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…
> 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…
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…
“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
Last week a certain presidential candidate, speaking about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, said, “….printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous – or treasonous in my opinion.” I don’t know if he meant it was almost treasonous, or it was actually treasonous, but either way the…
One of the lessons learned from the 2008 credit crisis was not to ignore warning signs that emanate from the credit markets. Lately we are watching credit market relationships move in a way that indicates that stress is increasing in the global banking system. One measure that is raising concerns is the rise in interbank…
One of the three core tenets of the investment management process at Pinnacle is valuation. More often than not, market valuation will be at or near neutral levels, and our focus will be on the other two tenets, the business cycle and technical conditions. However, every once in a while, valuation levels become compelling and…
Rick Vollaro has introduced the investment team to a new term, “trading with a hatchet.” You can find his blog on the subject in this space (posted yesterday). I can assure you that we don’t let Rick get near anyone in volatile markets with a hatchet, especially when the markets are going in the wrong…
Rick Vollaro has introduced the investment team to a new term, “trading with a hatchet.” I can assure you that we don’t let Rick get near anyone in volatile markets with a hatchet, especially when the markets are going in the wrong direction. However, his point was a good one. For the past month or…
Somewhere during the last few weeks the weight of the evidence changed enough in our minds to declare that we are likely at the beginning of a new bear market. As always, the ultimate decision to call for a bear market was part quantitative, part qualitative, and part pure judgment. We wouldn’t single out any…
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