A subtle change in the internals of the stock market bodes well for active portfolio strategies such as momentum, relative strength, trend-following and even individual stock picking. The change is a significant drop in correlations among stocks, away from the herd-like “risk on – risk off” moves in which all stocks go the same direction at […]
Author: Danny
Mind-Blowing Statistic
Multi-billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently wrote on his GatesBlog, “This might be the most mind-blowing fact I learned this year”, followed by a graphic of Chinese cement usage over the last 3 years. In short, China has used more cement in the last 3 years than the United States has used in the last […]
2017 Forecasts
The abundance of market forecasts for the new year are before us once again. The following quotes might be useful to inoculate ourselves from those who seem to know how the market will play out this year. “We’ve long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good.” Warren […]
Social Security Reports – In The Mail
The Social Security Administration has announced it’s third policy change since 2011 regarding the mailing of annual of individual Social Security reports. They have cut back on who receives the reports by mail, and the reason is to cut costs. I’m glad they’re cutting costs where they can. Here’s an article that explains the latest […]
Benefit from Future Tax Changes
As I wrote in my blog post on 11/22, there are two early-proposals afloat for cutting individual taxes. Here is an interesting excerpt from Barrons discussing how one might act now to benefit the most from these expected tax cuts. “Given the potential changes to income-tax rates, what should individuals be doing now? We’re recommending the […]
The Tax Cuts are Coming!
The tax cuts are coming – we hope. Much work and negotiation remains before any of the desired tax cuts shown below become reality. Regardless of which plan is enacted, it should stimulate personal spending, business, and the economy.
Interest Rates & Critical Levels
Treasury yields have soared following the surprising election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. Theories abound regarding the causes and consequences of the move, but as always it is good practice to step back and take a look at the big picture. Veteran technical analyst Louise Yamada, in a CNBC interview, looked […]
Sleep On It
One interesting aspect of stock market trading is the “Wild West” — the so-called “after-hours” or overnight market. After-hours sessions almost always have less liquidity and far fewer participants than the day session, which means prices spike up and down much more violently, orders receive poor executions (“fills”), and overall trading can be more costly. […]
Presidential Predictor
Can the financial markets give a clue as to whether the incumbent or challenger has the better chance of winning a Presidential election? The answer is: probably! Financial blog Zero Hedge published a study this week that showed that market performance in the 3 months leading up to a Presidential Election has displayed “an uncanny […]
Rising Interest Rates May Hurt your 401(k)
Everyone is probably aware that we have historically low interest rates. The low rate environment affects not only what you pay for a new mortgage or car loan, but also affects the returns provided by bonds. Most 401(k) investors have a portion of their portfolio invested either in bonds, or target date funds which includes bonds […]