The Emerging Markets were all the buzz this week, with India, Turkey and South Africa raising interest rates in an attempt to slow capital outflows. Since the 2008 crash, Emerging Market (EM) stocks have not been the same for US investors, significantly underperforming developed market stocks. Unfortunately I think they’re going to remain under pressure…
Why the Stock Market is Falling
Thanks to everyone who has participated in the survey! I received a suggestion asking to talk more about what is driving markets in the short-term. For example, why were stocks down yesterday. Here’s a short video looking at the investment capital flows over the past few weeks. It shows that we had a very strong…
What’s the most important metric when evaluating a company/stock?
Is it the P/E ratio? Is it revenue or profit growth? Or maybe the company’s market share? While all of these are important in analyzing a stock as a potential investment, I think the most important metric to evaluate isn’t quantitative but qualitative. I believe the answer is management – the executives of the company…
The True Value of an Advisor/Investment Manager
There was news this week that Warren Buffett, famed manager of Berkshire Hathaway, did not beat the S&P 500 on a 5-year rolling basis for the first time in his career. Does this mean that he did a poor job and failed? He would probably say that he did because his stated benchmark goal has…
The Investment Markets in 2014
2013 was certainly an eventful year both politically and economically and I think 2014 will prove to be just as interesting. The biggest concern I see over the next year is the amount of civil unrest that is building. For some reason governments think corruption and higher taxes will go unnoticed… In 2013, we saw…
Risk Management, Cash & Selling Put Options
(Today’s blog post will be a bit more advanced if you’re not familiar with stock options. However, if you want to learn more, I have a video series you can subscribe to on my company’s website.) With the uncertainty over the debt ceiling, I wanted to talk about the importance of cash in a portfolio…
Apple & Gold
The large majority of my clients own stock in Apple and gold so I obviously keep a close eye on both. For years these were two of the best performing assets you could own but both fell out of favor last fall. The interesting thing that I’ve noticed is how closely they’ve tracked each other…
New Stock Buys
As the stock market continues higher, it’s becoming harder and harder to find new companies to buy at prices I consider favorable. But every now and then a stock jumps off the screen as an opportunity you just can’t pass up! My most recent addition to growth-oriented portfolios is a company called Catamaran. They offer…