Category Archives

Archive of posts published in the category: Financial

Capturing vs Creating Wealth

“Prevailing in Washington as on Wall Street were the most vile and self destructive assumptions of anti-capitalists everywhere who imagined they could wield capital even while abandoning the principles that created it; that systems could substitute for the moral standards

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The Liquidity Lie

To blame the mere shortage of cash for the evils caused by incompetence and corruption is the favorite lie of socialists and crony capitalists everywhere. Socialists always say there is no problem of inequality or poverty that can’t be solved

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Which is the Party of Wall Street?

The political stereotype is that the Republicans are the party of big money and Democrats are the party of the little guys.  But the reality is something else. Crony capitalists are those who use Washington to create a system that

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Catering to Deceit

I use a money management firm, Banyan Capital Management , owned and run by Gary Watkins.  Douglas Ott, II  is a portfolio manager for Banyan, and like Gary is a real student of the market.  I have been very satisfied

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Financial Regulation: The Solution is the Problem

George Melloan writes in The Wall Street Journal,  The Lessons of Basel’s Bean Counters Summarized: In 1988 the banking regulators from  20 leading industrial nations of the International Monetary Fund met in Switzerland and created Basel I to create a

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Is China a Bubble?

My first post of 2010 was The End of the China Decade, but it focused more on the rise of India. The New York Times published Contrarian Investor Sees Economic Crash in China by David Barboza seven days later. The

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The Iron Law of Bubbles

In A Short History of Financial Euphoria(1993), J. K. Galbraith takes a brief look at financial bubbles and draws conclusion about the similarities among them. The most remarkable of the early manias was not in stocks, but in tulip bulbs. The

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Preemptive Keynesianism

From Financial Fiasco by John Norberg “The financial strategist George Cooper, who wants to rehabilitate a Keynesian analysis of the financial market, sees similarities between interventionist economist John Maynard Keynes’s desire to stimulate demand in times of crisis and the

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Political Correlation to S&P 500

Jim Cramer shows a correlation between Obama’s rising disapproval ratings and the rise in the S&P 500.  While correlation is not necessarily causation it is worth noting.

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Financial IQ

From James Grant’s “Mr. Market Miscalculates. “ “ I urge the regulatory bodies of the U.S. to incorporate an IQ test into their security licensing. No minimum passing grade would be mandated, but no one with an IQ of over

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Political Control Freaks

TARP is often FORCED onto banks and then used as a means of control. It is a disturbing act to say the least. In “Obama Wants to Control the Banks” by Stuart Varney in the Wall Street Journal Online describes

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HKO’s Top Seven Stock Picks

My seven speculative stock picks with sector and price as of 4/1/09 opening. China Medical Technologies – medical- 13.77- CMED Nucor- steel- 38.17- NUE Tata Motors- auto- 4.93- TTM Diamond Foods- foods products- 27.93- DMND Suntrust Bank- banking- 11.74- STI

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401k Strategies

Some of my employees have started to panic because of the losses in their 401k. While I am precluded from advising specifically, I do advise that they consider a 20/ 20 rule. If they have less than $20,000 in their

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The Junkie’s Dilemma

by Henry Oliner The history of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dates back to FDR and LBJ. Their mission was to provide mortgage loans to middle and lower income citizens. But like so many popular government programs (including health care)

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Before You Let Your Term Policy Expire

Many of us have term policies to insure a specific period; for instance until the kids graduate college or until the house is paid for. Typically we let the polices lapse when we no longer need them. According to Mark

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