Asset Re-Balancing To the Rescue? Asset allocation is nothing fancy. Certain investors, especially Pension Funds, routinely target a specific stock-to-bond ratio for their portfolios, for example 60/40. Since stocks and bonds will have different returns, the portfolio is brought back to its target ratio at the end of each quarter. If the equity portion of […]
Gold Strengthens As Inflation Weakens? Gold appears to have formed a bottom of sorts, but the reason is a bit of a mystery. Precious metals have proven to be a durable LONG RUN hedge against the ravages of inflation and other financial crisis. However, Gold lost much of its luster in that regard after […]
Is History About To Rhyme? Someone wise once said that “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it DOES rhyme”. That quote, sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, is extraordinarily relevant today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow) is somewhere in the middle of a “Waterfall Decline” that began on December 1. Since then, the Dow has […]
The Anticipated “Waterfall Decline” Has Begun A “Waterfall Decline”, in Markonomics lingo, refers to a drop of AT LEAST 15% within a few weeks. A “Crash” is a one or two day event in which the imbalance of sellers over buyers requires extraordinary measures such as trading halts. Major indexes lose at least 10% in […]
Berkshire’s Portfolio is Heavily Concentrated In Banks Every quarter, investors pour through Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRKA) investment portfolio to know what the “Oracle of Omaha”, Warren Buffett bought or sold. For more than a half century, Buffett has delivered a compound return EXCEEDING 20%. Buffett is considered the greatest investor of all time. Berkshire Hathaway reports […]
Equity Indexes All Make New 52 Week Lows Following the expected interest rate hike yesterday, EVERY MAJOR STOCK MARKET INDEX MADE NEW 52 WEEK LOWS. The anticipated BEAR MARKET is asserting itself with a vengeance. Nearly 1000 stocks made new lows as well. This is NOT a “Correction”. Many observers continue to fail to […]
Commodities, Led By Oil, Make New Lows Crude Oil is an input into producing virtually everything, including itself. It takes oil to transport, refine, drill or pump oil. Energy is a large portion of the cost of just about everything. West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil closed at $46.60 yesterday, a 40% drop since October. The […]
Transportations Trigger Dow Theory Sell Signal Originally called the “Rails”, the Dow Jones Transportation Index is a companion index to the 30 Industrials. Charles Dow and Edward Jones founded Dow, Jones and Company in 1901. They created the Dow Jones Industrials, Rails and went on to co- found the Wall St. Journal. Dow constructed the […]
The Fed’s 9th Rate Hike is Virtually Certain This Week Last week’s economic news was very good. For the month of November, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was ZERO, reducing the annual rate to a very tame 2.2%. In addition, retail sales were better than expected, following a great October. (https://www.census.gov/retail/index.html). The CPI increased […]
Walmart IS Retail. What is Their CHART saying? Walmart (WMT) is the nation’s largest and dominant retailer in terms of annual revenues with about $500 Billion. Costco (COST), number 2, has roughly 30% of WMT’s sales. (https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/122415/worlds-top-10-retailers-wmt-cost.asp) Walmart’s chart screams TROUBLE even more than one of the famous “Black Friday Brawls”. Walmart has traced out […]
