Insights

How is the economy doing? In terms of simple growth the following chart may help. You can see the big drop during 2008-09, the tepid recovery of less than 4% growth, half of what past recoveries from sharp recessions have been, the dip and the recent recovery again....

Right now the U.S. federal government is borrowing about 40% of every dollar it spends. I have not heard much talk about this lately but it is deficit spending on a huge scale. I have written about the troubles that high debt levels have caused several European...

Well, just when you thought it was safe to go into the water . . . I believe that referred to the sequel to the movie Jaws. The original movie was released 37 years ago. We were just married and watched it just before heading to the beach. My wife never left the...

Smart Money Magazine Online did a different take on true employment using the Bureau of Labor Statistics own data. As regular readers know, the unemployment rate as it is reported is one of my pet peeves because it is misleading. Here's the chart. Click to enlarge....

Ben Bernanke said early today that the US economy badly needed growth in order to get the current high unemployment rate down. Markets took that as a sign he would be very accomodative and might even do a third round of quantitative easing. If you remember my...

I had been saying that we were due for a correction before long. We have gone up in a nearly unbroken advance dating back to mid-December. Three months is a long time and the Nasdaq gained nearly 20%. When an overbought condition meets bad news you have what we had...

Just before the close of trading, the S&P 500 index, the Nasdaq and the small stock indexes are pulling back from mid-day highs. Still, they should finish up on the day. Gold and oil are also up, 0.14% and 0.7% respectively. The dollar is sharly lower today. The...

Friday I made a very brief case for Apple stock being undervalued but probably overowned right now. Let me finish that thought. When stocks get so far above their 150-day or 200-day moving averages, and Apple is 40% above its 150 day moving average, most stocks will...

Stock markets in Asia finished mixed, Europe was up between 0.4% - 1.1% and the US finished mixed. Gold was up slightly, oil was up strongly 1.8% and bonds were up. The dollar was down .7%. For the week though the S&P 500 stock index was up 2.5%. That's a great week....

I heard a supposedly independent analyst on NPR last night talking about why Republicans think this election is so critical. His take was that people are getting more educated and the Hispanic population is increasing so Republican voters are worried they only have a...