Consumer credit quality is stabilizing

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 20, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments A number of the nation’s largest banks, including Wells Fargo and Bank of America, have reported their fourth quarter and full year earnings results. Many of them are reporting that consumer credit quality is stabilizing. In other words, folks previously not paying their bills are now paying their bills again. Analysis: Because the ultimate economic statistic is consumer spending, anything...
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A classic mislead on the part of Allstate

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 15, 2010 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 4 comments The car insurance company, Allstate, is currently running an ad in which it says, “Last year GEICO customers who switched to Allstate saved an average of $473 on their car insurance.” While I paraphrased the punch line, this is the gist of their commercial. This is a classic example of a deeply misleading ad, one true in form, but off in substance. What many manipulators of...
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A calculated lack of economic reporting

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 15, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments Howdy! You may have noticed that I have dialed back my blogging regarding economic statistics. This is a calculated choice on my part. Because there is solid evidence of the economy stabilizing, the importance of economic data to investors has diminished. A year ago every report contained important information worth understanding. But now the plethora of important economic data has been replaced...
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Earnings results not moving the stock markets

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 15, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments Happy Friday folks! This week has seen a string of positive earnings reports – and yes, revenue growth has been a part of the story. Yet, despite these strong results the stock markets have gone sideways, barely up, and very down. Hmm. I can assure you that this performance does not have to do with the dire situation in Haiti. No, this combination of solid earnings results with an...
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14 January 2010: I got a book deal with SelectBooks of NYC.

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 14, 2010 in News & Events | 0 comments After a year and a half of searching for a publisher for “The Intuitive Investor,” I finally have a signed book deal with Select Books of New York!  The expected publication date is autumn of this year.  Look for it at a bookstore near you.
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OMG – even more hypocrisy

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 13, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments Alright, so I felt that I was done for the day, but then comes this crazy CNN story, “Haiti Was Warned About Quake Risk.” A paper presented in late 2008 by two scientists at the “18th Caribbean Geological Conference” stated that an earthquake posed “a major seismic hazard.” The implication of CNN’s headline is that the government of Haiti was warned and...
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New SEC investigative chiefs named – big deal

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 13, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments The Securities Exchange Commission today announced that it is naming 5 chiefs to head 5 new investigative units of the SEC. Big deal. It’s not that the SEC re-organizing itself to deal with Wall Street is not a big deal, it is; it’s that without more funding, the SEC remains overwhelmed. Two years ago I created a post in which I demonstrated that the Federal government provides more...
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