Monday Reading: The Big Picture
I’ve come across some really good pieces the last couple of days that I want to share:
- “Generalists can have some advantages, including being able to ‘focus on the true, single hinge issue’ of a company’, says Lisa Shalett [former head of stock research at Sanford Bernstein, now at AllianceBernstein] – “In Era of Specialization, Some Generalists Thrive”, Barron’s, Saturday July 26
- “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not essential to the mortgage market; if they were put out of business in an orderly fashion over 5 to 10 years, the market would pick up the business they abandon. Fannie and Freddie exist to provide guarantees for mortgage-backed securities trading in the market. The business is simply insurance” – William Poole, former Chief Executive of the St. Louis Fed, 1998-2008, “Too Big to Fail, or to Survive”, The New York Times, Sunday July 27
- “When bankers themselves have no clue what their own assets are worth, there’s no way most outsiders can determine which stocks are undervalued and which cannot be valued” – Jason Zweig, “Is It Time to Tiptoe Into Financial Stocks?”, The Wall Street Journal, Saturday July 26
- “In summary, I think the picture mainstream economists like to paint is of a healthy economy chugging along. But behind the facade I see reckless consumer and government spending camouflaged as economic growth” – Jeff Saut , “The Letter”, Monday July 28