‘Buy and hold’ is a myth that I hope dies an ugly death just like the Efficient Market Hypothesis. When one looks at the numbers, it is as plain as day that the stock market moves in sweeping trends that take decades to unfold.

This chart from the New York Times demonstrates visually what happens when the Fed lowers interest rates too much: it skews simple economic decisions like what type of mortgage product to use, often with unintended consequences.

Similarly low rates on adjustable rate mortgages enticed buyers into the housing bubble.

Now that we are practically guaranteed to add the Fannie and Freddie debt to the already robust debt levels of the US Government, its a good time to look at what the Government’s accountant (GAO) says about its fiscal position going forward.

In two words: not good.

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One reason many pundits feel this particular downturn will be quite nasty is the level of debt consumers have versus their savings. Since July 1982, when the stock market bottomed, Americans have been dis-saving and leveraging up like nobody’s business.
Since Alan Greenspan became Federal Reserve Chairman in 1987, the Federal Reserve has always supplied [...]

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Here are some charts from the latest issue of Barron’s. They have a readable article on bear markets (for those of you subscribed to it) as the Dow was down over 20% last week. That’s supposed to mark the beginning of a bear market as the chart below suggests.

First off, I have no [...]

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Japan suffered one of the most horrific market meltdowns in history from 1984-2004. Only four years after the last market bottom and on the verge of another global market downturn, it even may be too early to use the past tense to describe the bubble.
Yet, Japan offers a remarkable lesson regarding easy money and [...]

As we prepare for another week in the markets, it bears remembering that Bear markets are not an orgy of pain with indices going straight down. Along the way, there are always brief rallies which bring optimism that the worst is over. But, the indices then resume their downtrend until capitulation is reached and almost everyone is bearish.

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The chart below is yet another from Perot Charts. I have no particular message in mind with this chart except to inform my readers how the government gets and uses tax monies.
One issue to note is the outsize proportion of taxes that come from individuals despite the U.S. having a relatively high corporate tax [...]

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Perot Charts is Ross Perot’s attempt to reintroduce himself into politics in the US. From his standpoint, the U.S. is running an irresponsible fiscal policy that will only lead to ruin. His chart on the U.S. national debt, now over $9 trillion, starts with an introduction from Richard Fisher, the head of the [...]

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At 8:30 EDT this morning, the Labor department released its jobless claims numbers. The numbers are not appreciably different than a week ago. But they are largely consistent with recession: 384,000 jobless claims and 3,139,000 continuing claims.
Year-on-year changes:

4-week Average jobless claims: +62,250 (at 378,250 claims)
4-week Average continuing claims: +592,500 (at 3,103,250 claims)

Below are the [...]