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24 posts tagged with "Consumer Spending"
I am on a plane (yet again) from Zurich to Mallorca, where I will meet with my European and South American partners, have some fun, and relax before heading to Denmark and London. With the mad rush to finish my book (more on that later) and a hectic schedule this week, I have not had time to write...
What's a Fed to do? We get talk about tightening and taking away the easy credit, but we got the fourth largest monetization on record last week. This week we examine the elements of deflation, look at some banking statistics that are not optimistic, and then I write a reply to my great friend Bill...
The old adage that one should "sell in May and walk away" has been around for years. I mentioned that bromide about this time last year, urging readers to head for the sidelines if they had not already done so. I was also suggesting a strategic retreat in August of 2006 (after which the markets...
This week we look at the second half of my speech from a few weeks ago at my annual Strategic Investment Conference in La Jolla. If you have not read the first part, you can review it here. The first few paragraphs are a repeat from last week, to give us some context. Please note that this is...
When confronted about an apparent change of his opinions, John Maynard Keynes is reported to have said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" The earnings season for the 4th quarter is almost 80% complete, and the facts are dismal. It is worse than the current data shows,...
Where are we headed in 2009? We will explore that in detail over the next few issues of Thoughts from the Frontline, but today we will start with some of the larger forces which will have a major impact on the economies of the world, and I will end with my usual attempt to forecast the various...
As long-time readers know, my daughter Tiffani and I are interviewing millionaires for a book we will be writing called Eavesdropping on Millionaires.
This has been one of the more personally impacting projects of my life, as the stories we hear are so very provocative. I hope we can transfer to...
In general, we consider it a good thing to save money and to "owe no man anything save love." But what happens when a debt-happy society wakes up and decides that saving is a good thing for everybody? What happens when banks and hedge funds decide (or are forced) to reduce their debt? What happens...
Warren Buffett says buy. Jeremy Grantham says it will get worse. Both are celebrated value investors. Who is right? It all depends upon your view of the third derivative of investing. Today we look at valuations in the stock market. This is the second part of a speech I have given in the past few...
This week I am in California giving two speeches to the Financial Planning Associations of San Diego and Orange County. This and next week's letters will be the broad outline of the speech. We will look at how the retreat of the American consumer will affect the stock market. Has the recent drop...
This week I am in Maine on vacation with my son, and next week is my daughter Tiffani's wedding, so for the next two weeks I am going to send an updated version of a speech I have been giving the past few months on what I think is the likely potential for the rise of a brand new asset class. It is...
Today we drop back to take a look at the economy and its long term effect on our portfolio returns. I am in Orlando this week, speaking at the Newport Advisor Conference sponsored by the Newport Group. The attendees are primarily investment advisors focused on larger retirement accounts and...
What does a recession look like? How does it feel? What does it mean for your life and your investments? We explore these questions and more in this week's letter. I have been working on this letter all week, and think you will find it interesting.
But first, one interesting observation and a...
Consumer spending was much stronger than thought in November, yet Circuit City Stores Inc., Best Buy Co. and other retailers that warned of a slump in purchases. A private report today showed consumer confidence slid to the lowest level in more than two years in December. The stock market chooses...
This week we look at inflation. Is it just over 2%, giving the Fed room to cut rates, or will it be closer to 4% by the next FOMC meeting, making a rate cut problematic? How do they get those numbers? When and how can two opposite things be true at the same time? The answer depends on how many...
Just when it felt like it was safe to get back in the water, a second and potentially much meaner version of this summer's credit crisis has reappeared. This week we look at why there are more mortgage write downs coming (in a self-fulfilling prophecy) in the financial sector, how an obscure new...
Are we on a slippery slope of a recession, or was last quarter's weak GDP a turning point? This week's travel shortened e-letter looks at recent data and re-visits some thoughts on consumer spending from friend Joe Ellis' superb book called Ahead of the Curve. This week I wrote from a rainy...
I am taking some time off from writing over the holidays, but good friend Barry Ritholtz offered to write this week's letter. It is a very thought-provoking piece on the importance of what he calls the "real estate industrial complex" to the economy. Loaded with charts and statistics, it is the...
One of my favorite cartoons of all time is that of a very scrawny mouse caught out in an open field with a rather large hawk swooping down on it. There is no place to run, no place to hide. All the mouse can do is face the hawk and give him the bird, so to speak. The caption runs something...
Are we in for a soft or a hard landing? Did retail sales slow, as the data suggest, or is the underlying data quite bullish? We will look at the arguments, and then look at the most reliable of all economic indicators to see if we can get an idea as to which view is right.
But first, I want...
