International Investing

For all you contrarians, the surest sign of a coming decline is that everyone thinks it’s unlikely to occur.
Reports and surveys of every description say the economy will keep growing, inflation and interest rates are in good shape — and stock prices are a sure bet to rise in the U.S. and elsewhere for a [...]

The pair moved up on hawkish ECB statements. The trend is clear - from the lower left to the upper right.

The price weighting of the Dow means that a firms that have a high stock price have more influence than firms with a lower stock price. Basically the index price is the sum of the stocks divided by an adjusting factor for splits. This lets a stock with a price of $100 have twice the [...]

Is this a bubble?
Growers in the U.S. are preparing to sow the fewest acres of soybeans in 10 years. At the same time, demand is rising, creating conditions that traders say may double this year’s average price of $5.98 a bushel and allow soybeans to replace corn as the best- performing farm commodity.
Well maybe not [...]

There quotes are from a Bloomberg article about the global shortage of oil rigs:
it were up to Thornburg, there’d be a dozen more $1- million-a-day rigs plying the Gulf of Mexico…global shortage of deep-sea drilling rigs is costing Chevron precious time as it taps the Gulf, and the equipment deficit may keep oil prices [...]

That’s my suggestion for more productive things the SEC could be doing rather than raising the net worth requirements for hedge funds.
Small investors should be outraged. Hedge funds offer innovative services that previously only the very rich had access to. Relentless competition has driven down fund minimums and extended hedge fund benefits to whole new [...]

Today US Producer Prices were up 2% - the most since 1974. The stock market shrugged off the news but miners surged (See chart). Gold and precious metals are seen as a hedge against inflation.

With record corporate profits we may see margins compress before the Producer Price rise shows up in CPI. Make no [...]

Capital goes where it is wanted and stays where it is well-treated. - Wriston’s Law
After a massive stock market plunge of 16% Thai authorities removed the restrictions they had put into place about foreign ownership. The rule imposed a penalty to prevent funds from being taken out of the market unless they had been in [...]

From todays Gartman Letter: dollar weighted sell/buy ratio at its most extreme level in more than ten years.
He goes on to quote Paul McRae Montgomery:
The M&A/LBO mania we are currently witnessing is very bullish for stock prices, but the fact that it is based on “Other People’s Money,” while insiders are taking their chips of [...]

The Wall Street Journal today writes about the increased popularity of coin collecting, ‘”The ‘coin geek’ has turned into ‘coin chic.’ ” Several of the coins discussed are valuable only because of errors or subsequent changes in design like, “a red 1909 Lincoln penny, part of the first issue of U.S. coins to include [...]