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Your Money on My Mind

Week Ending 12.27

We took a holiday to gather our senses for '04. We hope it was a happy and healthy one for you and yours.

Week Ending 12.20

With the attack coming from all directions, this previously scandal free institution is still managing to draw record numbers of deposits from investors which has to make all parties stop and wonder why. Sure their were exoduses from Janus, Putnam and Strong but that was in protest and mainly staged by large pension funds.

Week Ending 12.13

Earlier in the week, the Dow flirted with 10,000 and finally on Thursday, it managed to break through that barrier for the first time since March of 2002. Only then, it was headed downward and significantly so. But that was then and as anyone you care to listen to these days, that benchmark is merely some sort of affirmation that we are firmly entrenched in a new bull market.

Week Ending 11.29

Several forces play against one another and in doing so, generally muck up a good situation. Consider those people who took out all of that equity.

Week Ending 11.22

You will probably not go back to your old job.

There is it, displayed in all of its plainness, a statement that is more than likely true. So you will need to get yourself employed in the same occupation at another company or change occupations.

Week Ending 11.15

This is the first two in our three part series on Jobs in America.

Week Ending 11.08

Dear Mr. Spitzer: Thanks again... I think. You have taken the industry that prided itself on 80 years of scandal free investing and made it seem, well, almost human.

Week Ending 11.01

The price tag for innovation will continue to climb and productivity will need bodies to get that done. Bodies that are not working just yet.

Week Ending 10.25

The question that needs to be asked at what looks to be a turning point should be: "are large capitalization companies the ones that will lead us to sustainable recovery?" The answer seems to be yes.

Week Ending 10.18

This selection is the first two of a three part series on the state of employment and the drag it will be on the economic recovery. The first part, Absolute Powerlessness..., speaks to many differing views of job creation and elimination. In the second part, Double Up and In the discussion continues with a look at the economic atmosphere that is designed to keep you off balance.

Week Ending 10.11

A strong dollar makes imports cheap. Americans like cheap products even as they rant about the loss of jobs to American and overseas companies on foreign shores. This appetite for outside goods has kept the recovery crippled, or at least that is the current unstated approach by those that the make policy.

Week Ending 10.04

I was disappointed to find out that he had switched from bonds to mutual funds as he put it, "just when mutual funds were being skewered in the news". He shrugged his shoulders in a can't win-for-losing manner and headed off. I thought bond investors were long termers, so to speak, shuffling among bonds and bond funds, looking for deals, laddering their portfolios.

Week Ending 09.27

Thomas Freidman of the New York Times said of the Bush administration that "the President has the reach but doesn't have the grasp".

Week Ending 09.20

I have always believed that if you look long at hard at nature, you will see money. Okay, maybe not the kind that (should) grow on trees, but the kind of money that follows the rules of nature.

Week Ending 09.13

We can't always rely on Mr. Spitzer to plow the fertile valley of Wall Street, although he has done an admirable job. We can't rely on the S.E.C. to help much either. They mean well and they try hard, but there are too many places in those corridors for good intentions to get lost. So it is up to us to do the job when no one is looking.

Week Ending 09.06

In the first eight months of this year, shooting off the dealer showroom like a Maserati, certain parts of the equity markets, the most volatile and risk laden issues have taken the rest of exchanges by the suspenders for the ride of their recent lives. Can it last? Better yet, should it have started at all?

Week Ending 08.30
We should be picking mutual funds using some criteria. Even if we haven't developed a good long range plan, how we pick a place to park our investment until we fully develop one is important. Mutual funds should be picked with track records.

Week Ending 08.23
The effect of time and the change in attitudes from one quarter to the next suggest that these numbers may not be worth a second glance if you are trying to find some solid economic footing. Consumers will remain somewhat downbeat as they remain somewhat jobless.

Week Ending 08.16
While the process to invest has become more intuitive, more orderly, and more available, it has yet to become a reasonable place to spend your money. Investments can be called many things but they are basically a shopping experience without compare.

Week Ending 08.09
Suppose for a minute that the old school thinking applies. That would mean the tax cut would be spent, dividend yielding stocks will outperform those that reinvest profits for growth and the lack of pricing power will be corrected with an uptick in inflation.

Week Ending 08.02
Vacation: July 22nd to August 5th

Week Ending 07.19
Spin the clock back four decades or so to the time when Wall Street announced a post-industrial change that would forever alter the way this country does business.

Week Ending 07.12
When this year ends, I replied, the markets will be up. If you jump in now although, you probably will be sadly disappointed in your personal return.

Week Ending 07.05
From the out of the shadows come those dark souls, the very ones often called bears, to point out the upcoming three months as a sort of retribution of the quarter past.

Week Ending 06.28
Will today's Federal Reserve rate cut of a quarter point mean anything to me? Are we still in a bear market or is this a new bull market?

Week Ending 06.21
While there was always a lot to worry about, now we are asked to worry about the growing difference of opinion from the executive suite and the investor pool.

Week Ending 06.14
After some unusual global and financial events, the increased price still doesn't signal a turnaround of this nature. Current prices continue to be out of whack. Are these stocks worth the cost at any price?

Week Ending 06.07
The Financial Times, usually a reserved publication had recently published the following comment: "But backbone alone may not be enough, unless Americans themselves recognise the growing risks in living beyond their means."

Week Ending 05.31
In case you failed to notice, there is a party in Washington these days. The heady moment when the Veep is needed to pass a bill that promises more jobs and more growth but really will do much of the opposite, has got to be as contagious as any other viral leap.

Week Ending 05.24
For those of you who don't understand this basic tenet of the tax code, supply side economists will tell you that the rich are paying a disproportionate amount of the taxes based on income.

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