Getty Images

Market Update 04-15-09

  A Wells Fargo sign hangs ...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

We are in the beginning of a very important earnings season. The reports differ so far, ranging from rosy and optimistic (Wells Fargo) to consensus-beating with a cautious outlook (Intel). Overall, analysts estimate that profits at S&P 500 companies decreased for the seventh-straight quarter, the longest stretch of declines since the 1930s.Read more...

Market Update 03-30-09

  Jean-Claude...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Short-Term Key: Negative
Long-Term Key: +54

-------------------------------------
Inside this week's update..
***** The power of false assumptions.
***** Congress and the Fed – choosing the least damaging solution.
***** What to own until the banking crisis ends, and after.
------------------------------------

My old college logic professor once included in a lecture a story about Bertrand Russell, the late Nobel Prize winner and master logician. Russell, according to the story, once said, “Grant me one false assumption, and I can prove anything.”

A listener then responded by asking Russell, “Okay, assuming 1 + 1 = 1, prove to me that you and the Pope are the same.”Read more...

Market Update 03-23-09

  Randall Kroszner of...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Short-Term Key: Negative
Long-Term Key: +54
-------------------------------------

Inside this week's update...Read more...

Market Update 03-10-09

  Georgetown University bu...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

In an interview yesterday Warren Buffett stated what we all knew: the economy “has fallen off a cliff” and is unlikely to turn around soon. America’s richest man went on to speculate that efforts to stimulate a recovery may lead to inflation higher than what we experienced in the 1970s. The International Monetary Fund echoed Buffett’s view on the economy saying that this year will be the first time since World War II that the U.S. and other industrial nations suffer simultaneous declines in their economies.
 

Read more...

Mid-Week Update 02-25-09

  Chairman of the Fed...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Stocks were deeply oversold and looking for an excuse to rally heading into yesterday’s trading. They got that excuse in the form of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony on Capitol Hill.Read more...

Weekly Update 02-17-09

  Chairman of Japan Business ...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Short-Term Key Negative
Long-Term Key +54
-------------------------------------
Inside this week's update...
***** Odds on civilization's survival.
***** Why Congress must put nation ahead of party.
***** Re: the banking industry - FIX IT!
***** 3 areas that should produce strong investment gains.
------------------------------------
If you've read the my books, you may recall several people whose thoughts on the survival of civilization I have quoted: Jared Diamond, Joseph Tainter and Arthur C. Clarke.

The first two wrote extensively about the downfall of past civilizations. Tainter's book, The Collapse of Complex Societies, deserves more scholarly respect. But Diamond may be more familiar to most readers, since his books, Collapse and Guns, Germs, and Steel are more recent and more popular. Arthur C. Clarke is known primarily for his speculations on the future.Read more...