I strive to be smart, wise, analytical, creative, intuitive, and informative. I hope to help make you a better active investment management pro.
I recommend you start with the Best of the Blog.
Intuitive Assessment of Middle East Unrest
There are currently 11 countries in the Middle East that are experiencing either anti-regime or demand-for-change protests. With issues involving such gigantic complexity facts oftentimes stop short of generating either a clear or fully descriptive picture of what is happening. Here I am going to take each of the countries in turn and use an intuitive process to contribute to the plethora of factual information already available. Note: I don’t think of intuition as a substitute for factual analysis, but as a compliment. I...
read more‘Flash Crash’ Panel Emphasizes Computer Trading’s Problems
After last May’s gigantic, all in a single moment, financial market sell off – now known as the “Flash Crash” – a joint-committee was created by both the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to review the causes. Friday saw the publishing of the joint SEC-CFTC committee’s report and, in short, it emphasizes that change needs to occur to limit the affect of some of the abusive practices of computer-based traders that lead to tremendous market...
read moreIs Apple Stock Cheap? – The Fallacy of PEG Ratios
WHAT IS THE PEG RATIO? In case you have never come across this quaint, and potentially dangerous, little valuation shortcut, let me provide a brief overview. The PEG ratio compares the price to earnings (P/E) ratio of a business to its expected future growth rate (G); this period is typically five years. P/E ÷ G = PEG ratio. Sometimes you will see a P/E ratio in the calculation that utilizes next year’s expected earnings, rather than the more typical version that uses the company’s current P/E. The supposed wisdom behind the PEG ratio says...
read moreChinese Inflation is Overflowing
China’s People’s Bank announced this morning that it is raising bank’s reserve requirements for the second time this year. Again, this is to help stave off inflation in China. The specifics of this move on the part of China’s banking authority are not interesting. What is interesting about Chinese efforts at fighting inflation are: 1. The many methods of inflation fighting that are being employed by the Chinese. 2. The frequency of these announcements is accelerating. MANY METHODS OF INFLATION...
read more17 February 2011: Wall Street Journal Quotes my Forbes Contributor Piece
Yesterday I wrote a piece about the Delaware Chancery Court’s upholding the use of poison pill plans by boards of directors. The piece was simultaneously published here on the “What My Intuition Tells Me Now” blog and on my Forbes Contributor page. Well today that Jason Apollo Voss Forbes Contributor piece was quoted in the Wall Street Journal. I am quite satisfied to have been featured in the WSJ twice in one week!
read moreObstacles to Accessing Your Intuition, Part One
Intuition is a powerful remedy to our western culture’s emphasis on left-brain, analytical education where answers and outcomes are unrealistically controlled and certain. All of us have had the experience of taking our left-brain knowledge into the world only to encounter tough situations where facts just don’t answer important questions for us. Questions like: what should I invest in now; can I trust the management team of this prospective investment; in what direction is the economy headed; and what is the effect of this news story on my...
read moreDelaware Court’s Poison Pill Ruling is Bad for Shareholder Value
Back in January I wrote about poison pill plans – one of the biggest destroyers of shareholder value. These nasty little board of directors tools are designed to prevent so-called “hostile” takeovers. Instead what they do is prevent most bids for acquiring a business by making the cost of an acquisition artificially high. Put in place back in the early 1980s by most of corporate America, poison pill plans effectively destroyed corporate “raiding.” My preference as a shareholder is for there to be lots...
read moreFourth Quarter GDP Barely Grows in the Eurozone
Fourth quarter eurozone GDP (gross domestic product) grew at a very slow pace of 0.3%. Growth of this magnitude is barely above 0.0% and indicates just how precarious the economic recovery is in Europe. Analysis: Officially the low rate of growth is being attributed to bad weather throughout Europe. Yet the growth rate in the fourth quarter was the same pace as in the third quarter, which was not plagued by bad weather. While it’s true that bad weather slowed construction in Germany by 25% – a huge percentage – the...
read moreEffects of a Chinese inflation rate above government targets
This morning the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics announced that their version of the CPI (consumer price index) rose 4.9% in January, as compared to the year before. Officially the 2011 inflation target for China is 4.0%. So the actual rate logged for last month is 22.5% higher than targeted. Analysis: Clearly the Chinese government is continuing to struggle with inflation in its economy. The overriding problem is that there is just too much cash, and an ever growing pile of cash, is chasing a basket of goods that just...
read more15 February 2011: Jason Apollo Voss Featured in SmartMoney’s Cover Story
I am quoted in SmartMoney magazine’s March cover story entitled, “The Power of Gold: The Risks and Rewards.” Props to Russell Pearlman the story’s writer with whom I had a very good rapport. The entire article is excellent, but here’s what I had to say: “Other investors go so far as to say there’s a gold bubble, inflated by the biggest wave of economic anxiety since the Great Depression, that will burst the moment people stop being nervous about the economy. Jason Apollo Voss, a former...
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