A lot of good material has come out recently to illustrate the U.S. dollar’s decline and what it might mean for investors. Here are a few particularly worthwhile pieces. – First, some perspective. David Singer’s annotated long-term chart of the USD Index shows that while the recent drop has been […]
Outlook
From Econstories.tv, here’s the much awaited sequel to 2010’s Fear the Boom and Bust, a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem. With the market riding high following massive government spending, but U.S. unemployment still around 9%, it’s time for round two: Background from the creators: According to the National Bureau of […]
A number of Covestor models use leveraged ETFs as part of their investment strategy. SymmetricInfo has a two-part post illustrating the mechanics of leveraged ETFs that work on a daily return basis, and the potential pitfalls in these securities that not all investors are aware of, despite (in some cases) […]
Not a new question, but this is a remarkable answer that any Microsoft or software sector investor will appreciate, as will any student of corporate and innovation culture. From former Microsoft employee Hussein Kanji, on Quora: . . . I was at Microsoft in recent years, 2002-2005, and was recruited […]
Jason Zweig recently used his regular column in The Wall Street Journal to discuss the relatively poor performance of large cap stocks. It’s a theme we’ve pointed out a number of times in recent commentaries from Covestor managers who invest in small-caps, for example from Vivian Lewis and Jack Brown. […]
The White House recently launched the Taxpayer Receipt, allowing citizens to identify exactly where their money is going, dollar for dollar. As reported by NPR’s Planet Money: You enter how much you paid in income taxes, and how much you paid for Social Security and Medicare (which have their own […]
Bond giant PIMCO recently filed the necessary paperwork to launch an actively managed total return bond ETF run by legendary bond trader Bill Gross. This will be an interesting new option for individual investors and investment advisers. From the LA Times: As required with an ETF, the holdings of the […]
HBO made a movie of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s outstanding book on the 2008 financial crisis, Too Big to Fail. The film, starring William Hurt, James Woods and Edward Asner, comes out May 23. Here’s the trailer – looks good!
Financial journalists were roundly criticized for weak reporting in the lead-up to the 2008 crisis, but the latest round of Pulitzer Prizes, announced yesterday, provides some redemption. No less than five were granted to business reporters. Here they are, with links through to the winners so you can read them […]
From David Brooks’ latest New York Times column: The psychologist Michael Morris points out that when the stock market is going up, we tend to use agent metaphors, implying the market is a living thing with clear intentions. We say the market climbs or soars or fights its way upward. […]
Katie Rosman wrote a great, candid piece for the WSJ yesterday, confessing her love of overpriced Starbucks cappuccinos and her husband’s protests of same: The problem… is that cappuccino is not a line item in our family budget. We don’t make room for such things when deciding how to spread […]
April 11, 2011 A terrific post on Quora by Josh Hannah on how eBay’s (Nasdaq: EBAY) Kijiji and other startups are disrupting the disruptor Craiglist – which almost singlehandedly did in U.S. newspapers’ formerly lucrative classifieds business: Why hasn’t another product disrupted and replaced Craigslist? Craiglist has been disrupted, it’s […]