Investors are in a buying mood

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 8, 2011 in Blog | 2 comments Friday’s Wall Street Journal reported a very interesting thing, that corporations had sold $35 billion worth of bonds in the first week of the year.  Last year saw the biggest opening week since 1995.  So, in other words, investors are clearly in a buying mood. For me, this is a strong indication that folks are feeling comfortable enough about the credit worthiness of businesses and about...
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December unemployment situation, better, not best

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 7, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments Good morning everyone.  I hope that this post finds each of you doing well! The Department of Labor announced just a short while ago the following data about the U.S. unemployment situation: Private sector jobs up 113,000 vs. expectations of 150,000 jobs to be created Unemployment rate down to 9.4% vs. an expected rate of 9.7% November private sector jobs revised up to 71,000 from 39,000...
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‘Our culture of lying’ strikes again

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 7, 2011 in Blog | 3 comments Thursday’s Wall Street Journal reported that AT&T has started calling its wireless network a 4G network.  That’s the form of it.  The substance is that the network is identical to the 3G network it had up until the moment of its press release.  That is, AT&T is lying. While true that AT&T is building out a massive 4G network, that network is far from complete.  But...
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Contexts are powerful

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 6, 2011 in Blog | 2 comments Today’s New York Times has an article entitled, “A Bonanza in TV Sales Fades Away” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/technology/06sets.html?_r=1&ref=business) that is an excellent example of the need for contexts, as featured in my book The Intuitive Investor, to help unlock the power of your intuition.  Contexts are designed to help someone use their intuition to evaluate...
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Labor market clearly improving

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 6, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments This morning the Department of Labor released weekly jobless claims data (I can’t wait to not feel like I have to report this data).  The results are encouraging.  While the weekly number showed an increase in jobless claims of 18,000 to a total of 409,000, the four-week moving average showed a decline of 3,500 to 410,750.  Analysis: All of the jobless claims data in the last 5 weeks...
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Another Chinese (not Panda) bear

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 6, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments Andy Xie, ex-Morgan Stanley economist, seems to be drawing similar conclusions as me when looking at the Chinese economy.  Writing for China Century Weekly he made many similar statements to those I made in my 2011 Predictions post. For example, I said the following: “The Chinese are on the brink of two ugly things: massive asset inflation and the bursting of that bubble, and social...
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Surge in car sales is important

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jan 5, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that U.S. auto sales were up 11% in December. Analysis: This is, again, an important economic figure.  The reason is that it shows that U.S. consumers are feeling better about their long-term financial situation and to a degree that is high enough that they are willing to take on additional debt.  That debt is a budget burden for many years.  So to take...
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