We’ve all heard it said “the stock market is a great investment over time”. It’s easy to say “yes, but”, especially in tumultuous times like these. But when the jitters and anxiety surface, it’s helpful to keep the historical perspective in mind. Read More
We’ve probably all heard it said recently…. “the Fed (Federal Reserve Open Markets Committee) is ‘just printing money’ right now”. However, it’s important to distinguish between the monetary base and money supply (“M2″).
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The chart below helps to confirm what we said last week about the stock market – as represented by the S&P 500 – being a real value right now.
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Over time, earnings are what ultimately drive stock prices. The chart below shows the latest consensus 2011 and 2012 earnings forecasts (left axis) plotted against the S&P 500 (right axis). The earnings per share (EPS) estimates are “bottom-up” – the data comes from each of the 500 companies that comprise the S&P 500 index.
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In late 2008 a major story hit Wall Street. Bernard Madoff, a well respected money manager and former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market admitted to running a ponzi scheme and falsifying documents to defraud his clients of almost $65 billion. According to Madoff, the fraud began in the early 1990s, but many federal investigators believe that it started much earlier than that.
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What’s Behind the Eurozone Crisis?
Lately, the Eurozone has been the major financial news story of the day acting, for better or worse, as a major driver of world markets. If you were to ask most people what is behind the crisis they would immediately say government borrowing. But there is a little more to the situation than that (Greece excluded). Read More