Opinion

Saint Patrick's Day

Opinion March 17, 2016

I Want to Know Where the Gold At

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! It seems like reporters go out of their way to find the craziest people to put on camera for a story.  It certainly seems to be the case in the financial entertainment community where you can find perma-bear hucksters given the same regard as respected economists and CEOs.  When I see one of these jokers on CNBC I think of this video: I lump people calling for an audit of the Fed, urging a hand-count of gold ETF bullion holdings, and gold salesmen on AM radio in the “I want to know where the gold at” camp. Then there are the chartists who show a Hindenburg Omen or a Death Cross or a chart with labels on three axes or an overlap of today’s market over a chart of 1929 or 1987.  These are the amateur sketch artists of CNBC. Contributors like Josh Brown do their…

Due Diligence, Investing, News, Opinion January 8, 2016

January Effect

By now, you’ve heard that the US stock market is off to the worst start to a calendar year ever.  This is the sort of news that is trumpeted far and wide as humans are wired to value and pass along bad news (and to elevate the status of those who sound the alarm).  This undoubtedly helped our ancestors warn each other about saber-toothed tigers, but can trip us up as investors today, leaving us easy prey for today’s investment product-selling predators.  I even heard a local economics professor talking about the ‘January Effect’ on the radio this morning.  The ‘January Effect’ is the superstition that as January goes, so goes the rest of the year.  So if the month of January is positive, then so will the rest of the year.  If the month of January is down, the rest of the year will be negative, too.  It’s so easy…

Investing, News, Opinion November 2, 2015

1.21 Gigawatts

On October 21st, 1985, Marty McFly went back in time 30 years to escape Libyans, save Doc Brown’s life, and turn his dad from a weenie into a hero.  He also wound up with a rad 4×4, but before he could take it for a spin, Doc Brown stopped by in a flying DeLorean to whisk him 30 years into the future, to 2015.  Hijinks ensued as bully Biff Tannen got ahold of a sports almanac from the future and made a fortune betting on sports, but Marty saved the day with skateboarding, 1980s pop culture references, and a soundtrack provided by Huey Lewis and the News. Since this month marks the date that Marty and Doc Brown arrived in the future, it provides us with a convenient frame of reference for what a 30 year time period feels like.  From 1985’s perspective, 30 years into the future felt like…