When an email came through entitled “Conference Call with SEC,” I took notice. It’s sort of like, “Police knocking on your door.” Luckily, it was not that kind of conversation; it was actually something far from it.
I read both books: “Traders, Guns, and Money” and “An American Hedge Fund“. And I had two completely different reactions. I received an early copy of An American Hedge Fund and have not said a word on it. Why? I disliked it, it rubbed me the wrong way, and thought if you can’t say anything nice then don’t say it at all.
Today was a great day for equities, but a horrible day for commodities and gold.
Gold futures dropped more than 3% Tuesday in a broad-based commodities sell-off, as strength in the U.S. dollar exerted heavy selling pressure on the precious metal.
I guess it was about a week ago Pete Najarian on Fast Money said that he kept his Apple shares, but sold 140 April calls for 9 dollars a piece. When he said that I thought he was crazy.
How did it play out? Not so good folks. First he sold the options at 9 dollars and for a very short period he was right as the option went down to 6 dollars. But then Apple came back with a vengeance. (Note Apple might still drop..)
My wife and I went to apply for a mortgage as we saw a piece of property that interested us. Considering that I am always interested in knowing the state of the market I asked the mortgage broker how business was. She said, “we are really busy right now.” I looked at her and asked, (more…)
On March 17, I said that the world has changed. I wrote.
I will not keep you in suspense, but the world changing event is the fact that the Fed has allowed investment banks to come to the Fed bank teller for money. That has changed everything. What this single action means is that investment banks will be able to tidy their bottom lines, letting the market recover. Though it also means investment banks will have to allow themselves to be regulated.
When I invest one of the things that I do is get feedback from the locals. If I am investing in Latin America I get a local contact that gives me the lay of the land in South America. I happen to be lucky because I have family that lives in South America, North America, Europe, and the former Eastern Bloc countries.
Via Long and Short.
And you know it hurts my feelings, if nothing else, that the Swiss franc is worth more than the dollar.
-Paul Volcker in an interview this week with Charlie Rose
Yes the famous Paul Volcker who brought stability back to crazy America. Volcker was in office from 1977 to 1987, and to be fair let’s see how well he did against the Swiss Franc.
I have been watching a trend among companies that has me deeply concerned. It has me so concerned that I wonder if we are not about to hit a second bubble?
Christian’s posts over the last few days and an article about Warren Buffett got me thinking and I think it’s time for a post to the good ol’ Investor Geeks. I think the morons on TV have gone on long enough and I think we Investor Geeks are on the same page, so listen up!