Whom Do You Believe? A hedge fund manager named Zook tells CNBC that he’s “net short the stock market in a substantial way”, then makes his case as to why the market’s going south over the next few months. He states with great conviction that earnings will wane in the 2nd quarter and that there [...]

Can you imagine what it must have felt like to live in New Orleans during the first post-Katrina rainstorm? Or how the Haitian people will feel, for generations to come, every time the earth delivers even the slightest quiver? As I proffer this missive, the stock market is a stone’s throw away from official correction [...]

The New Year’s off to a great start. Oil prices are down (great for the consumer and for businesses), interest rates are lower (great for the economy), GDP is up (we’re out of the recession), Q4 earnings have come in very good (companies are out of the woods), 2010 guidance has been very positive (good [...]

So here’s the deal; the Dow was down 270 points today and everybody (except you of course) is freaking out. I’ll waste just a few words on what may or may not be the catalyst, then finish with a little healthy perspective… You’ll hear all over the news that sovereign debt is the culprit. In [...]

A Missed Opportunity I’m afraid our President is on the verge of blowing a Reagan/Clinton-style opportunity of a lifetime. When Mr. Obama won the Whitehouse I mouthed off to my friends that he was a shoe-in two-termer. I mean you couldn’t ask for a better scenario; the man inherited an economy in shambles and his [...]

Facing the coming mid-term elections and feeling a poll-inspired sense of desperation, our chosen few are in dire need of a villain. They need to champion themselves against a bad-guy and, in the absence of any, they will indeed manufacture one. Today their synthetic scoundrel would be Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner – his crime being [...]