Monthly Archive for: ‘August, 2011’

>Since we’ve moved to a much more defensive investment position over the past few weeks, we are watching very closely and trying to keep an open mind that we could in fact be wrong with our change in call. The stock market is now bouncing, with the S&P 500 up about +8.5% from the August 8th low through yesterday, which [...]

>Yesterday brought the latest income and spending report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. With spending still driving the U.S. economy, and arguably world growth, we watch these numbers closely. I’ve been increasingly bearish on the economy recently, but I have to admit that the print was surprisingly good, even when stripping out the effects of inflation and energy prices. [...]

>I watched with a mixture of horror and amusement the other day as Tyler Mathisen, guest host on CNBC’s Squawk Box, introduced a segment with Ron Baron, an iconic value manager, by saying that Baron claimed that “buy and hold is alive and well.” As regular readers of this blog know, as the author of a book called, “Buy and [...]

>Gold has been powering ahead and we watched in awe as our hedge worked fantastically over the last month. Stocks fell 17% but gold rose 21%, and this parabolic-esque move seemed too enticing to ignore. The price of gold stretched to 20% above its 200-day moving average which historically is a very overbought level. So we decided to act, reducing [...]

>“I went down to the sacred store Where I’d heard the music years before, But the man there said the music wouldn’t play” Don McLean – American Pie Ken wrote a timely blog yesterday regarding the upcoming Federal Reserve meeting in Jackson Hole later this week, and how markets might be gaming the possibility of more monetary stimulus to be [...]