A burgeoning sociopolitical movement targets banks, big corporations and members of the capitalist elite. A Democratic presidential candidate renowned for his mesmerizing oratorical prowess seizes upon the popular discontent, championing many of the activists’ causes in his campaign.
Though the above could just as easily describe this year’s “Occupy Wall Street” protests and President Obama, it [...]
27. October 2011
I flipped on my radio about a month or so ago and tuned in to a local broadcast station. Almost immediately a commercial came on in which a voice rhetorically asked, “How has the stock market been treating you lately?” It turned out the ad was for a local gold dealer who gleefully pointed out [...]
Continue reading...5. October 2011
Are you like me, and have trouble getting bankers to lend you money when you need it the most? (Hey, if I could afford to pay you back, I wouldn’t need to borrow it in the first place).
If so, maybe you shouldn’t feel so bad. Because despite the Harvard MBAs and fancy suits, you may [...]
16. September 2011
As far as panics go, it really wasn’t much. The VIX, a measure of anticipated volatility in the S&P 500 over an upcoming 30- day period – often called the “fear gauge” because of its tendency to soar amid sharp stock market dives – couldn’t quite match an intraday peak of 48.2 recorded last year [...]
Continue reading...27. August 2011
NEWSFLASH: The world is running out of crude oil. Regions that have long provided the heaviest output now face the inevitable threat of depletion. Domestic production is sure to decline, and the chance of any major new discoveries is remote. A prominent geologist has dismissed the flow of oil as “a temporary and vanishing phenomenon [...]
Continue reading...18. August 2011
The second week of August saw some extraordinary volatility in the markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average experiencing four straight daily 400-point closing swings for the first time ever. At times like this, we can guess who’s behind the wild fluctuations. It must be the endlessly proliferating stream of mutual, pension and hedge funds, [...]
Continue reading...3. August 2011
As recently as a few short years ago it was practically an article of faith that stock investors, by diversifying into commodities, could still reap long-term equity-like returns while largely sidestepping attendant risk or, at least, fluctuations. The vast bulk of research supporting this idea was based almost exclusively on the relatively recent past, meaning [...]
Continue reading...26. July 2011
The year 1920 was not kind to Allan A. Ryan, son of one of America’s wealthiest men, who attempted to corner the market for shares of Stutz Motor Car Co. Two years earlier, Ryan’s prodigious father, the aptly named Thomas Fortune Ryan, appeared on Forbes’ original list of richest Americans, tying J.P. Morgan, Jr. for [...]
Continue reading...11. January 2008
I intend to open the door on some insights which have an important bearing on all that we do, why it works and why there is a rational reason behind the workings of the markets.
You see when we are dealing with market repetitions, whether they be time periods, price formations, or price reversal patterns, it [...]
28. February 2006
Rekindled inflation fears and the desire for a store of newfound wealth contribute to investor demand for precious metals in developing countries like China and India. China still has the lowest per-capita consumption of gold in the world, but the biggest Asian central banks hold a small proportion of total reserves in gold compared to their western counterparts, leaving them with ample room to add to holdings.
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12. December 2011
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