• September 26, 2003

Take Me Out to the Stockgame

Exactly what are investors thinking? How can I be right about being in something called a secular bear market if stocks just keep going up? Isn't it time for me to throw in the towel, admit I was wrong and declare a new bull has begun? I answer these questions and more as we ponder the meaning of several important, if somewhat obscure, academic studies.

We begin with the question posed to me by Butch, an astute businessman and reader, as we watched the Texas Rangers from the balcony office...

• September 19, 2003

A Considerable Predicament

This week we re-visit Federal Reserve policy, and how their current policy may be setting up a very real problem with interest rates. Is the dollar getting ready to make its next move down? We do live in interesting times.

Yesterday I had long telephone conversations with both Jim Bianco and Greg Weldon, talking about Federal Reserve policy, interest rates and the dollar. There was an apparent disagreement on some concepts between them. Last night I did some meditating on those discussions,...

• September 12, 2003

The Weather Equalization Act

This week we deal with tariff proposals and other absurdities, the Chinese and the huge rise in their holdings of US debt by foreign governments, plus one of the more profound pieces on the events in New York, presciently written more than 50 years ago. At the end, I ask my non-US readers a question about investment laws and practices in their country.

• September 5, 2003

Market Timers or Market Cheaters?

Given the wide disparity of views about the economy, it is little wonder that the reaction to Greenspan's latest speech has been all over the board. That is compounded by the fact that bond price expectations are totally disconnected from Fed expectations. Are the bond market critics just a bunch of whiners (give me back my risk free trade!) or is there substance to their major beef? Who's really in charge here? Can the Fed trump the market? Predictably, I answer the latter question with both...