It was another week on Wall Street where the stock indices started in the lower left corner of the chart, and finished in the upper right. One… Continue reading →

By Lou Basenese:

If you constantly find yourself asking when the market is going to crash, you’re a paranoid freak. You’re not alone, either. By our best estimates, there are roughly 1.2 million such freaks trading the market each day.

What would happen if all these paranoid maniacs decided to sell? Well, it’d look a lot like the Hindenburg crash of 1937, which I just happened to watch a documentary about last night. Look, we’re all human, which means it’s perfectly natural to be a bit paranoid given that the market keeps hitting new, all-time highs (on what seems like a daily basis).

However, asking about it with no way of arriving at an answer makes no sense at all. Didn’t you know that only purpose-driven paranoia is productive and acceptable? To that end, on Wednesday I introduced you to my trusty “Bear Market Checklist,” which provides a systematic way to

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By Phil Davis:

(Click to enlarge)

Reality, reality, wherefore art thou reality?

I like to put up this chart of the macro indicators (this one from Dave Fry) every once in awhile, just to keep us grounded as we play the market at these nose-bleed levels. And yes, I know I sound like a grumpy old bear, the same way I was accused of being a perma-bull 8 months ago, when the S&P had crashed 10%, back to 1,343 and I wrote articles like:

• “Thankless Thursday – Still Waiting for that Stimulus to Kick In” (11/1/12)
• “Two Term Tuesday – Obama Victory Allows 4-year Rally to Continue” (11/6)
• “Fed Up Thursday – WMT and the Fed Fail to Boost the Market” (11/15)
• “Testy Tuesday – Can We Hold Our Weak Bounce Levels?” (11/20)
• “Dividend Investing – Giving Yourself an Automatic Edge“

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Many obsess about what they will do in retirement and fear finding out too late - after they retire – that retirement isn’t for them. Most retirees discover early on that their time remains a cherished commodity and you will wonder how you ever worked and got anything done.  I’ve been retired going on 9 years [...] Continue reading →

By Damir Tokic:Federal Reserve Bank of New York on May 8, released the study: Are Stocks Cheap? Review of Evidence, in which it finds that the current equity premium is at historic high levels. The media have been quick in drawing the conclusion that s… Continue reading →

In the prior essay in this series, I demonstrated that US systemic liquidity is at frighteningly high levels and that this could become a key factor that enables the formation of a stock market bubble, as risk aversion and liquidity preference declines… Continue reading →

- Senior Treasury officials were made aware in June 2012 that investigators were looking into complaints from tea party groups that they were being harassed by the Internal Revenue Service, a Treasury inspector general said Friday, disclosing that Obam… Continue reading →

If they don’t start paying off debt and saving more, Gen Xers will be on track to retire financially worse off than the generations before them, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. Continue reading →

If they don’t start paying off debt and saving more, Gen Xers will be on track to retire financially worse off than the generations before them, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. Continue reading →

By Faisal Humayun: I have discussed the concerns related to current S&P valuations in several of my recent articles. In this article, I discuss two important reasons to believe that current market level and valuation is largely a function of liquid… Continue reading →