The Fed decided today to leave the federal funds rate at 5.25%. The interesting thing is that the bond market is pricing in rate cuts in the next year or so. Justin Lahart, author of the Wall Street Journal’s daily…
On Friday I wrote: The markets are somewhat confusing right now. For the 9 weeks beginning Monday July 17, the Dow has rallied from around 10,750 to today’s close of 11,560 – a 7.5% rally. Over the same period the…
Jeff Opdyke, author of the Wall Street Journal’s Love & Money column, has an important article on planning for the end of life in today’s Sunday Journal. One of the things that is hard to come to terms with is…
On Tuesday I wrote: The Street interpreted Best Buy’s results as saying that the American consumer is not dead and will continue to spend on discretionary items. That interpretation seems to have played out this week. The S&P Retail Index…
Before the open today Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), the nation’s largest electronics retailer, announced a pretty good fiscal (ended Aug 26, 2006) second quarter. Same store sales in the United States were up 3.0% in the three months ended Aug…
You might have noticed that gas has become alot more expensive the last couple of years. One reason for that is that oil, the raw material from which gas is produced, has gotten more expensive due to growing demand around…
Driven by torrid growth in China base metals have experienced a phenomenal bull market the last few years. Copper has gone from around 75 cents/lb. three years ago to more than $3.50/lb. today. Nickel has gone from around $2/lb. towards…
Bill Bonner, the Founder of Agora Financial, a contrarian investment newsletter company of which I am a big fan and subscriber, and author of, most recently, Empire of Debt, has some interesting, and entertaining, thoughts on the issue of kids…
When Al Qaeda struck the World Trade Center on Sept 11, 2001 it ended an era of relative global peace that had begun with the fall of the Soviet Union and the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989. …
A few weeks after each Fed meeting, the minutes for that meeting are released. The minutes are not an actual transcript of what was said but a shamelessly doctored summary. As I tried to explain a couple weeks ago the…