Health care companies are clearly in play, so it’s time to dissect various ETFs that canvass the space.
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Comments »Monthly Archives: August 2012
Arnott: Emerging Markets Still Look Good
Rob Arnott’s Research Affiliates can now boast about $60 billion in assets that use “fundamental” indexes from his Newport Beach, Calif.-based company that screens stocks based on book value, cash flow, sales and dividends. One wonders if the future of indexing will feature Arnott more and more. When IndexUniverse.com Managing Editor Olly Ludwig sat down with Arnott in his office, they talked about his disagreement with indexing legend John Bogle, the state of the ETF industry and the allure of investing in relatively debt-free emerging markets countries.
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Comments »If Only the Gov’t Went After Bankers Like they Do Athletes
It is a good question as to why this is so….
urrounded as we are these days by financial malfeasance on such an epic scale, the amount of time and money spent hunting down the facts as to whether former Major League pitcher Roger Clemens and seven-time Tour de France cycling champ Lance Armstrong took performance-enhancing drugs to gain an edge is something of a mystery. When an actor gives a cocaine-fueled, Oscar-winning performance, do we take his award away? Do we reclaim a singer’s Grammy, or put an asterisk after it in the record books, when we discover that he was ramped up on illegal substances? Why all the outrage over athletes? The recent Clemens trial involved his alleged perjury before a 2008 congressional committee, when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs. The case consumed more than two years of federal prosecutors’ time, cost the government an estimated $2 million to $3 million, and resulted in an acquittal.
Let’s face it, who among us wouldn’t take a pill or potion that would make us better at our job? Goodness knows, we abuse substances for just about everything in our personal lives; why not in our professional lives as well? Writers, artists, composers, and other practitioners of the lonely arts have historically relied on a trio of little helpers: booze, coffee, and cigarettes. They’re not illegal, but the first one, used in quantity, can certainly kill you. And the last one, if the anti-smoking lobby is to be believed, can kill not just you but those around you as well.
The government’s attitude toward different professions is striking. With sports scandals, it zeros in on individuals. But when it comes to banks, federal authorities go after the institutions—when they go after anything at all. The people at the center of a financial scandal are almost never touched, and most walk away with compensation packages that would make a cable-news anchor or a talk-show host blush.
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NSA Mathematicians
When I was a promising young mathematician in college, I met someone from the NSA who tried to recruit me to work for the spooks in the summer. Actually, “met someone” is misleading- he located me after I had won a prize.
I didn’t know what to think, so I accepted his invitation to visit the institute, which was in La Jolla, in Southern California (I went to UC Berkeley so it wasn’t a big trip).
When I got to the building, since I didn’t have clearance, everybody had to stop working the whole time I was there. It wasn’t enough to clean their whiteboards, one of them explained, they had to wash them down with that whiteboard spray stuff, because if you look at a just-erased whiteboard in a certain way you can decipher what had been written on it.
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Comments »The Empire State Building Shooting Was Mostly Perpetrated by Cops
But the Empire State Building shooting — two dead, nine others wounded — wasn’t really a mass shooting. Or, if it was, it was mostly perpetrated by two police officers.
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Comments »Interactive Map: Paul Ryan vs. Obama Budget Details; Path of Destruction
It is indeud worth the wait for the interactive chart.
I have been digging into the details of President Obama’s budget plan vs. Paul Ryan’s budget plan. What I found was so sickening that I asked my friend Ross Perez at Tableau Software for a display.
The interactive map below may take a few seconds. It will be worth your wait.
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Comments »Where Has the Retail Investor Gone?
Ritholtz is out with 10 reasons the typical investor has been driven away from equities.
Read the article here.
Comments »Tropical Storm Isaac (5 Day Forcast)
Tropical Storm Isaac (Computer Models)
Documentary: Hidden Human History
Fun with historical facts.
Cheers on your weekend!
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAm-kbzT7xw&feature=related 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjp8yuEBjxs 450 300] Comments »Area In Front Of Empire State Building Closed Following Shooting Of 5 People
Comments »Multiple people have been shot and at least one killed in a shooting near the Empire State Building.
At least eight people were shot when gunfire broke out at 34th Street and Fifth Avenue around 9 a.m. Friday. Police said the gunman was shot and killed.
What Percent are You ?
Republicans to Create a ‘Gold Commission’
“The gold standard has returned to mainstream U.S. politics for the first time in 30 years, with a “gold commission” set to become part of official Republican party policy.”
Comments »Walmart, Target And Other Big Retailers Lobbied Successfully For Exemption From SEC Conflict Mineral Rule
Leaked Documents Connect Romney To Adelson, Casinos, Cigarettes
Citi Unit to Pull $410 Million From Paulson Hedge Funds
” The blows keep coming for hedge fund manager John Paulson, with Citi Private Bank deciding it will withdraw $410 million from Paulson & Co.’s flagship Advantage funds, according to people familiar with the decision.
Citi discussed its plan to pull capital from Paulson’s Advantage funds, which have recorded double-digit losses so far this year, on a Thursday morning call with its private bank advisers, said one of the people familiar with the decision, but who was not on the call.”
Comments »Orders for Capital Goods Decrease by Most Since November
“Demand for U.S. capital goods such as machinery and communications gear dropped in July by the most in eight months, indicating companies are pulling back on investment.
Bookings for non-military capital equipment excluding planes slumped 3.4 percent, a Commerce Department report showed in Washington. Total orders for goods meant to last at least three years jumped 4.2 percent, paced by a 54 percent surge in demand for civilian aircraft.
Possible U.S. tax increases and spending cuts and a global economic slowdown are hurting companies such as Caterpillar Inc. and Deere & Co., indicating manufacturing will no longer be a driver of the expansion. Federal Reserve policy makers have signaled that are prepared to take further steps to sustain the expansion if growth doesn’t pick up.
“Companies just want to be prepared for the worst-case scenario,” Omair Sharif, a U.S. economist at RBS Securities Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut, said before the report. “They want to enter the post-election and post-fiscal cliff period with lean inventories. That’s going to be a drag on manufacturing.”
Comments »Sentier Research: US Incomes Fell More in Recovery Than During Crisis
“Americans’ incomes declined more in the three-year expansion that started in June 2009 than during the longest recession since the Great Depression, according an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by Sentier Research LLC.
Median household income fell 4.8 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis since the recession ended in June 2009, more than the 2.6 percent drop during the 18-month contraction, the research firm’s Gordon Green and John Coder wrote in a report today. Household income is 7.2 percent below the December 2007 level, the former Census Bureau economic statisticians wrote.
“Almost every group is worse off than it was three years ago, and some groups had very large declines in income,” Green, who previously directed work on the Census Bureau’s income and poverty statistics program, said in a phone interview Thursday. “We’re in an unprecedented period of economic stagnation.”
Comments »$CRM Down 4% On Mixed Guidance
Salesforce.com reported a stellar q yesterday, but trade down in ?A.H. and this am as its guidance was mixed.
Comments »Gapping Up and Down This Morning
Gapping up
SVU +17.9%, ARUN +15.2%, POZN +7.9%, JAKK +4.2%, MENT +3.4%, MCRS +2.3%,
EAT +1.9%, MCP +1.7%, QEP +1.4%, VHC +2.3% , AEO +0.5%, ROSG +2.2% ,
BKH +2.9%, AMRN +3.9%, JAKK +4.2%, SOL +3.4%,
Gapping down
CRM -5%, NOK -4.4%, RUE -3.9%, ENDP -3.5%, ELOS -3.1%, ZUMZ -2.8%,
RIO -2.3%, BCS -2.1%, GGP -1.6%, BBL -1.6%, DB -1%, BIG -1.2%, SPLS -0.7% ,
ELOS -3.1% , ZUMZ -2.8% , ATPG -14.6%,
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