| Date |
Report |
Title |
December 23, 2009 |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
December 12, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
Banks and Junk in a Funk: A Further Buying
Opportunity
|
December 7, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
A Day in the Life of the Dollar – and Gold's Slight
Drop
The indirect cause of the recent
reversal in the dollar and gold is the (briefly) lower
jobless rate; the related and direct cause is the market’s
upwardly-revised estimate of future Fed rate-hiking. |
November 30, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
Why Controls are Breeding
Controls
Today’s U.S. economy is not a
free-market, capitalist system, but a mixed economy — a hash
of freedoms and controls in which controls alone cause
break-downs and crises, while freedoms take the blame. This
is the source of steadily-eroding freedom and
steadily-expanding control. |
November 20, 2009 |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
November 9, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
A Generation after Socialism’s
Collapse, Resentment Persists Toward . . . Capitalism
Little has been learned – since the
Fall of the Wall – about the evils of socialism. Despite its
well-documented historical horrors, socialism remains, for
many, a “moral ideal” worth striving for. Capitalism, which
embodies self-interest, the profit motive, and unequal
outcomes, is viewed as “immoral” and thus also a practical
failure – as the cause of the world’s financial-economic
debacles. |
November 6, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
The Revival of Corporate Profits
|
October 31, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
Gold’s Rise and the Dollar’s “Demise” – Part III
In the first two installments of this series we discussed
the latest plight of the U.S. dollar and the historic rise
in gold’s price (to above $1000/ounce). In this third and
final installment we assess the dollar’s declining role as a
“reserve currency” and what this might mean for future
inflation and gold’s price. |
October 23, 2009 |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
October 14, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
Gold’s Rise and the Dollar’s “Demise” – Part
II
The historic rise in gold, to above $1000/ounce, serves as a
reminder of what factors forecast the gold price – and of
what gold itself forecasts. |
October 7, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
Gold’s Rise and the Dollar’s “Demise” – Part I
For thousands of years, gold has served as
broadly-accepted money, or else as a standard measure of the
real value of government paper currency. In the absence of a
gold standard (which defines a currency in terms of a fixed
weight of gold, just as a yardstick is defined as “three
feet”), the inverse of any currency’s gold price is the real
value of that currency in ounces of gold. |
September 30, 2009 |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
September 23, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
Moral Health Care vs.
“Universal Health Care” |
September 18, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
American Health Care: Essential
Principles and Common Fallacies |
September 11, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
The Recovery So Far – and a Prognosis |
August 31, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
One Saving Grace
Americans are beginning to save more of their income again. |
August 26, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
The Health Care Sector Under Obama's Scheme |
August 17, 2009 |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
August 7, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
Uncle Sam's Obligations Get All Junky |
July 31, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
The (Even-More) Bullish Opportunity in Emerging
Markets |
July 27, 2009 |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
July 15, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
A Contrarian Stance on Broker-Dealer Stocks
Despite all the horror stories of the past year – whether
political, economic or financial – many market-watchers
might be surprised to learn that the broker-dealers have
actually outperformed the S&P 500 over the past year as
well... |
July 8, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
Don't Be So Defensive
The more defensive-oriented assets –
whether classified under commodities, equities, sectors or
fixed income – have out-performed cyclically-oriented assets
in the past month, but in our view that’s no reason to
become defensive, especially if one’s time horizon is a
half-year or year. |
June 30, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
So-Called Financial Reform:
More Power to the Systemic Risk Generator
The Obama administration says it’s
committed to the “free market,” even as it multiplies
Washington’s subsidies and regulations in finance. It’s
interventionist scheme will further empower the Fed and make
it a so-called “systemic risk regulator,” which will only
make matters worse in the long term, since the Fed, in fact,
is the systemic risk generator. |
June 26, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
The Force Fed
Although we remain favorable on financial stocks in the near
term (over the next year), that’s largely in expectation of
a bear market rally and V-shaped rebound from the depths
seen in March (some of which has already occurred); for the
longer-term (over the next decade), the independence and
prosperity of U.S. banks will be further eroded. |
June 19, 2009 |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
June 9, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
Politicized Bankruptcy and the
Mistreatment of Bondholders
The contractual rights of creditors-lenders-investors are
being violated and abrogated by the growing politicization
of the U.S. bankruptcy system, which now aims at favoring
partisan groups; this will elevate the risk of investing in
corporate debt, especially of unionized and/or partially
nationalized firms, and should preclude a return to
extremely narrow credit spreads. |
May 31, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
Despite the Plunge in Retail
Sales , Retail Stocks Should Outperform
U.S. retail sales will likely remain weak for a while
longer, in delayed reaction to the prior inversion of the
yield curve; but retail stocks are forward-looking and
anticipate future profits , not future sales. Retailers’
margins can widen, even amid weakness in their top-line
sales. |
May 25, 2009 |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
May 22, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
Helicopter Ben's Paper Trail
An irresponsible and unrestrained inflationary policy is
precisely what Bernanke has adopted as Fed chairman over the
past year...
| |
May 11, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
Is the Worst of Public Policy
Already Priced In?
Bush-Obama policymakers, sanctioned by an irresponsible and
lawless Congress, have repeatedly assaulted the crucial
pillars of profit-seeking and wealth creation: the rule of
law, sanctity of contract, and security of property. But the
horrors have been priced in, for now. |
April 30, 2009 |
Investor Alert |
Sadly, U.S. Public Policy Remains Coercive
Anti-capitalist public policies have destroyed roughly $7
trillion, or 50% of the value of publicly-traded U.S firms
in the past decade; economic output is now below its level
of 1999; and U.S. bank stocks are now worth less than in
1991. |
April 24, 2009 |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
April 20, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
Socialist Finance in America – Part
V
Consider the options available to a government that says it
will guarantee the deposits of the banking system, a
government that considers the majority of banks too big or
too important to a community to fail, a government that, in
making these assurances, and otherwise intervening in the
money and credit system, ends up undermining the financial
condition of the banking system. There is only one option
available to such a government and that is to take over
failed banks and run them as part of the government. |
April 10, 2009 |
|
Track Record 2008 |
March 31,
2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
Banking Without the
“Too-Big-to-Fail” Doctrine
The same policy that contributed so much to the recent
banking crisis – the “too-big-to-fail” doctrine – also
contributed to the previous crisis, in 1990-1991. Below is a
speech I delivered in May 1992 at a Federal Reserve Bank
conference in Dallas. It seems even more relevant today. At
the time I worked at Citicorp, but certainly was not
speaking at the Fed on behalf of that “too-big-tofail” bank.
The same factors undermining the banks back then have been
undermining them recently, nearly two decades hence – which
is a sad commentary on the refusal of bankers and
policymakers to repeal state subsidization of failure and
insolvency. As predicted below, we’re now seeing a creeping
nationalization of the biggest, most reckless banks –
a.k.a., socialist finance. |
March 27, 2009 |
Investment Focus |
Residential MBS Revisited
Two years ago, amid early turmoil in housing and sub-prime
mortgages – yet before most portfolio managers saw even the
hints of economic recession or any bear market in equities
or junk bonds – we made the case that non-sub-prime
residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) would yield
steadier and superior returns versus those on T-Bonds,
riskier mortgage bonds and corporate bonds, or stocks.
While... |
March 18, 2009 |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
March 9, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
The Silver Lining in Job Destruction |
February 28, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
Obama's Plans Will 'Work' -- to Breed Dependence |
February 25, 2009 |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
The
InterMarket Forecaster |
February 20, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
Depressing Growth, Stimulating Inflation
Investors should beware of jargon laced laws and
interventionist schemes bearing titles conveying the precise
opposite of their actual, likely effect. The latest,
so-called “stimulus” package is, in fact, a depressive
package. |
February 13, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
Why They Won’t Leave Bad Enough Alone
They believe free markets, left to their own
devices, are prone to breakdown and “failure,” yet fixable
and curable by government intervention. They attribute the
recent economic-financial credit crisis to tax cuts,
de-regulation, or “gaps” of non-regulation. They say greed
is a vice which breeds fraud and recklessness. They insist
that government can “stimulate” an economy by a near-endless
printing of its money and bonds. They declare to critics
that the only alternative to their interventions is to “do
nothing.” |
January 31, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
Debating Doctor Doom II
In 2007-2008 we had to counter the perma-bulls. Now it’s
time to oppose the perma-bears. |
January 27, 2009 |
The Capitalist Advisor |
Debating Doctor Doom I
In 2007-2008 we had to counter the perma-bulls. Now it’s
time to oppose the perma-bears. |
January 15, 2009 |
|
Outlook 2009 |
January 12, 2009 |
Investment Focus |
Forecasting Equity Volatility
A
well-recognized adage holds that markets hate uncertainty
and volatility, which reflect incomplete knowledge and less
visibility about the future. |
