…Calmly observing the changing world

Today, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to 1%. Don’t get confused though, you can’t borrow money at 1%, just the banks. Can you imagine what you could do if you could borrow money so inexpensively? I’m sure the banks have a few ideas of their own too. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? The [...]

In a market where 6.5% moves aren’t even worthy of a blog entry, it takes something truly unusual to get people excited. That something happened early this morning. In today’s 24/7 “always on” investment world, we all reluctantly acknowledge that stocks don’t stop going up or down just because a bell rings in New York. Although, [...]

Some stocks fall in bear markets, but others completely collapse.  Once the darling of day traders and those trying to cash in on the commodities bull, Dryships Inc. has fallen from a high of $131.34 to a low of $15.80. With an 88% decline, its chart looks more like a financial company than an up-and-coming [...]

It’s always a good bet to predict that unexpected and unusual things will happen in the future.  What’s much more difficult – is to predict what those things will actually be. One very unusual situation to spring up in the last few weeks occurred in the tiny but always entertaining world of silver – yes, [...]

One year ago, on October 10th, 2007, the S&P 500 crested at 1576.  Yesterday, on October 10th, 2008 the S&P 500 hit 840, representing a 46.7% decline.  The stock market as a whole has – so far – lost 9 trillion dollars.  Much worse, however, is that an investor who entered the market 10 years [...]

If you were going to guess which country would be the first to succumb to the financial collapse, you probably wouldn’t have come up with Iceland, even though the island nation has been battling a currency crisis since the Spring. After all, Iceland has no real national debt to speak of, and significant low cost [...]

It seems like only yesterday that the stock market could shrug off any issue as irrelevant.  Decline of the dollar?  ”Good news for exports!” yelled the markets.  Nuclear proliferation?  ”Hah… you said Nuke-u-lar!” we all laughed.  Skyrocketing commodity prices?  ”Just another bubble” came the retort.  The Russian invasion of Georgia?  ”A momentary glitch in a [...]

As autumn gloom casts a pall over the nation, and frightened investors cling ever more tightly to their pumpkin spice lattes, life apparently continues on its steady course without regard to the looming clouds which threaten financial chaos. Main Street, though, has finally witnessed for itself a token sign of the credit crisis which began [...]

As the market gyrates, it’s always interesting to look for those companies unnecessarily caught up in the turmoil.  We all like to think that we can pick such a company, but what characteristics would such a company have?  Well, why not go all out?  Let’s look for a world class company that is a household name that reliably makes unfathomable [...]