State of the Markets
What Do The Cycles Say About January 2014?
For anyone still dazed and/or confused as to why the S&P 500 was up nearly 30 percent in 2013, the slogan from Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign sums it up nicely. Although the first iteration of the now familiar phrase appeared to be spoken off the cuff at the time, "It's the…
The 13 Things We Learned 2013 - Part III
While most pundits came into 2014 looking for the year-end ramp to continue, stocks have started off the New Year on the wrong foot so far. And with so much attention paid to the first five days of January ("As the first five days go, so goes January" and "As January goes, so goes the yea…
13 Things We Learned in 2013 - Part II
In the first installment of "The 13 Things Investors Learned in 2013," we explored the fact that the U.S. stock market was the best/only place to be this year. We talked about the idea that the periodic crisis-driven dives that had plagued the market for the previous four years failed to …
13 Things We Learned in 2013
The big, bad Fed announcement is out of the way. Lawmakers in D.C. decided not to act like children this Holiday Season. The U.S. economy grew at a 4.1 percent clip in the third quarter. Corporate profits are at all-time highs. Inflation is low. Rates are low. The S&P 500 is up +27.5 …
2014 Planning: Buy Signals To Watch For
To be sure, the Fed's decision to begin tapering their QE program remains the topic of conversation around water coolers in Manhattan, Chicago and LA. In short, nobody really expected Ben Bernanke to start cutting back on one of his greatest inventions as he moved toward the door…
Lesson From The Fed: ZIRP Trumps Taper
For weeks, the question of whether or not the Fed would begin tapering their QE program was the focus of the stock market. After each and every economic report, the issue was always the same: Was good news bad for stocks because it meant the Fed would start pulling the punch bowl? Or was …
2014 Planning: Two Sell Signals to Watch For
In looking ahead to the New Year, a great many investors will be trying to avoid the big mistake of 2013: missing out on the gains available in the U.S. stock market. You see, even with the recent "sloppy period," the S&P 500 is up 24.9 percent year-to-date, the Russell 2000 sports a …
2014: What's The Plan, Stan?
This is the time of year when investors tend to take stock of their efforts over the past twelve months. Investors big and small look back on the year that was and try to determine what went right, what went wrong, and if any changes need to be made going forward. In other words, this is …
The Bear Case: Are Stocks Over Owned?
On Friday, we acknowledged the idea that, according to the bear camp, the U.S. stock market is overbought, overvalued, over owned, and over exuberant. We reviewed the argument that stock market sentiment has indeed become a bit "over exuberant" and that our furry friends might just have a…
Are Stocks Overbought, Overvalued, Over Owned, and Over Exuberant?
One of the arguments emanating from the bear camp is that the U.S. stock market is overbought, overvalued, over owned, and over exuberant. And as you might surmise, those seeing the glass as at least half empty contend that such a combination is both (a) rare and (b) fatal to bull markets…