Free Republic

Let me start out by saying I hate market comparisons.While history certainly does “rhyme,” they are never the same. This is especially the case when it comes to the financial markets. Chart patterns may align from time to time, but such is more a function of pattern-fitting than anything else.However, when it comes to fundamentals, standard-deviations, extensions, etc., it is a different story. A recent article by Ryan Vlastelica brought this to mind. “While the strategy of investing in internet-related companies will likely always be first associated with the dot-com era, the long-lived bull market has proved to be just...

Submitted by Nick Colas of Convergex Many of the smartest investors out there hate stocks. Since May, we’ve heard negative equity calls from Stan Druckenmiller, George Soros, Carl Icahn, Jeff Gundlach and Bill Gross. Wall Street lore says “Never argue about markets with a guy who is much richer than you”. So we’ll take the discussion in a different direction: what do they know? Successful investors are always more plugged in than the market as a whole – hence their success. And while we can only guess at the lynchpins of their negative take on stocks, we do have some...

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Wednesday described stock market valuations as high and said the central bank was carefully monitoring their impact on financial stability. "I would highlight that equity market valuations at this point generally are quite high," Yellen said in conversation with Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, at an economics conference. Coupled with weak economic reports in the morning, her remarks drove stocks broadly lower in Wednesday trading. Yellen added, however, that the overall risks to financial stability are "moderated, not elevated" and she does not see the hallmarks of any bubbles. She...

What will be left, post-stock market crash, post-Obama, post-Arab Spring? These are timely questions to consider. This conclusion is meant to say what could happen, not what is inevitable. Socially, the United States is a country that is divided as ever, with very little faith in government and its leaders. Due to a long and purposeful depression, a new generation will emerge that is out of touch with American values, does not understand nor support capitalism, and is comfortable with gangs entering popular culture and the lives of the former middle class. Politically, the establishment wings of both Democrat and...

Why the Bad Guys of the Boardroom Emerged en Masse The Stock Bubble Magnified Shifts in Business Mores While Watchdogs Napped Every decade has king-size corporate villains. In the 1970’s, Robert Vesco was indicted for looting the Investors Overseas Services mutual funds. In the 1980s, arbitrageur Ivan Boesky and junk-bond inventor Michael Milken went to jail. But the scope and scale of the corporate transgressions of the late 1990s, now coming to light, exceed anything the U.S. has witnessed since the years preceding the Great Depression. Enron Corp.’s top executives reaped hundreds of millions as the company collapsed. Arthur Andersen...

Since its peak in March 2000, the stock market has lost about a third of its value, or almost $6 trillion, according to Wilshire Associates. Everyone would like to think that these immense losses -- painful to individual investors and possibly threatening to the economy -- are someone else's fault. And now, suitable culprits seem to have emerged: Wall Street and corporate America, whose greed and dishonesty allegedly rigged the market. Hardly a day passes without some new scandal, whether of dubious accounting practices, illegal (or unethical) trading by insiders or dishonest stock advice. Americans were, it seems, duped. Companies...