Health Care Reform and Investor Behavior

Health care reform is here. Whether you are looking forward to it or whether you are dreading the changes it will bring to your life, it is here. Barring constitutional challenges from Republicans regarding the Administration’s legal ability to mandate the purchase of anything (in this case, the purchase of health insurance) to the legitimacy…

Greek Tragedy

You may intrinsically have an idea of when a recession begins (when your neighbors lose their jobs) or when a depression begins (when you lose your job). You might even feel like you know when it has finally ended (when your 401K has returned to the value it was 2 years ago). But did you know that…

Housing Uncertainty Still a Drag

In my April Investment Commentary, I printed a chart illustrating the increasing number of new home foreclosure filings for the past several years. Under the chart I wrote that, until the trend is a downward one, we continue to wait for better opportunities to purchase equities (stocks). As it turns out, the stock market rallied…

The High Value of Declining Interest Rates

The U.S. stock market showed impressive gains in 2009. The S&P 500 increased over 26%. However, even after an impressive gain in 2009, the S&P 500 experienced a NEGATIVE rate of return for the decade that just ended. That’s correct. An investment in the U.S. stock market from the end of 1999 to the end of 2009 netted you…

Putting Things in Perspective by Reviewing 30-year Trends

Recently, we have been asked our opinion about gold. More specifically, should we be buying a lot of it? The conventional wisdom is that the Federal Reserve is printing a lot of money and the Obama administration is running massive budget deficits, both of which are going to make the dollar worth less, if not…