Matt's blog

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money...

- Ecclesiastes 5:10 -

For nearly 70 years, the US economy ran relatively smoothly without a signficant hitch from the banking sector.  Aside from a few S&L's that got sideways in the 80's, the US banking sector was the model of effeciency from the mid-1930's until 1999.  The reason -- A simple act of legislation known as the Glass-Steagall Acts.

A CRITICAL LESSON FOR ALL INVESTORS

I just saw the movie Moneyball this weekend and I have to say the filmmakers did a better than decent job of telling the remarkable story of Billy Beane and how his unconventional methodologies built a severely underpriced MLB contender. There was no possible way for them to fit the entire story into a 2 hour film which will not prevent me from uttering the words so often uttered by those posing to be intellectually superior and say, “I liked the movie…but the book was better.”

Dear Clients,

In 1987, Charlie Sheen stared in Wall Street, a rivoting tale about bankers gone bad.  Fast forward 24 years and I ask myself just how different is the present day Charlie Sheen (CS) and the present day Wall Street (WS):

In a few short months, new 408(b) regulations become effective.  As of January 1, 2012, service providers, typically listed on annual Form 5500 Section C filings, will be required to disclose whether they are acting as a fiduciary to the plan and, if so, in what capacity.

This morning I turned on one of the financial media stations to see what was going on in the markets and the big news was the BLS Employment Report which provided some not-so-optimistic figures.  A couple analysts on the show were cackling about how the figure was meaningess because of the dire weather in January.  Now, if memory serves, these same perma-bull analysts were chearing December's numbers like 15 year old girls at a Lady Gaga concert.  Back in December, they showered praise on the central bankers and government beaurocrats for creating the stimulus which was successfully revivin

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In the May issue of Money magazine, they name John Hussman as the Best Bear Market Money Manager Around. The article points to the major advantage of Hussman’s Strategic Growth fund (HSGFX) as being:

By proceeding, I acknowledge that I have read and understood the Disclaimer, Performance Reporting Disclosure and Copyright Statements . Dear Clients, The following is my Performance Update and Outlook for July. All prices and returns are as of 10/31/08.

PART I: INTRODUCTION

This past month will be one for the record books. October was the worst month for the S&P 500 since October of 1987 despite two days where the index rose by more than 10% - The previous biggest one-day advance in the S&P 500 was 9%. Crude Oil saw a drop in excess of 30% - it’s largest one-month drop ever. The government finally passed the largest bailout in history which is looking increasingly likely to fail in generating the desired result – the creation of even more stimulus by the banks. All of this has happened in spite of Fed stimulus of Biblical proportions. Steve Saville writes:

The Fed expanded its balance sheet by $69B during the week ended 29th October, bringing the increase since 10th September to $985B. Putting it another way, the Fed has grown its balance sheet by 111% over just the past 7 weeks. Nothing remotely close to this rate of growth has ever previously happened during the Fed's history. (emphasis author)

Wow, what a day for the market. All the major indexes erased yesterday's losses! It was a "red-letter day" for the Dow achieving it's best one day advance of 2007. But from a technical standpoint, the market continued to weaken. Over the past two days, more stocks have declined than advanced. About an equal number of stocks hit new lows today and yesterday then hit new highs even though the markets are only points off their 52-week highs.