Surging holiday sales

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Dec 23, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments Today’s edition of the New York Times is reporting a rise in this season’s holiday sales.  Specifically the International Council of Shopping Centers is expecting holiday sales to be up 3.5-4.0%.  Separately, ShopperTrak reported that traffic was up 3% and that the total dollar value of sales this past weekend, the last before Christmas, were up 5.5%.  In absolute dollar terms this...
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23 December 2010: Publishers Weekly mention…

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Dec 23, 2010 in News & Events | 0 comments The Intuitive Investor: A Radical Guide for Manifesting Wealth received a mention in the December 20, 2010 issue of Publishers Weekly.  Here is the link and here is what they had to say: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/new-titles/adult-announcements/article/45557-going-for-broke.html?page=2 “For those readers in the market for a more philosophical and spiritual approach, Select...
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Tiny bubbles

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Dec 22, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments After the dot.com bubble burst in the late 90s I had hoped that investors would have digested lessons of what an asset bubble looked like.  But as the years of the 00s ticked themselves off it was obvious that the unconscious greed that permeated your average Joe and Jane Doe-Trader had not been blown out of the system.  Even as early as 2003 at the Davis Funds we were talking about the fact...
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Aligning incentives at gargantuan banks

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Dec 21, 2010 in Blog | 1 comment News is swirling around on Wall Street about new incentive-based compensation rules being proposed for the nation’s largest banks.  The specifics of the proposed rules are not that interesting.  What is interesting is that the overarching strategy.  Aligning incentives with desired behaviors.  Genius!  Radically regulators are talking about awarding stock and deferred compensation to...
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Our culture of lying – introducing Web Listings, Inc.

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Dec 17, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments Last year I wrote about “our culture of lying” and the effects that permeate the United States.  Specifically I highlighted the disingenuous business practices that exist throughout our country.  Today I want to provide another example of that type of behavior. Two days ago I received in the mail a letter that had every appearance of a bill.  In fact, the letter that arrived says:...
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16 December 2010: Interview with KSFR’s Diego Mulligan on “The Journey Home”

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Dec 16, 2010 in News & Events | 0 comments Here is the audio of my interview with KSFR’s The Journey Home host Diego Mulligan from 10 December, 2010.  Over the years I am guessing that I have done over 100 interviews and this is one of my two favorites!  Diego asked trenchant and important questions about The Intuitive Investor and we both had a lot of fun. Follow this link to hear the streaming audio:...
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Jobless claims data improves

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Dec 16, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments Labor Department figures released today show that initial jobless claims in the United States fell by 3,000 to 420,000.  Meanwhile, the four-week moving average was a decline in claims of 5,250 to 422,750. Analysis: Some media outlets are pointing to these figures as evidence of a slowly improving labor market.  My own opinion is that these data fall well within the bounds of statistical error. ...
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