Did you see this story in the Wall Street Journal last Friday? “Retirement investors are putting more money into stocks than they have since markets were slammed by the financial crisis six years ago… Stocks accounted for 67% of employees’ new contributions into retirement portfolios in March… That…

The S&P 500 index really hasn’t done much since the beginning of the year but churn…but then again, why shouldn’t it? For stocks, 2013 was an exceptional year. If we get another positive year on top of dividends, then it’s total gravy. The capital gains over the last…

Earnings are beginning to roll in and quite a few companies are missing Wall Street consensus. This doesn’t mean, however, that there isn’t growth out there; only that estimates have so far been a little optimistic. CarMax, Inc. (KMX) is a well-known used-car dealer. The company’s latest numbers…

In the early days of the 2008 financial crisis, the Federal Reserve said, “Job losses, declining equity and housing wealth and tight credit conditions have weighed on consumer sentiment and spending. Weaker sales prospects and difficulties in obtaining credit have led businesses to cut back on inventories and…

Copper is considered an industrial metal, used in industries across the board. When copper prices fall, it’s usually an indicator of a slowdown in the global economy. On the contrary, gold bullion isn’t much of an industrial metal; rather, it is used as a hedge against uncertainty in…

There is some resilience to this stock market, and it’s evidenced by the strength in many important indices. The Dow Jones Transportation Average is a very important index, even if you don’t own—or aren’t interested in owning—any component companies. The reason for its importance is that it has…

This past Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 175,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in the month of February. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 7, 2014.) The way the media reported it… “Friday’s jobs market report caught the market by surprise,” was what most…

The bond market is in trouble. As we all know, the Federal Reserve has been the biggest driver of bonds since the financial crisis. The central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate to near zero, then started quantitative easing, all of which resulted in the bond market soaring…

Fasten your seatbelt, dear reader. We’re in for a global financial crisis, a currency fiasco, and a stock market collapse all in the same year! I’m being too bearish? Not after you read this… In their search for economic growth in 2009, the Federal Reserve and other major…

Last year, the “big thing” with companies was buying back their shares to boost per-share corporate earnings. In 2013, share buybacks hit their pre-financial crisis high. If big public companies didn’t buy back so much of their own stock in 2013, per-share corporate earnings just wouldn’t be that…

The Bureau of Labor Statistics just reported that inflation in the U.S. economy increased by 0.3% in the month of December and that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the entire year of 2013 increased by only 1.5%. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 16, 2014.) Is inflation…

To illustrate the solid business conditions that exist in the railroad industry, Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (WAB) is a company that’s growing and has been an excellent stock market investment. Operating as Wabtec Corporation, which was created in 2009 with the merger of Westinghouse Air Brake Company…

Central banks around the global economy are involved in a race that will not end well. Of course, I’m talking about the race to the bottom of currency devaluation, which is being achieved through the printing of more and more paper money backed by nothing. Almost weekly, I…

When we last looked at Alaska Air Group, Inc. (ALK), the position had pushed to a new record-high on the stock market, and it’s doing so again. Many Dow Jones transportation stocks continue to exude price strength and in my mind, this action is one confirming factor that…

The mainstream and politicians tell us the “wounds” of the financial crisis are over and the U.S. economy is in recovery mode. This simply isn’t true. A few of the key indicators I follow to see where an economy stands are personal income, consumer demand, and businesses’ activity.…

This market has been due for a major correction for quite some time. The marketplace expected it (including myself), but what we got instead was share price consolidation with continued leadership from blue chips and small-caps. Countless stock market indices are right close to their highs, including the…

If you are a stock market investor, you’ve probably come to the same realization I have: the stock market is behaving irrationally. These days, the fundamentals don’t really matter. What’s even more frustrating is that when you do talk about the fundamentals behind the market’s continued advance missing,…

I harp on about this over and over again: economic growth is when the average consumer is optimistic about their future; they are spending money, they know they will have a job tomorrow, and they are saving. In the U.S., we are seeing the opposite of all this.…

More evidence consumer confidence in the U.S. economy is plunging… The monthly Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index, a consumer confidence indicator that shows the expectations of Americans about the U.S. economy, plunged to its lowest level in October since November of 2011. The index stood at -31 in October,…

These days, central banks are on a very dangerous monetary policy path. Paper money printing has become the norm. Major central banks around the world are taking the same actions; they have learned the phrase “quantitative easing” well. Economy’s soft; no problem! We’ll just print more money so…