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Active Management Takes A Hit
February 2012
If the market makes two major changes in direction in the middle of the year--such that it goes importantly up, then very importantly down, then importantly up yet again--if many major trends (most notably gold) trace out blowoff tops, and if on net the market is unchanged on the year, then you can be pretty sure that an even larger preponderance of active managers than usual are going to get their heads handed to them. . . .
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A Sense Of Where We Are
February 2012
You'll find two of the only four numbers you really need to know about 2011 in the accompanying Client's Corner: the year-end closes of the S&P 500 for it and the previous year. This was probably as close to a perfectly unchanged net year as we are ever likely to see in our lifetimes. But as this essay makes clear, we were unchanged on the year after two major changes in market direction, a five-month correction that brought us as close to an "official" bear market as you ever get without actually crossing the line (indeed, we were there intraday), and the most horrific day-to-day volatility I ever saw. . . .
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Ask Nick February 2012
February 2012
Q: Every time I help a client complete a risk-tolerance questionnaire for a discretionary...
A: Few "innovations" of the past few years are as counterproductive as the so-called "risk ... . . .
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Where The Cash Is
February 2012
Have a look at this chart, which recently came across my desk from Strategic Insight, the mutual fund research firm, based on Federal Reserve flow of funds data. Different observers seem to count cash in different ways, but what's particularly interesting here is not just the stupendous level of cash, but the internal trends. . . .
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In Which Your Editor Announces His Plan For Retirement
February 2012
I am asked from time to time whether and/or when I plan to retire. As we begin this twelfth year of the newsletter -- now completely under our own control -- I feel I owe my subscribers full and complete disclosure on this subject. I will now offer you said disclosure, albeit by a somewhat circuitous route. . . .
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Resources February 2012
February 2012
- The actor Rick Moranis's wonderfully droll January 18 WSJ op-ed, "Capitalism and My...
- In the same issue of the WSJ, the great John Steele Gordon offered "A Short (Sometimes...
- Although I remain perfectly content to crib the annual updating of the Lipper average...
- I haven't mentioned these in some years, but I actually got one this last birthday from reader ...
- Forgive me for repeating, on the first page of this edition, a classic squib from the historian...
- The least splenetic, most quietly devastating response to the administration's killing of the ...
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