Category: Portfolio Update

Apparently, the laws of gravity still apply to gold.  Over the past 4 1/2 months, gold has gone vertical tacking 30% onto its June low.  Before Gold investors could finish rewriting their new science books, they were treated to not one but two $30 down days.  Damaged for the week totaled 5.7%.  

Gold investors received a double whammy as they often invest in silver as well.  Silver fell 6.6% for the week.  How about a triple?  Gold equities as measured by the XAU Gold index sank 7.5% for the week.  That is just taking a joke too far.

Continue reading “Time & Money Review 11/16/07 – Gold Investors Reminded of the Laws of Gravity”

The last bastion of strength, technology, was taken to the woodshed as the NASDAQ lost 6.5% last week.  Selling was initiated when Cisco Systems (CSCO) reported inline revenue and earnings, but weakening sales to US financial institutions.  Cisco’s strength in its other end markets was ignored as fear that subprime slime has infected the non-financials made the headlines.  Before Cisco’s report, technology was hoped to be immune to the slime.  Did the market over react?  Probably, but fear often trumps fundamentals.

The DOW joined the pity party posting its worst 3-day loss in 5 years.  It is off nearly 8% from its record high set on October 9.  The S&P 500 was down 3.7% for the week.

Continue reading “Time & Money Review 11/09/07 – Technology Stocks Taken to the Woodshed”

There is a simple strategy that is working now:  If you drop it on your foot and it hurts- buy it!  Don’t believe me – drop a barrel of oil on your foot.  Say good-bye to your foot, but if you own a few barrels at $95 each it would soothe the pain.  A pound of cooper at $3.40 hurts, but not as much as it did at 4 bucks.  A bushel of wheat or corn – hurts.  An ounce of gold wouldn’t hurt too badly, but most wouldn’t know where to buy a Gold Eagle anyway.  Just in case you haven’t heard one of those will set you back 800 smackers.

With commodities making multi-year and in some cases all-time highs, the cries of bubbles are getting louder and louder.  Interestingly, these same pronouncers missed the internet and real estate bubbles.  I suggest that you ignore the bubble predictors – buy yourself a pair of steel-toed boots and back up the truck.  

Continue reading “Time & Money Review 11/02/07 – Commodities Bubbling”

The great ones always come back for one more fight.  Microsoft (MSFT) an also ran for the past seven years, at least from a stock market perspective, demonstrated that it could still float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.  After the close on Thursday, it reported that its net income rose to $4.3 billion, or 45 cents a share.  Revenue rose to $13.76 billion. Wall Street was expecting earnings of 39 cents on 12.9 billion in revenue.

Microsoft hadn’t strutted its stuff like that in years and Wall Street rewarded it with a 9.5% pop.  Long ago Bill Gates and crew lost its appeal to growth investors and can now be found in many value fund manager’s portfolios.  I am certain that many of them almost had a coronary when their portfolio values increased so substantially.

Continue reading “Time & Money Review 10/26/07 – Microsoft is BACK”

If you watched CNBC at all last week you heard at least one mention of October 19, 1987.  If you are like me and watch it too much – you knew that Friday was destined to be a down day.  After the non-stop reminders of the 22% one day drop from 20 years ago, how could any trader not have one finger on the sell button? Thankfully 367 DOW points is not what it was in 1987.   However, a 2.6% loss is nothing to sneeze at.

For the week, the DOW, S&P 500 and NASDAQ were down 4.1%, 3.9% and 2.9% respectively. Technology held up the best.  Google managed to close up on Friday in the midst of the anniversary backlash. 

Continue reading “Time & Money Review 10/19/07 – 20th Anniversary of Black Monday”