iconSeekingAlpha

Use ETFs Until 10-Year Returns Return
Analyste de Boston submits:Once upon a time, Morningstar and all the other fund services prominently reported something called a “10-Year Return,” shown either as a large compounded total return or as an annualized number. Among other stats, extended performance is
A Look at Bullish and Bearish Stock Market Momentum
Brett Steenbarger submits: click to enlargeIf you click on the chart, youll see a 60-minute rendering of the S&P 500 e-mini ((ES)) futures. Note
'Green Shoots' in Semiconductor Industry
Trade Radar Operator submits: For those who are still searching for "green shoots", there was some good news from the semiconductor sector Friday.The Semiconductor Industry Association ((SIA)) announced Friday that May semiconductor revenues
Welcome to Act II of the Great Recession
Tom Lindmark submits:Joe Biden announced the “second stimulus” today. In an interview on ABC news “This Week” he said the administration, “misread how bad the economy was and didn’t
There Are Conceptual Limits to Efficient Markets
David Merkel submits: I do and don’t believe in the efficient markets hypothesis . The efficient markets hypothesis posits that: Past public information can’t be used to obtain
U.S. and China: It Takes Two to Tango
David Merkel submits: For every buyer there is a seller. For every debit, there is a credit. People often accept naive views of how the market works, perhaps
Chinese Underconsumption Didn't Cause Recession
Tom Lindmark submits:One of the more commonly cited reasons for the Great Recession has been an unexpectedly high savings rate among the Asian countries. The logic implies that by
more go

iconBlogging Stocks

Entrepreneur's Journal: Key steps for telesales success
Filed under: Competitive strategy, Marketing and advertising, Small businessWith so much noise about online advertising and social media, the topic of telesales seems kind of outdated, if not obsolete. Yet, in todays
The week in preview: Focus returns to earnings: Alcoa, Chevron, Family Dollar
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Alcoa Inc (AA), Chevron Corp (CVX), Family Dollar Stores (FDO), Economic data The second half of the calendar year has begun, and earnings return to
The Iraq War was fought for oil -- now we have none of it
Filed under: Deals, OilNow that Iraq is an independent country, the oil ministry has started putting its oil fields up for bid to foreign investors as reported in The Wall
Earnings highlights: General Mills, Apollo Group, H&R Block, Sealy ...
Filed under: Earnings reports, H and R Block (HRB), General Mills (GIS)Here are some highlights from last weeks earnings coverage from BloggingStocks: Apollo Group Inc. (NASDAQ: APOL) posted better-than-expected Q3 earnings due to higher enrollments. Ball Corp. (NYSE: BLL) expected
All-American stock #3: Colgate-Palmolive (CL)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Colgate-Palmolive (CL), Stocks to Buy, RecessionMy final all-American brand is Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL). The company is well-known for its toothpaste and toothbrushes.
All-American stock #2: Amazon (AMZN)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Consumer experience, Amazon.com (AMZN), Stocks to BuyThe next all-American brand is the worlds largest bookstore, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN). Actually, its not quite correct
'Ice Age' sequel off to good start -- what does this say about Disney and Pixar?
Filed under: Walt Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA), News CorpB (NWS), FilmNews Corp.s (NASDAQ: NWS) new computer cartoon, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, had a strong domestic debut this past Wednesday. It
more go

iconThe Kirk Report

Sparklers
The End of the Recession? Economically speaking, were closer to bottom Are we there yet? Not quite Many challenges are still ahead The financial crisis in pictures New norm, bad norm More misery for U.S. housing? The spa indicator &...
ETFs Up +50% Since March 31st
At quarter-end it is always interesting to see what some basic performance scans show up. Case in point, the ETFs which are up more than +50% since the closing price on March 31st: The top performer has been the Emerging...
Madoff & M&A Monday
Good morning. Were set for a higher open at the start of this four-day trading week. News and data flow are on the slow side again, but there are a few noteworthy items to review including a plethora of merger...
Friday Mailbag
Its time for another mailbag. A lot of great questions have been sent in. Thank you! Topics for today include: Pyramiding A Devils Advocate On Real Estate Question On Options Trading The Danger Of Political Bias Is Market Timing Prudent?...
Top Stock Picks For 2009
One of the things I like to do around the middle of the year is to review some of the tracking lists that I create of those top stock picks for 2009 that we hear so much around the start...
Fearful Of The Fed
Good morning. Premarket futures are showing a positive bias following strength in overseas markets and a better than expected durable goods report. Other headlines in focus include earnings from Oracle, rising mortgage applications, the OECD raises its outlook for the...
On The Radar
CEOs stay pessimistic about economy A tale of two depressions A decent question - has the World Bank or IMF ever been right? Where are you in this cycle? Where we are in the cycle Long-horizon risk aversion creates headwinds...
more go

iconFootnoted.org

GM: Please don’t buy our stock!
At a time when so many people are beating the drum about the need for companies to file transparent documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission, General Motors (GMGMQ) deserves credit. Granted, the subject of the press release that accompanied
GM: Please don’t buy our stock!
At a time when so many people are beating the drum about the need for companies to file transparent documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission, General Motors (GMGMQ) deserves credit. Granted, the subject of the press release that accompanied
Live blogging SEC meeting on pay
We’re listening in this morning to the SEC’s Open Meeting on enhancing proxy disclosures, a subject that we cover frequently here at footnoted. You can listen to the hearing yourself here or follow my live tweets (and others who are
Philip Morris is here to help…
Remember that famous phrase, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help”? Well, at a time when many governments are struggling to make ends meet Philip Morris (PM) says that they’re here to help.In this 74-page slideshow last Friday
New Foot Locker Executive Scores Big Comp Package
Who can blame Ken Hicks if he has a new spring in his step? Foot Locker just hired him to be its new President and CEO, and the exhibit to the 8-K that the company filed Friday afternoon reveals that
Fast food goes new media…
Until this week, it seemed fairly safe to suppose that an impenetrable divide existed between the world of SEC filings and the technophiles who have already downloaded MashDeck. And then we read the exhibit to this 8-K, which included one
Discover’s magic trick…
Yesterday, there was a lot of outrage over Citigroup’s (C) plans to raise the base salaries of its workers by as much as 50%, given that the government owns about 1/3 of the bank.What’s interesting is that Citi isn’t the
more go

iconTraderFeed

Evening Briefing for July 5th
* MARKET THEMES FROM THURSDAY - Weakness on unemployment data leads to a downside breakout in stocks; sectors enter bearish short-term trends; new 20-day lows exceed new highs, with significant downside momentum in the broad market. Rates fall on 10-year
The Importance of Listening to Yourself
A fundamental reality underlying trading psychology is that we know more than we know we know. Much of what we know is a felt, gut hunch--not a set of explicitly formed ideas. Those internal cues are lost when we are
Sector Update for July 5th
Last weeks sector review indicated that we were in a corrective mode, in which stocks were trading within a broad
Sentiment Cycles in the Stock Market
The recent post on market momentum and Demand/Supply reflects part of a larger conceptual framework that has served me well over years of trading. The theory is that the stock market moves in aperiodic cycles in which momentum extremes tend
What Are Reasonable Performance Expectations For Traders?
How do I know if Im doing well--or poorly--as a trader? That is the topic of an insightful question from a reader:The question that no one has answered to my satisfaction goes to theheart of managing my expectations. It is
Readings and Resources for a Holiday Weekend
* What should I be trading? ETF Rewind is an exhaustive review of ETF performance, with mechanical timing signals, performance of ETF pairs, and much more;* Excellent Spanish language site; here is their posting of economic releases for the week
When Should I Consider Joining a Proprietary (Prop) Trading Firm?
Im receiving a number of emailed questions regarding joining proprietary trading firms. These are professional trading firms in which traders trade the firms capital and share profits with the firm. I will post some updated advice to the blog shortly.
more go

iconRandom Roger's Big Picture

Sunday Morning Coffee
This weeks Barrons interview was with Burton Malkiel author of the book A Random Walk Down Wall Street, professor at Princeton, champion of index investing and CIO at AlphaShares. There were many interesting comments and ideas; enough to make an
Tuesday Tidbits
First up a reader asked what I though about the Eaton Vance Risk Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund (ETJ) which is a closed end fund. The reader notes it sells puts and buys puts along with owning common stocks. Aside
The Big Picture for the Week of July 5, 2009
No video this week, the mountainside is crawling with in-laws and my routine this weekend is all cattywhompus. The most exciting part of my Friday was that Barrons was online a day early. I can only remember one other time
Oh, So Now There Are No Green Shoots?
By now you know the non-farm payrolls report came out and the job loss for June was worse than expected, fortunately the weekly jobless claims number stunk too (small humor attempt). And of course the stock market puked down yesterday.The
Norway Is the Safest Sovereign Credit
This is probably not shocking if youve been reading this site for a while. The big picture view is that Norway
Too Much Speculation?
Theres been a lot of Bogle talk lately where he bashed specialty ETFs for being, among other things, tools for speculation. Over-simplifying his view he believes in proper asset allocation and holding cheap, broad-based mutual funds throughout. He seems to
Specialization Evolves
Late in August I will be speaking about ETFs at an event called the Money Show in San Francisco. In addition to the two panels I am on I am writing an article for some sort of publication connected to
more go

iconTicker Sense

Oil Remains Highly Correlated to the S&P 500
On a rolling 200-day basis, oil is now more correlated to the S&P than any other time in the last twenty years. Below we picture the correlation of oil versus the S&P on both a 50-day and a 200-day basis....
June 29th Blogger Sentiment Poll
Bloggers are mostly neutral in what is expected to be a quiet week. Blogger Sentiment Poll Participants: 24/7 Wall St (N) Carl Futia (+) Dash of Insight (-) Elliot Wave Lives On (-) Fallond Stock Picks (-) In the Money...
Crude Contracts Expire Today
The last trade for the front month crude contract is today, and strange price fluctuations have often been cited as the contract nears closing. Today oil is down over $2, in the past this kind of change might have been...
June 22nd Blogger Sentiment Poll
Most bloggers are neutral going into the week. Blogger Sentiment Poll Participants: 24/7 Wall St (N) Ahead of the Ticker (N) Carl Futia (+) Dash of Insight (N) Elliot Wave Lives On (-) Fallond Stock Picks (-) In the Money...
June 15th Blogger Sentiment Poll
There are more bears than bulls in this weeks poll. Blogger Sentiment Poll Participants: 24/7 Wall St (-) Ahead of the Ticker (N) Carl Futia (+) Dash of Insight (+) Elliot Wave Lives On (-) Fallond Stock Picks (-) In...
Have Earnings Expectations for the S&P 500 Finally Bottomed?
Since September of 2008 we have seen 2009s YoY earnings expectations for the S&P 500 steadily decline. You may recall that for the first half of 2008 many analysts were expecting an earnings recovery, and thus forecasting 20 - 25%...
Birinyi In the News
Laszlo Birinyi will appear on CNBC Thursday, June 11th between 9:30 and 10:00 to discuss his outlook for the US equity market.
more go

iconGannon On Investing

Suggested Link: Charlie Munger Op-Ed
Warren Buffetts business partner, Charlie Munger, writes an op-ed in the todays Washington Post.Read How We Can Restore Confidence by Charlie Munger.
On the Geithner Plan
Yesterday, the stock market tanked as Treasury Secretary Geithner outlined his financial stability plan. Blogger Felix Salmon noticed the mirror image:“I like the symmetry here. On November 21, when Barack Obama announced that he was nominating Tim Geithner to be
On the President's Address
President Obama spoke about the economy last night. I am not a political commentator, so I may not be able to correctly score the politics of the fight.The President began by painting gloomy word pictures of a Depression – without
New Podcast Episode: Friday, February 6th, 2009
A new episode of the Gannon On Investing Podcast is now available.
New Podcast Episode: Thursday, February 5, 2009
A new episode of the Gannon On Investing Podcast is now available.
New Podcast Episode: Wednesday, February 4, 2009
A listener asksMuch of the focus in value investing texts is on finding the rightcompany at the right price, very little time is spent discussing whento sell. Since the decision to sell is contextual to each investment Iwould like to
New Podcast Episode: Tuesday, February 3, 2009
A listener asksHow can I apply the concept of intrinsic value to currencies in my international investments? I know how to handle business risk and market risk - but how can I apply the principles of value investing to exchange
more go

iconValue Discipline

The Developing Compensation Philosophy of the Treasury Department
Here is a link to Gene Sperlings opening statement: http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/tg166.htm#_ftnref3There are some very interesting quotes that help to frame Treasurys philosophy re systematic risk and executive compensation in this statement.Compensation structures that permitted key executives and other financial actors to
Executive Compensation-Government is Not Going Away
Corporate governance is a topic that many of us tend to ignore, leaving it to the institutions or corporate raiders that are looking to influence the strategic direction, the capital allocation, the corporate structures or the compensation structures of business.Yet,
Happy New Year!
What can be said in New Year rhymes,Thats not been said a thousand times?The new years come, the old years go,We know we dream, we dream we know.We rise up laughing with the light,We lie down weeping with the night.We
Fair Value, Mark-To-Market and Financial Reporting-Another Revision?
Less than a week to go for 2008, and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has a proposal which it has thrown into the arena to address the problem of fair value.Mark to market accounting has stirred up a very
Happy Holidays!
A simple and sincere message to all. Heres wishing you the best of holidays in this blessed season.Wishing all of you a Happy Hanukkah, a Merry Christmas, and peace!Looking forward to 2009, a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous Year for all!Rick
Stocking Stuffers
It has been a remarkable year. It has been year that many of us would just as soon forget. The cascading effects of deleveraging have been rampant across all markets.The financial turmoil of 2007-08-09? has deeply affected households as well
The Commodity Investment World Conference-Some Observations on Commodities as a Diversifier
For two days last week, it was my privilege to attend the Commodity Investment World conference through the courtesy of Seeking Alpha. A broad spectrum of commodities markets, their economics and approaches to these markets were discussed.Commodities conferences historically have
more go

iconNO DooDahs!

Automotive Annoyances
A few things that bothered me yesterday about the news coverage of the pending bailout for domestic auto(loan)makers.“GM makes cars nobody wants” Vs. “GM sold __ million cars in the U.S. in the last __ years”“Nobody wants” is an exaggeration,
Buy-A-Bank Bailouts
The Hartford (HIG), a.k.a. “The Neutered Stag,” has pulled a fast one! They bought a bank, just in order to get bailed out.In some bizarre way, this multi-national, multi-billion-dollar insurer can buy some tiny, eleven-branch-having, single state bank off of
Busy With Other Projects, Back Again Soon
No description.
Updates at The Rempel Report
Still no Timing signalValue Portfolio updatePersonal returns for October 2008
Piece of the Rock Randomosity
Get it, baby! Get a piece of the rock! Prudential Financial (PRU) reported yesterday. Lots of ways to put lipstick on this pig, and turn a loss per share into a “

iconModernGraham.com

Insights on Mr. Market #1
Mr. Market always is moving his pricing back and forth.  For a value investor following Benjamin Graham’s intelligent investing guidelines, that often provides opportunities to buy low and sell high; however, it can be difficult to understand Mr. Market’s motives. 
Added and Updated Valuations – 6/22/09
Here is today’s list of valuations that have been added to our site.  To view more, click on browse valuations in our navbar.  We now have 15 in the database!EVEP – EV Energy Partners – Undervalued & EnterprisingHSR – Hi
Enterprising Investor Screens
These screens are for companies that may be suitable for the enterprising investor.  The requirements of such an investor are that the company in question pass at least 4 of the following 5 tests:Sufficiently Strong Financial Condition, Part 1 –
Introducing the Bargain Basement Portfolio
While working on the section of my book (work-in-progress; please leave a comment to encourage me to finish it!) that will deal with Benjamin Graham’s net current asset value (current assets less all liabilities) approach, I found that there is
2009 Morningstar Investment Conference – 7
This morning during the general session, Mr. Robert Rodriguez of First Pacific Advisors provided the keynote presentation.  Mr. Rodriguez began by explaining his recent announcement of his coming sabbatical, stating that it has been planned for six years and should
2009 Morningstar Investment Conference- 6
Thursday featured another break out session attended which featured Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of GMO. This session was primarily about where we are heading economically. Grantham was engaging and quite charismatic.Grantham used the analogy of a hurricane in Florida picking up
Enterprising Investor Screens – 7/2/09
These screens are for companies that may be suitable for the enterprising investor. The requirements of such an investor are that the company in question pass at least 4 of the following 5 tests:Sufficiently Strong Financial Condition, Part 1 –
more go

iconStock Market Beat

Capacity Utilization
St. Louis Fed: Series: TCU, Capacity Utilization: Total Industry
Another Record: Capacity Utilization
St. Louis Fed: Series: TCU, Capacity Utilization: Total Industry
Record Territory
St. Louis Fed: FRED GRAPH
Employment
Employment Situation Summary Nonfarm payroll employment continued to fall sharply in February (-651,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 7.6 to 8.1 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Payroll employ- ment has
Capacity Utilization
St. Louis Fed: Series: TCU, Capacity Utilization: Total Industry
Gross Domestic Product
BEA: News Release: Gross Domestic ProductReal gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — decreased at an annual rate of 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of
St. Louis Fed: Series: TCU, Capacity Utilization: Total Industry
St. Louis Fed: Series: TCU, Capacity Utilization: Total Industry
more go

iconBerkshire Ruminations

Buffett was wrong about this one. (Unfortnately it is the most important one of all.)
This is an issue that has become very important to me lately, and I hope readers will be patient and read through my thoughts. It is not a pleasant topic and most people would prefer to pretend the problem doesn’t
At what point does Berkshire get "stupid cheap"?
I own a lot of Berkshire stock. I don’t like seeing it go down because I don’t have a lot of liquidity at the moment, otherwise I would welcome the buying opportunity. But this begs the question, is this indeed
RBP Investing Update
Back in June I mentioned on this blog that I had started working for a company called Transparent Value, which developed the Dow Jones RBP Indexes based on their proprietary methodology called Required Business Performance, and that I had been
Fundamental Value Investors: Characteristics and Performance
My good friend Wes Gray and I recently wrote an academic paper about value investors. Wes is a fellow coauthor mine over at the Empirical Finance Research blog. In our paper we analyze the investment recommendations on the website Value
Doing the math on CEG (back of the envelope)
I post this not as any type of authority, but just to figure it out for myself. Can anyone explain better than I have here why CEG stock fell yesterday?This past summer MidAmerican Energy agreed to acquire all outstanding shares
Thoughts on a Big 3 "Bailout"
With so much talk, debate and controversy over the idea of “bailing out” the Big 3 automakers, I find it amazing that so little of this discussion has been on the topic of bankruptcy. The media, congress and the Big
Merger Arbitrage Mania!
I haven’t heard a lot of discussion about this, so I thought I would put my thoughts down on this blog, because to me the phenomenon is pretty obvious. There is some serious value out there right now, and for
more go

iconInvestment Ideas

Permanent Shutdown
Id like to announce my permanent hiatus from the blogging scene. Ive utilized the blog to leverage my knowledge and show my passion for the business, which has served me well, as Ive learned from this experience a great deal
The Monday Edition- Fixed Income Strategy For This Week & Speculative Trade (ENCY)
Ive finally got some spare time, so thought Id share my thoughts on one wild week were going to have.The price action in the US 10-year Treasury yields last week was extremely bearish as the bull channel in place since
Buy MNT (Short-Term Trade)
Rationale: 1) With 16% of its float sold short, or 6,537,400 million shares, with 4.3 days to cover and average daily trading volume (3m) of 888K, it will take 7.36 days to cover the entire position.2) On a fundamental level
Stamp duty China impacts 1991-2005
Yes, I know Im on a hiatus, but that doesnt mean I cant take a minute out to re-print something useful I received in the e-mail from someone who would rather not be named.Oct. 1991 - The Stamp Duty was
Featured In Globe & Mail
It is my first time in the Globe & Mail, which is Canadas NYT, and first time in print (no online version). Im thankful to God, GM and everybody else who takes time to come here. Ill sure miss you
Blogging Hiatus: Internship Time
For this summer, I had some good offers, thanks to God, from Barclays (Dubai), UBS (LA) but I chose a firm in the HF industry.I posted their name and a few clients, but have been advised by a friend to
Hedging w/ Futures & Options: Bullish, Bearish & Neutral Strategies
As you know, were in the third year of the presidential cycle, which on a historical basis has been quite bullish for the markets.The DJIA has risen 24 times and fallen 5 times in the 29 third calendar year of
more go

All credits go to the authors of these sites. Without their hard work Original Signal would not exist. Last updated on July 6th 2009 02:02 | Contact