The close of the worst decade for stocks in history

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Dec 21, 2009 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 2 comments Happy solstice folks! This morning’s Wall Street Journal has an article entitled, “Investors Hope the ’10s Beat the ’00s.” The story highlights that the past decade is the very worst decade for stocks in the 200 or so years that their performance has been tracked in the United States. On average, folks lost 0.5% per year in the past decade. This is not a very...
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Beware the adjectives

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Dec 11, 2009 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 9 comments Another Friday, another retail sales report, and another exaggeration from the Wall Street Journal. Beware the adjectives. Here are the facts about retail sales for the month of November… The Commerce Department reported that U.S. retail sales were up 1.3% in November. This figure was twice what economists had been expecting. Further, the 1.3% rise compares to a (revised down to) 1.1%...
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Quant out, qual in

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Nov 23, 2009 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments Good morning folks! J.P. Morgan Asset Management has just published results of its annual European Equity Survey. This survey covered the 128 largest institutional investors in Europe. Of those 128, 102, managing over $3 trillion, said that they were more inclined than a year ago to favor qualitative approaches to investing than quantitative. Only 1 in 10 of the big investors said that they are...
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Let the whining begin

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Nov 11, 2009 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments As I predicted whining has begun about reduced pay packages at financial firms bailed out by the U.S. taxpayer. Specifically, AIG’s CEO Robert Benmosche is threatening to step down at a critical juncture in AIG’s restructuring. Primarily he is upset by pay. And now the Wall Street Journal is featuring a video story entitled, “Why we need fat Wall Street Bonuses.” Is that...
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The toll

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Sep 30, 2009 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments Yesterday the International Monetary Fund (IMF) disclosed its estimate of future bank losses due to the BURSTING of the mortgage bubble. The number: $1.5 trillion. Not exactly chump change. This amount is, however, $600 billion less than its April forecast. The reduction in the estimated losses is due almost entirely to a rise in the value of securities held by banks. Meaning that the estimated...
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Some brief comments about the environment

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Sep 25, 2009 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 1 comment Happy Friday everyone. I hope that this post finds all of you doing well. I wanted to make a few brief comments about the environment, especially as it applies to our modern capitalist economy. Primarily the focus is on two things that dramatically affect the environment: The “dead end” nature of artificial chemicals and other people-made products. The importance of accurate pricing...
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Our culture of lying

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Sep 13, 2009 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments Let’s step slightly outside the bounds of finance and talk about something that distresses me; something not often discussed in our culture. Namely, our culture of lying. I bring this up, not to moralize (because that’s not me), but to send up a corrupting influence in our society. When I say culture of lying I am referring to lies both small and large. In the small lie category we...
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