Spending a couple of days at home recovering from a minor operation, I had an opportunity to watch Margin Call on DVD. Starring Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons and Demi Moore, the movie was a fascinating recap of one of Wall Street’s least auspicious moments. It’s a worthwhile two hours for anyone involved with investments. A [...]

Two weeks ago I posted an entry titled Wall Street’s Bullish Bias. Take another look at that blog to get an appreciation for how Wall Street characterizes government and central bank rescue attempts. We’ll evaluate the effectiveness of those efforts in a future blog post. Since writing that piece, I came across some additional Wall [...]

Since the greater than 20% stock market decline in last year’s third quarter, the excellent research staff at ISI has chronicled almost 100 stimulative policy initiatives by governments and central banks around the world. That coordinated effort to reverse the worldwide economic slowdown has succeeded in halting the stock market’s decline and in boosting prices [...]

In 2011, most of the world’s equity investors suffered. Although business conditions have continued to slow on most continents, the majority of world equity markets have turned the tide and started 2012 on a strong note. As typically happens, perception of the news brightens after markets rise. Earlier this week the excellent researchers at ISI [...]

No time to write, so I’ll post again next week. By interesting coincidence, the S&P 500 began 2011 at 1257, exactly where it began 2012. Last year stock prices rose strongly into February on positive investor sentiment, exactly as prices have this year. Prices reached the peak of that rally last February at about 1345. [...]

A timely rally in the last two weeks of the year and enormous amounts of Federal Reserve stimulus enabled major U. S. equity indexes to escape the fate that befell virtually the entire rest of the world. By interesting coincidence, the S&P 500 closed 2011 at 1257, exactly where it closed 2010. A small dividend [...]

Bailing out the overextended remains the headline of the week. Will bondholders come to an agreement on restructuring Greek debt? Will Greece receive the proposed bailout that allows a rollover of the debt coming due March 20? Are Portugal and others lining up behind Greece to negotiate further bailouts? The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced [...]

The financial market’s focus remains on Europe.  The financial press directed its attention today to the rumored Standard & Poor’s downgrades of European sovereign debt, confirmed late in the day.  Most European nations have now been downgraded, and the downgrades have reached Europe’s core with France and Austria losing their prized AAA rating.  A few [...]

Although not very precise short-term tools, valuations are the best long-term determinants of stock market direction.  Valuations become particularly helpful forecasters when they reach either positive or negative extremes. Throughout the past very difficult year for the equity markets, analysts have repeatedly predicted rising stock prices.  The most common justification, despite the worsening European debt [...]

The S&P 500, the investment community’s most widely-watched index, fell in the last few minutes of today’s trading session to close the year at 1257.60.  It closed 2010 at 1257.64.  We finished a year marked by surging corporate profits, mega-doses of government stimulus, plummeting treasury bond yields, headline-grabbing bankruptcies of American Airlines and MF Global, [...]