Monthly Archive for: ‘September, 2011’

>A couple weeks ago, I posed a question in my blog post, “Asking the Wrong Question?” Investors typically choose between two different philosophies of portfolio construction. One method is the traditional method of investing in markets, where you have years of data to rationalize investment decisions. By owning markets, you are saying that you are willing to live with whatever [...]

>As bad as it’s been in the equity markets lately, it’s been just brutal in the commodity pits. The Dow Jones/UBS Commodity Index is off -14% this month, while the S&P 500 is down -5%. Certain individual commodities like copper, gold, silver, etc. have been bludgeoned in recent days. Earlier this year, commodity prices were soaring — gas prices touched [...]

>Based on copious amounts of anecdotal evidence, gold investors tend to be highly sensitive to criticism. The gold bugs would have you believe — and proclaim zealously — that the precious metal must be held in all portfolios to protect against everything wrong in the world… and how dare you say otherwise! There is too much money printing and currency [...]

>Newton’s First Law Of Motion: Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. Some of the best analysts we follow have described the economy as a barge that is very slow to turn once it has a direction and some momentum behind it. Lately [...]

>Changing the asset allocation of Pinnacle portfolios is often the result of a change in our forecast for various market segments. Even saying the word, “forecast,” raises the specter of foolishly staring into a crystal ball, trying to predict the future. Because we are in the business of making accurate forecasts, we readily admit that we will make forecasting mistakes, [...]