JPMorgan Chase lost $3 billion (up from the initial $2 billion, and that amount may grow significantly bigger). That’s the headline. It’s all over the news, but many Americans will wonder, “Why should I care?” You should care because it was just three years ago when the U.S. financial system was teetering on the verge [...]
According to the April 25, 2012 issue of Barron’s magazine, a majority of investment professionals now expect the coming year (through June 2013) to be good for American stocks. Specifically, 55% are bullish, 31% are neutral, and 14% see declines ahead. As I’ve said in the past, I tend to get a little queasy when [...]
No one knew the name Greg Smith before March 12, 2012. He was a mid-level executive at Goldman Sachs who decided to quit the firm in a most public manner – his unofficial letter of resignation was published in The New York Times, and it sent shock waves throughout the financial industry. Smith slammed Goldman [...]
After more than a quarter century of working with investors, I can list with some certainty the three factors that most affect client investment returns: market movement advisor investment selection client behavior None of us can do anything about the movements of stock and bond markets; they will do what they will do. And of [...]
The best time to invest is when others won’t. Now appears to be one of those times. Stocks, by at least one historical yardstick, appear cheap. Specifically, the stocks that comprise the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index are trading at 13.7 times profits; that is a terrific number when compared to the historical average of [...]
Let me make my final blog post for 2011 an upbeat assessment of where we might be headed. My optimism stems from a fascinating chart I came across in a financial industry publication (Nick Murray’s Interactive, Jan. 2010). Based on statistics compiled by Intrinsic Research, the chart looks at the stocks that make up the [...]
How does $1.2 billion get misplaced at a brokerage firm? And more importantly, can it happen to your brokerage account? The $1.2 billion figure is the amount that somehow went missing from MF Global, the once little-known firm helmed by former senator, former NJ governor, former Goldman Sachs chief, Jon Corzine. He says he is [...]
In this article in Financial Advisor, we learned that a few major mutual fund companies are asking the SEC to back off on its proposal to restrict the use of derivatives in traditional mutual funds. “Any set of mechanical rules cannot take account of the diversity of derivatives and the multiplicity of ways they may [...]
I thought I couldn’t be shocked anymore with stories about mis-deeds in the financial world. But this article really set me back on my heels. Matthew Hutcheson is, or perhaps I should say – was – a man I respected greatly. He has been a highly visible leader in the fight to protect employees from [...]
“Hell, everyone made money last year,” several prospective clients said to me in 2010. In fact, I always hear that after a good year. The implication those folks were making was that our mutual fund skills really didn’t mean very much, because, I guess, we just floated along a rushing, rising river. Which leads me [...]
