Here we go again making another comparison to The Great Depression. Only this time, it’s a positive comparison. For the five months ending last Friday, the S&P 500 had its best performance streak since The Great Depression year of 1938, according to Reuters. During these five months, the S&P 500 index rallied 34%. Yet, despite this tremendous rise, losses between January and early March of this year limited the S&P’s year-to-date gain to 9.3%, according to data from ... Read Full Story

The second quarter earnings season started just like the Fourth of July - with a bang! The hard-hit financial sector delivered some good news last week as companies such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase announced earnings that pleased the market. In the tech sector, Intel and IBM provided support, too. On the other hand, widely watched General Electric came out with earnings and guidance last Friday that was disappointing and the stock dropped 6% by the end of the day. The good news was t... Read Full Story

Warren Buffett has said his favorite holding period is forever. Does he follow his own advice? Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway recently posted its worst quarterly loss in more than 20 years and a big chunk of that was due to what Buffett called a “major mistake.” Less than a year ago, with oil prices nearing their all-time high, Buffett dramatically upped his stake in oil giant ConocoPhillips and became its largest shareholder. Unfortunately, his timing was horrible. ConocoPhi... Read Full Story

Despite another harrowing decline in the banking sector last week, the overall stock market has been holding up rather well, considering the circumstances. Many analysts thought the worst of the banking crisis was behind us, but Citigroup and Bank of America reminded us last week that all is not well in the land of lending. Both firms reported earnings last week that were nothing short of ugly. This latest rupture in the banking sector has government officials looking at fresh approaches to... Read Full Story

While stock markets are down, there may be one market where you can actually make some money. Collapsing real estate prices helped lead us into the current recession and the government realizes that stabilizing real estate prices may be one key to pulling us out of the recession. Accordingly, the government is doing what it can to influence mortgage rates and help them move lower. Lower mortgage rates improve housing affordability and may lead to higher demand. Higher demand may help put a ... Read Full Story

With 2008 in the history books, we’ll use this week’s commentary to review some of the key stories over the past year. As you well know, it was not one of the market’s finest performances. STOCKS SUFFERED MIGHTILY Global stock markets shed about $30 trillion dollars in market value over the past 12 months. Of that, about $7 trillion came from losses in the U.S. market, according to Bloomberg.com. In fact, the drop in the S&P 500 index was the worst annual loss since The... Read Full Story

It’s “Helicopter Ben” to the rescue. For people who follow the financial markets, last Tuesday’s announcement by the Federal Reserve was a watershed event that historians, pundits, and investors will talk about for years to come. The Fed essentially opened the floodgates to help the economy and signaled more help is on the way. Here are the key points from the Fed’s announcement. • It established a new target range for the federal funds rate of 0 to ¼%-effectiv... Read Full Story

The following comment might shock you, so prepare yourself. Here it is… last Monday’s closing price on the S&P 500 index confirmed that we have been in a new bull market since November 20th. Yes, it seems rather ludicrous to say we’re now in a bull market since the S&P 500 index is still down about 40% this year. But, according to the standard definition of a bull market as reported by Bloomberg, the bull is alive. The bull is here because the S&P 500 closed las... Read Full Story

We typically think of stock market volatility as a “bad” thing, but last week, we saw the “upside” of volatility. As the chart indicates below, the broad-based S&P 500 index rose a stunning 12% for the week. Barron’s said it was the largest one-week gain in that index since 1974. In the holiday-shortened week, the S&P 500 index rose all four days that the market was open for trading. So, yes, last week was volatile, but it was all “good” vola... Read Full Story

“Hope springs eternal,” wrote Alexander Pope back in the 1700s and, after a rocky start, we ended last week on a hopeful note. If you look at the numbers in the chart below, it was another disappointing week in the stock market. Last Wednesday and Thursday didn’t help matters as the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted back-to-back 400 point plus declines. That set the stage for another nail biter as markets opened on Friday morning. Fortunately, the markets opened steady an... Read Full Story