Weighing the Week Ahead: Sustaining a Fragile Recovery

The economic calendar is a big one, compressed into a holiday-shortened week.  Market participants will be checking out shortly after the Thursday morning jobs report for an extended weekend – somewhere! Employment data is the focus, but ISM manufacturing, consumer confidence, industrial production, factory orders, pending home sales, and auto sales are also all on […]

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Weighing the Week Ahead: Will a Big Week for Data (finally) Bring Volatility?

The holiday-shortened week ahead features many economic reports, including the most important. The biggest news is at week’s end, so both market participants and pundits will have time to settle in after the long weekend. When they get around to the calendar, I expect many to be asking: Will we finally see some volatility? Last […]

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Stock Valuation and Occam’s Razor

Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. William of Occam   The use of this principle is valuable, but not completely determinative in science.  It often has an important application in investing. Let us consider two hypotheses. A method of valuing markets that relies upon backward-looking data, looks at replacement […]

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Weighing the Week Ahead: Have Stock Prices Lost Touch with Reality?

It is a big week for economic data and the first address to Congress from the new President. Most of the punditry is engaged in a collective head-shake about overbought conditions. Even if the data flow remains strong, pundits will be asking: Have stock prices lost touch with reality?   Personal Notes I always try […]

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The Quest for Investing Excellence and the Lesson of Dow 20K

The new movement to passive investments is a sharp break from the historical quest for excellence. Many articles claim that no one can do better than the market average. If that is true, you should just throw out your investment library and skip the popular lists of “best investment books.” This post will suggest a […]

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