You should read these two. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracey Kidder This is the story of Paul Farmer. If he doesn’t receive a Nobel for his medical work it will be a travesty. A Harvard trained doctor who practices medicine just enough to make enough …
Utility company earnings are seemingly exploding. Yes, they are beating already depressed comparisons but they are up. Big. And shares are responding to the good news. When was the last time you saw a utility stock up more than 5% in one day? Look at …
The Markets After rising in early morning trade the banks are now giving some back. They are still up modestly but the effects of the stress tests are not going to be so simple to diagnose. Market futures are strong, up 1 1/2%, but await …
The Markets The stress test numbers were released pretty much according to the whisper: $75 billion needed. Traders took profits after the close but not universally. Banks are becoming differentiated; good and not so good. Examples, Good: BAC, BBT*. Not so good: WFC, STI. To …
Someone got my name. And my telephone number. And they are sharing it. Over the last week I have received three calls from what we used to call bucket shops. These are guys trying to sell all sorts of financial stuff. One, from Santa Monica, …
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Charles Allmon is back (well, 50%) in stocks. But he won’t say the bear market is over. The sage of Growth Stock Outlook, which he founded in 1965 and was one of the first investment letters monitored by the Hulbert Financial …
The Markets Sell the news? Traders lock in gains in early trading. Cannot blame them. The leaks of the stress test results are all over the place. Oddly, Bank of America is expected to be short billions and billions of capital and the shares are …
The Markets In the 80’s a TV commentator famously threw darts at the WSJ page of stock listings. The dozen stocks selected by his darts outperformed managed money. This led to wide circulation of the random-walk theory and doubt about investment managers. This was all …
Back from a great holiday in Ocracoke, North Carolina. Correction? We don’t need no stink’n correction. This is a freight train. Get out of the way. When I suggested on Friday that we were over-bought and that it would not surprise me to see some …
Today’s close was especially odd. Several sell programs hit as the market was closing, followed by a huge buy program which took the averages up at the close. These programs are triggered by computers that are programed to take advantage of seemingly minute differences. The …