While watching President Obama talk about the jobs on The View—he should do more of that stuff, he’s good at it— my other eye was taking in all the commentary on Wednesday’s durable goods report. The latest news on durable goods orders is not encouraging, not just because it shows a monthly decline for June when we were hoping for a …
Amidst all the great earnings reports coming from U.S. companies this week there is disquieting talk of a real slowdown ahead in the economy. I was reminded of it Tuesday morning when PIMCO’s Mohamed El-Erian stated on Bloomberg TV that the indicators his firm watches most closely (and presumably trusts the most) show that “the economy …
The stock market is defying doomsayers and showing a good bit of resiliency over the past week. True, it’s on low volume but the market is climbing nonetheless, rising 3.5% last week and then up about 1% on Monday. The Wall Street Journal even trumpeted the fact that the Dow is now in the black for the year–not sure whether this news
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If you’re wrestling with the problem of how to invest your money at a time when the economy is uncertain, the President is unpopular and the Fed is out of ammunition, then how about investing in trouble with a capital T? The stocks I’m thinking of are the headline grabbers of the last couple of months—not that any of them wanted to be. …
The Securities & Exchange Commission said Thursday that it has reached a settlement with Goldman Sachs on the civil charges, filed in April, that the Wall Street firm had defrauded investors. The settlement, first reported by Edward Wyatt of the New York Times, was confirmed by the SEC in a late afternoon press conference. According …
The flurry of second quarter earnings reports is officially underway — aluminum producer Alcoa reported earlier this week that it was back in the black and that things were looking up. Another positive report came from transport titan CSX, which said that its business was chugging along nicely with 2nd quarter coal shipments up 7%. …
It’s a wonder we can sleep at night. No, I’m not talking about the heat wave cooking the northeast this week but rather the debate over whether the country needs—or can even afford—a second shot of federal stimulus spending. New York Time’s columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has been making the case in print and on television …
We are in what one of my co-workers calls a perfect negative loop, where anemic jobs numbers feed bearish stock market sentiment which loops back and drives consumer confidence lower. The Conference Board provided the latest loop in the chain on Tuesday with the new report on Consumer Confidence numbers for June, which were down to 52.9, …
You think you’ve got it rough. Consider the poor hedge fund manager, who has an awful lot riding on the percentage gains he or she is able to post for clients. The reason is that hedge fund skippers pocket about 20% of the fund’s gains in addition to their annual fee. Of course, it’s a bit more complicated than that because to pocket a …
Somewhere in every mutual fund offering is the cautionary language noting that “past performance is not an indicator of future outcomes.” It’s a simple truth and one that many investors have learned the hard way, by buying yesterday’s star performers only to learn that they they were betting on shooting stars, not great …
No one question haunts investors, economists and policy makers more than the five words above. It’s easy to see why: if the economy trails off in the second half of 2010, the stock market will surely head south since it is not now pricing in such a dark scenario. Indeed, Tuesday’s strong rally got the cnbc anchors announcing that the …
The U.S. Commerce Department reported this morning that retail sales for May fell 1.2%, a disappointment given that analysts had been hoping for a modest gain. It knocks some of the good feel from Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke’s testimony on Thursday before the House Budget Committee. But, that said, the May report is not the end of …
