In the aftermath of the Great Recession, the biggest asset that is owned free and clear is often a 401K or IRA.  Unfortunately for investors, most of these 401Ks and IRAs are invested in cookie cutter mutual funds or ETFs, which stack the odds of even keeping up with the market against them.  Did...Read More

While history might not repeat itself, it does tend to rhyme.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the psychological behavior of market participants.  Between 1995-2000, tech stocks and day trading were the rage regardless of valuations.  Ultimately the Nasdaq crashed 75% from the high to the low, wiping our many retirees savings along with...Read More

As the 4th year of a bull market heads towards its conclusion, unsurprisingly, the broad public is starting to get more attracted to equities.  This is the exact wrong time to become bullish, as the prices for stocks are drastically more expensive than they have been over the last several years.  Benjamin Graham creased a...Read More

Global equity and fixed income markets have been in a state of tremendous trepidation, as fears of central bank tightening, combined with still slow economic growth have market participants frightened.  These issues really have been quite predictable and I don’t view much as having changed, as it is inevitable that at some point, interest rates...Read More

Here is the video of Tim Travis discussing Apple and the best way to approach the stock.  I hope that you enjoy! http://www.ttcapitalonline.com/media/ INVESTING IN THE FINANCIAL MARKETS INVOLVES RISKS. OPTIONS ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL INVESTORS.Read More

This was an exceptional interview on Bloomberg with Morgan Stanley (MS) CEO James Gorman.  Gorman correctly understands the global nature of the financial industry and the benefits of scale necessary to compete on that global level.  It is extremely obvious that the sum of the parts of these banks are greater than the current market...Read More

This article discusses some of the cheap stocks that are trading at low price to book values due to the European crisis.  While I agree that the European banks look interesting, I find U.S. banks to be the better buy because they trade at similar valuations despite higher capital ratios, and less exposure to European...Read More

It is absurd to think that because Facebook’s IPO hasn’t resulted in instant gains for investors that bought at the IPO price, the banks that led the underwriting are at fault.  IPO’s have the odds stacked against them for retail investors as insiders are selling their stock to the public.  They aren’t selling their shares...Read More

Berkshire Hathaway missed earnings estimates but the stock is still extremely undervalued.  I’m somewhat surprised their underwriting profit wasn’t great despite the benign P&C environment but I’ve yet to dig into the details too deeply.  I’d expect Buffett to do something big in the next 6 months as he has way too much cash, and...Read More

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-03/zuckerberg-facebook-backers-plan-to-sell-5-5-billion-in-stock.html INVESTING IN THE FINANCIAL MARKETS INVOLVES RISKS. OPTIONS ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL INVESTORS.Read More