Insights

The jobs report today was generally pretty good, despite the tick up in the unemployment rate from 7.8% to 7.9%. That jump was due to more people re-entering the job market. You remember that many unemployed are not counted as unemployed when they are not actively...

I read a study today on each of the times the NY Stock Exchange has closed on what would have been a normal business day. The average result the day it next opened? - nearly unchanged. There were only two days on which it moved more than 1%. The first was after the...

I don't know how many people are paying attention to the estate tax portion of the fiscal cliff and that this election could make a huge difference on this issue. Under the fiscal cliff, now scheduled to occur in January, estate taxes rise from 35% to 55% with the...

The first estimate of 3rd quarter GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is in. This is the measure of US economic growth. It was expected to be 1.8%, up from the previous quarter's 1.3% but instead came in at 2%. There are a number of reasons not to get too excited about this...

Since 1982 bonds have been in a long, strong bull market, coinciding with the stock bull market until 2000 and outperforming stocks since. In fact, from 1982 long-term treasury bonds returned over 11% per year, within a fraction of the return on stocks but with far,...

Which is the best performing mutual fund over the last 3-4 months - S&P 500 Index Fund, Harbor International Stock Fund (mainly Europe) or Thornburg Developing Markets Fund (international emerging markets)? Since early June, the emerging markets fund has returned...

Europe, which was down about a half percent yesterday is down about 1.5% today after Spain reported a deepending recession and said it would likely miss its deficit targets. The US markets look to open down about 1% today. We had a late day rally yesterday to barely...

Ben Bernanke will apparently end his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve in Jan. 2014 when his current term runs out, says the NY Times, quoting Bernanke's friends. Of course, should Romney win (which I doubt) he has said he would fire Helicopter Ben. Bernanke...

Google reported earnings and revenues today and missed big on both. According to Dan Niles at AlphaOne Partners, Google has two problems. 1) More search is being done on tablets and phones with smaller screens and less ad space 2) The buy of Motorola earlier this year...

Housing starts for September were reported today as up 15%. That's a welcome number, albeit from a very low base. Why now? Well, it doesn't have nearly as much to do with record low interest rates as other factors. 1) Extremely low housing inventory, especially on new...