Remember all that chatter earlier this year about the “great rotation” and how bonds were going to get crushed because everyone was “rotating” into stocks? That seems to have died [ … ]
More Thoughts on Macro Investing
Tren Griffin followed up on our discussion with a post that has a series of quotes from value investing gurus claiming that macro forecasting is a folly. Before I explain [ … ]
Anatomy of Bubbles and Crashes
“There is no standard definition of a bubble, but all bubbles look alike because they all go through similar phases. The bible on bubbles is Manias, Panics and Crashes, by Charles Kindleberger. In the book, Kindleberger outlined the five phases of a bubble. He borrowed heavily from the work of the great economist Hyman Minsky. If you look at Figures 9.7 and 9.8 (below), you can see the classic bubble pattern.”
Most Index Funds are Macro Funds
I’ve been having a good discussion on Twitter with Tren Griffin about indexing and value investing. Value investors are stock pickers. They think they can find the buried gems in [ … ]
Ben Bernanke: Slayer of Value Investors
I’ve expressed my displeasure with valuation metrics frequently in the past (see here for instance). And I think this environment is a pretty good case study in why valuation metrics [ … ]
Rail Traffic Continues Modest Expansion
Just chugging along here. Intermodal was up 3.2% on the week bringing the 12 week moving average to 4.2%. That’s the highest 12 week average in 6 months. If the [ … ]
Margin Debt: What Does it Really Tell us?
I’ve seen some “debunkings” of margin debt in recent weeks that remind me of the repeated claims in 2006 where most people thought the household debt bubble was totally benign. It’s funny [ … ]
Chicago PMI Surges to 2 Year High
If the Chicago area is any sign of economic activity and impacts from the government shutdown then it looks like things are actually picking up momentum. The Chicago PMI recorded [ … ]
The Recency Effect – David Ortiz Edition
Tonight’s World Series game 6 features a truly epic World Series performer in David Ortiz who plays First Base and DH for the Boston Red Sox. Ortiz is batting .733 [ … ]