Tag Archives: Euro Crisis

Employment-to-Pop and CAPE Updates

Readers know there are two statistics that have caused me to worry for the past few years about the health of the economy and the market. The first statistic is a macroeconomic indicator called the Employment-to-Population Ratio (E/Pop, to distinguish … Continue reading

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Contemporary Art Auctions Reach Records

Liquidity, both physical and financial, tends to take the path of least resistance. If it is easy for corporations to borrow in public debt markets because high liquidity keeps interest rates low (in the near term), corporations that lack ideas for organic … Continue reading

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There was No “De-Leveraging”

Ray Dalio of Bridgewater is fond of calling our government bailout a “beautiful deleveraging” (http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/research/deleveraging/an-in-depth-look-at-deleveragings–ray-dalio-bridgewater.pdf) probably because he bet correctly that the flood of liquidity would lift all boats in the short run. But, I have been arguing the point in … Continue reading

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“…the prime directive will be to ‘lose as little money as possible’.” Jason Zweig Interviews Dean LeBaron

The WSJ published another excellent The Intelligent Investor column today written by Jason Zweig. In it, Jason interviews Dean LeBaron, retired founder of Batterymarch Financial Management. “For decades, the name of the game for investors has been to make as … Continue reading

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The Equity Market Annual Return Histogram Updated for 2012

Better late than never. I have updated the equity market annual return histogram for the 16.00% total return generated by the S&P 500 index in 2012. As Michael Mauboussin says, when understanding an investment idea, we should try take an outsider’s … Continue reading

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An Unusually Large Herd of Grey Swans

Events that can have a significant impact on the economy and capital markets have become known as swans of various shades thanks largely to Nassim Taleb’s book, The Black Swan, in which Taleb reminded us of Karl Popper’s criticism of … Continue reading

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Vox added to the Blogroll

I have added a new economics blog to the “Other Investing…” blogroll. It is called Vox and it focuses on EU policy issues. http://www.voxeu.org/ &nbsp… Continue reading

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Equity Market Histogram: Another Victory for the Mode in 2011

As I recall, I said at the beginning of 2011 that predictions are worthless, but if one takes an outsider’s view there is a 70% chance that the market’s total return will be positive in 2011 and that the most likely event … Continue reading

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Ron Paul’s Portfolio: “A Cellar-Full of Canned Goods and 9mm Rounds…”

At least that is what William Bernstein thinks (H/T: Greg Mankiw): At our request, William Bernstein, an investment manager at Efficient Portfolio Advisors in Eastford, Conn., reviewed Rep. Paul’s portfolio as set out in the annual disclosure statement. Mr. Bernstein … Continue reading

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More on Europe from SocGen and Kyle Bass

From a SocGen Analyst’s note released today: The extraordinary events we’ve seen these past months are now threatening the euro project, and calls for its dismissal, which were laughable a year ago, are becoming more mainstream. Risk aversion has increased … Continue reading

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