Benjamin Graham (the founder of value investing) originally came up with the concept of margin of safety.  The idea is to buy a security at a large enough discount to its true worth, that you can greatly reduce your chances of losses, while also maintaining a maximum profit potential.  To determine intrinsic value, one uses...Read More

As I write this, the Dow has experienced its longest losing streak since 2011. Nearly 1/4th of the way into 2017, we are finally seeing some real volatility and more attractive investment opportunities are popping up each day.Read More

Well that was one heck of a week.  While I certainly was not smart enough to predict the results of the election, it has had a profound impact on my expectations for us as investors.  For the last 7 years, I’ve been one of the most vocal advocates of financial stocks that I am aware...Read More

As we sit in year-7 of a historic bull market, with earnings likely to decline for the 3rd consecutive quarter, the lack of a margin of safety in most stocks, bonds, and real estate is becoming painfully obvious. The Federal Reserve’s record-low interest rate policies have driven all asset classes higher, to levels where the...Read More

I’ve been writing extensively about the incredible undervaluation of the big banks relative to intrinsic value. Financials in general are by far and away the cheapest and most attractive area of the stock market.  Remember banks have been around for many centuries, and the reason for that is it’s a pretty good business to be...Read More

July 29th, the Federal Reserve announced the results of the CCAR process including the requested capital return actions for the big banks. Unsurprisingly to those that have been reading this newsletter, the results were very good and we have seen an influx of dramatic dividend increases and stock buybacks. Below I’ll outline a few of...Read More

Last Thursday’s Brexit vote led to a historically nightmarish day in the financial markets: Indexes across the globe were down between 3-10%. The British pound dropped from a high of $1.50 to $1.32, before finally recovering to $1.37, down an enormous 9% for the currency. European banks stocks were down between 15 and 20%. S....Read More

It has been an interesting few weeks. While Federal Reserve officials have been hyping up the possibility of raising interest rates in June or July, Friday’s incredibly poor jobs report seems likely to delay any hike until September at the earliest. For many short-term oriented traders, bank stocks have become a trading tool to speculate...Read More

When markets become volatile my job gets a lot more exciting and this year is off to a good start, so I thought I’d continue the education process.  Emerging markets are experiencing extreme volatility out of concerns that money is flowing out of their economies, making them unable to pay off debt in U.S. dollars. ...Read More