Honestly, I sucked. My main investment accounts grew 3.2%. Shame on me. Retirement accounts did a little better, in line with S&P 500. And fixed income account had a stellar year: almost 20%. Lessons learned: First lesson: Don’t chase performance. Ever. I had pretty good 2013, and thought what worked then would work in 2014….
The US dollar is poised to extend last year’s rally. The US economy is at least several quarters ahead of most of the other major economies. Barring a major surprise, the Federal Reserve will likely hike rates around the middle of the year, while the economies in Europe and Japan need more stimulus. In…
Life as an investor has been very different since the Great Recession — and I did not anticipate the large drop in oil prices this year. Oil price decline will have so many knock-on effects (good and bad) that it is difficult to understand the timing or intensity of the effects. Many pundits are pointing…
The Chart of the Day belongs to Dave and Buster’s Entertainment (NASDAQ:PLAY). I found the stock by sorting today’s All Time High List for the stocks with the most frequent new highs in the last month then used the Flipchart feature to review the charts. Dave & Buster’s Entertainment Inc. is an owner and operator…
For the better part of the last 4 months, I’ve been actively hitting the road doing presentations around the country on our award winning papers for various CFA and MTA Societies. The CFA Virginia Chapter was kind enough to professionally record my live presentation. Whether you have followed us for some time tracking our analysis, use…
After 3 years of strong returns for the S&P 500 many value investors are casting their gaze over international markets, where gains have been more modest and valuations look more reasonable. The gain in the dollar versus other currencies has made the divergence even starker, as the chart here shows: European markets look attractive due…
For a day at least, several items I have been holding, trading and noting in NFTRH as seasonal plays are getting peppy, even with the Russell 2000 in the red. These are mostly risky stocks that I hold as speculations and no recommendations are implied whatsoever. They are a good view into silly season though….
Many ETFs had a great year and 2015 will likely produce winners that outpace the broad indexes. There was plenty of money to be made from investing in ETFs during 2014. While many investors avoided ETFs, out of concern that the weaker-performing stocks could offset the gains made by the stellar stocks, many ETFs made…
Many ETFs had a great year and 2015 will likely produce winners that outpace the broad indexes. There was plenty of money to be made from investing in ETFs during 2014. While many investors avoided ETFs, out of concern that the weaker-performing stocks could offset the gains made by the stellar stocks, many ETFs made…
One of the major themes to the markets and global economy over the past few decades has been the consistently increasing “globalization” of the world. This has had substantial impacts to trade, economic growth, geopolitics, labor dislocation and, of course, travel. If one wanted to visit Europe from the United States one hundred years ago…
