Are we ahead of ourselves? (revisited)

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Sep 4, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments For today’s post I wanted to excerpt a portion of a newsletter that my father in-law Steve, a financial advisor, receives. The following comes from “Leeb’s Market Forecast”: “It’s amazing that stocks have held up they way they have. Ostensibly, the market’s advance has occurred in anticipation of the economy recovering, but for all the talk of “green shoots” a few...
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Economic news positive

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Sep 3, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Wow! I go away for a week and the economic stats are rosier suddenly. Maybe I should go away more often. Today saw many retailers post encouraging results for the month of August. Same-store sales nationwide still declined 2.9%, but this compared to an analyst expectation of a 3.8% drop. Same store sales are exactly what the name implies. Because the comparison for the same store is made to last...
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Thank you Brett Arends

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Sep 3, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Hello everyone, First things first…Jamaica was magnificent. Dawn and I stayed at her parent’s place in Treasure Beach. I highly recommend this area of Jamaica to anyone for its unspoiled beaches, clean water, outstanding weather and sweet people. When I say unspoiled beach I mean it. For the entire week we were there we saw only 5 other people! To have crystalline green Caribbean...
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Are we ahead of ourselves?

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Aug 27, 2009 in Blog | 2 comments The various stock markets have all rallied massively since their March 9 lows. Some market prognosticators who made similar market bottom calls as I did are now saying that stocks are overvalued and may correct from here. “Correct” means fall back down to fair value. So where do I stand relative to the valuation of stocks in general? I do not think that stocks, in general, are...
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Journlists are contrarian indicators follow up

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Aug 26, 2009 in Blog | 1 comment You may remember that earlier this Spring I wrote a post about the fact that Brett Arends of the Wall Street Journal was saying investors should be staying away from the stock market. I stated in the post that journalists are one of my favorite contrarian indicators. Because of their public personae and presence they are necessarily conservative. They would rather not look wrong than be right....
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Small sign that credit markets are loosening

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Aug 25, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Over the weekend Warner Chilcott announced that it was buying Proctor and Gamble’s prescription drug business for $3 billion. While the size of the transaction is small the entire amount of the deal is being financed with debt. This is important because Warner Chilcott is already a heavily indebted firm with a low credit rating. Because investment banks are willing to step up with billions...
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Sleazy Wall Street practices continue

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Aug 24, 2009 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 1 comment Monday’s Wall Street Journal carried a story about a sleazy practice on the part of Goldman Sachs. The piece states that Goldman analysts regularly report stock tips at “trading huddles” in advance of a public declaration in research reports. This would not be a big deal but frequently the Firm’s traders are in attendance at these meetings and they often call...
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