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Just before the latest Fed rate hike in November, various talking heads were polluting the airwaves with spurious reasons why the central bank might refrain from pulling the trigger. Among these, if you can believe it, was "concern about the declining dollar."...keep reading

To the intense amazement of absolutely no one who has read this newsletter for more than 120 seconds in the last twelve months, long interest rates finally backed up fairly sharply in June, and the equity market got concomitantly whacked. Quel domage!...keep reading

Signs of the Bottom...keep reading

1. September 11th marks the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the third -- and, I ...
2. It is axiomatic on the political left -- and in the left's journalistic cheering section ...
3. MFS chairman Bob Pozen usually has very thought-provoking things to say, ...
4. During the current economic expansion, as corporate profits and cash flows ...

I've previously suggested that, overall, I thought people were underestimating the power of the recent tax cuts -- some $109 billion of which are due to kick in during the second half of 2003....keep reading

In the newsletter and magazine articles I wrote immediately after the terrorist atrocities of September 11th, 2001 -- and in a couple of dozen conference calls to advisors in the U.S. and Canada -- I tried as gently as possible to suggest that, in terms of America's economy, this would turn out to be a long-term nonevent....keep reading

Probably not, at least not to previous levels. An increasing portion of U.S. economic energy is directed toward capital gains...keep reading

1. A very short, very worthwhile review of the state of the effort to reform the tax ...
2. Holman Jenkins's typically acerbic look at the hidden agendas of some of Wal-...
3. Without ever coming to like it (or its author) very much, I did get quite a lot out of ...
4. It continues to come as startling news to journalism -- and even to financial...
5. Greenspan gave a very thoughtful talk via teleconference to the Banco de ...

Soup Kitchen...keep reading

You and I have for several months exchanged in these pages our anecdotal observations of the proverbial wall of worry--the passionate and essentially mindless skepticism with which clients and prospects have processed the experience of a thirteen-month 80% increase in equity prices, driven by mounting evidence of a resurgent global economy and sharply increased corporate earnings. I'm beginning to see signs that this skepticism is fading, and that complacency is coming back....keep reading

The news that 308,000 new jobs were created in March, with new hirings in January and February also revised sharply upwards, confirms a thesis this newsletter has been propounding since last year. To wit, that no matter how much surging productivity might have deferred employers' need for additional workers, you couldn't have sustained real GDP growth pushing five percent without an eventual strong increase in hiring. It was just a matter of time....keep reading

One day in mid-August, my wife and I were having lunch with two couples from St. Louis at a beautiful outdoor restaurant high in the mountains of Montenegro (the world's youngest independent democracy, having declared its independence on June 28th)....keep reading

Long Term Buy Signals from Heaven...keep reading

This issue of the newsletter is being prepared a week or so earlier than normal, as the former Joan Carrick and I are spending most of July in Australia. We were invited thence by a major financial institution, whose advisors experienced four years of 20%-plus equity market returns, and now seem daunted by a 25%-or-so decline....keep reading

Today, an average consumer can buy a terabyte hard drive for as little as ......keep reading

ERRATA May 2006...keep reading

Candlestick Park in San Francisco was a famously windswept venue, but on the evening of August 29, 1966, gusts blew and howled with extra ferocity, and huge clouds of dust whipped painfully around the infield....keep reading

Pop Quiz...keep reading

Chart...keep reading

"One popular explanation of declining national saving and the rising current account deficit focuses on the burgeoning U.S. federal budget deficit,...keep reading