on how you spend your money. But there is no doubt that everyone is feeling...
Consumers Still Consuming
Today’s retail sales report was unexpectedly strong, adding yet another question mark to the economic outlook. The Commerce Department data showed that purchases at retailers climbed 1% in May, twice as much as economists had expected. Furthermore, the April data that was initially reported as...
BRIC’s Raising Interest Rates
What’s in store for the global economy if developing and developed countries are raising interest rates? Bloomberg reports how India recently joined Brazil, China, and Russia in raising interest rates to cool inflation. Not many have noticed how the Claymore/BRIC ETF (EEB) has retreated -13% in...
Lenny Dykstra and Annuities
Take it from someone who has sold them before — annuities are very attractive propositions — at least for the salesman. If an insurance agent can close a $1,000,000 annuity, that one deal can make a year. Not saying there are not situations where annuities make sense, but annuities are often...
Inverse ETFs: Do We Buy Them?
Whenever the market struggles, investors consider using bear market funds. With the recent influx of Inverse ETFs, their low expense ratios and ease of entry make shorting the market more attractive than ever. But the question remains, should long-term investors use Inverse ETFs in their portfolios?...
Bearish Week In Review
The U.S. Department of Labor released its monthly jobs report this morning. Employers cut 49,000 jobs raising national unemployment to 5.5%. As you can see on the chart, it was a significant jump in an already-established uptrend. In fact, it was the biggest monthly jump since 1986. The market didn’t...
Bonfire of the Financials
The embattled financial services sector has been hit with yet another indignity. For years, financials have represented the largest segment of the S&P 500, based on market capitalization. At times the sector has been as much as 20% of the benchmark large-cap index. No more. Technology is now the...
Pick of the Week: TSO
Buy low, sell high. You’ve heard it a hundred times. To invest smartly, you need to buy when a stock is low and sell when a stock is high. Now comes the hard part…when is a stock low or high? Real-time investors, without the benefit of historical charts, can’t always pinpoint these...
A Solution to Inflation?
One of the most enduring images of inflation was from a 1970’s television show. Economist Milton Friedman stood by watching dollar bills rolling off the presses. The lesson this then-University of Chicago professor wanted to teach? If you turn off the dollar bill press, you will stop inflation. As...
