Category Archives: Uncategorized

Q2 Earnings: Good Enough

The second quarter S&P 500 bottom-up EPS estimate is around $27.00 and should creep higher during the rest of earnings season.  This is consistent with strategists’ full-year 2013 estimates of $108-110.  Results are not great but good enough for stocks … Continue reading

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The China Syndrome: Will GDP Growth Top 5%?

Two months ago I attended a dinner of Wall Streeters at a proper club in midtown Manhattan; it called to mind the locker room scene in the movie Wall Street where Gordon Gekko wisely opines, “That’s the thing you gotta … Continue reading

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Regime Change: What the Bond / Gold Rout Means for Stocks

For well over a year I have been bullish on stocks, arguing it made little sense to own a bond yielding 2% instead of well-managed blue chip stocks yielding 2-5% with dividend growth of 5-12%. If all went well, I … Continue reading

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Digitization: Are Universities the Next Newspapers?

Back in the 1990s I used to write thematic investing reports on winners and losers from the advent of the Internet.  One day I had a minor epiphany.  Why, I wondered, would anyone pay to place in the local newspaper … Continue reading

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ObamaCare is Hurting Hiring

On its website the law firm Littler Mendelson proclaims, “With over 55 offices in major metropolitan areas nationwide, more than 950 Littler attorneys provide the firm’s clients with representation and daily advice concerning dozens of different areas of labor and employment … Continue reading

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Create Your Own Conglomerate

Short-take:  Index funds are inexpensive but they are riskier than they appear, and individuals tend to dump them during panics because they don’t know what they own.  Superior after-tax returns are achieved by working with an investment advisor to create … Continue reading

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Diversity Perversity at Princeton

My alma mater is a fine institution committed to educational excellence. Which makes it all the weirder that Princeton cannot recognize its own deep and debilitating liberal bias, rendering it about as intellectually diverse as North Korea.  The latest issue … Continue reading

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Note from the Northwest

If you wonder what the U.S. would look like if Obama had his way, go to Portland Oregon.  It’s a great place to live if you have a trust fund or a government job, but good luck if you’re unemployed … Continue reading

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Liquidity Over Corporate Results? Climbing the FT’s Wall of Worry

The folks at the Financial Times are trying to make sense of the U.S. stock market rally, which, it is fair to say, has surprised them.  Here is their take and my brief response: The state of the world economy … Continue reading

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The Furies, Then and Now

In April 1590 Henry IV of Navarre, the Protestant heir presumptive to the French crown, led his army of 20,000 to the outskirts of Paris and laid siege to the Catholic city of 220,000.  Grain inventories amounted to only a … Continue reading

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