This past week I have been inundated with questions regarding the dive in crude oil prices and the energy sector in general. Is this a fantastic buying opportunity, or is the beginning of something bigger? The answer depends on your time frame. For a speculative trader looking for a short-term opportunity, as shown in the…
Morningstar Wide Moat Total Return ETF (MOAT) offers an interesting conglomeration of stocks. All the companies have one common attribute – a high barrier to entry for competitors and an undervalued stock price. MOAT offers exposure to the top 20 companies identified by Morningstar as having a “wide moat”. Below is the current list of…
The US dollar’s run stopped last week, but not before new highs were recorded against the euro, sterling, and the yen. By the end of the week, the euro had risen 1.4%, sterling 0.9%, and the yen had risen as much as the two of them put together. It was the biggest weekly gain for the…
Photo Credit: Chris Piascik Most formal statements on financial risk are useless to their users. Why? They are written in a language that average people and many regulators don’t speak. They often don’t define what they are trying to avoid in any significant way. They don’t give the time horizon(s) associated with their…
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Oil, has been dominating the headlines on a seemingly daily basis. Of course this comes with good reason as a dramatic drop of almost 50% from summertime highs leave many asking the question of when the bottom will be hit. Though dramatic, the fall in oil price is hardly the only commodity to lose value…
In spite of the government’s ongoing narrative of a US economic recovery, major news outlets continue to remind us that life isn’t getting easier for most Americans. The Wall Street Journal recently published a lengthy expose on the rising cost of basic necessities. This chart shows how much more middle-class American households are spending thanks…
The topic of this post might be “procrastination.” I have written a bit about aggregate consumption in the USA and I keep telling myself to write something similar about investment. I never do. I am using this post as a pre-commitment device (sorry to use the blog for my personal problems). OK on investment there…
I don’t offer up many long ideas (since, you know, I’m psychotic), but Fiesta Restaurant Group (FRGI) is one I’ve mentioned a few times, and it’s doing dandy. See? Slope isn’t only bear stuff!
Problems for Option Buyers Ask anyone who has ever bought stock options, and you’ll likely hear at least one tale of regret. That’s because it’s possible to suffer a loss on stock options, not just when picking the wrong stock, but even when one is correct about the direction of the stock price. It’s bad…
