“The market” slipped on a banana peel this week and fell 579 points, or 3.5%; “strength” lost just 0.7%, and gold added 1.1%. Speculation about the cause of the adjustment is swirling, with many taking heads blaming it on deteriorating conditions in Emerging Markets. First things first… The Dow Average has been trading much higher...Read More

Stocks remained largely unchanged this week as December activity for wages and prices were reported. The Producer Price Index (PPI) for finished goods rose .4%; CPI (Consumer Price Index) rose .3%, and Real hourly earnings fell .3% in the period. That’s prices up (a.k.a. inflation) and earnings down in America, and when the topics of...Read More

It’s a brand New Year, and while researching this week’s blog I was reminded that it’s the same old story. In my travels I was drawn to two Wall Street Journal articles that appeared on-line over the weekend. They were advertised as such: How to Beat the Market Without Even Trying How to Find a...Read More

A pitiful jobs report added to a persistently weak employment market this week when just 74,000 jobs were added to the December payroll – typically a strong month for job market performance driven by the holiday shopping season. Despite the weakness in jobs, the unemployment rate dropped to 6.7% (from 7%). How could this be?...Read More

So the word on the Street is “clear”: stocks are surging because the economy is getting stronger, the falling unemployment rate is further proof, and QE is being tapered because of it; and all of this is causing yields to rise. These things, they say, are indicative of a stronger dollar and a strengthening market...Read More