In our previous post, we discussed the "Four Pillars" of tax rates, interest rates, inflation and global freedom, and noted that there are some troubling signs cropping up in all four of those important areas (Global Freedom being perhaps the most positive of the four, with much of the world outside the United States turning towards freer markets...
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The Four Pillars
For many years, we have analyzed the investment conditions using four foundational criteria that are vitally important for investors to understand.These four areas are so important that they form the foundation for business growth and investment prospects, and can be seen as the four "pillars" on which everything else depends.These Four Pillars are:Tax...
Monday, September 21, 2009
Who are you going to believe -- gold prices or the bond market?
We have previously argued that the Federal Reserve should declare victory and begin to signal that they will begin raising rates from the extremely accommodative target rates (essentially zero Fed funds rates) that they implemented during the financial panic.The reasoning for our argument is simple: artificially low interest rates lead directly to...
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The hard-money real-estate sinkhole
Taylor Frigon Capital Management has its headquarters in the beautiful Central Coast town of Paso Robles, California. Located in San Luis Obispo County, we are well aware that this county led the entire state of California in hard-money real estate loan losses in 2008.According to this recent article from the San Luis Obispo Tribune, investors who...
Monday, September 14, 2009
If Rip Van Winkle took a one-year nap before September 15th, 2008
Just in case you have been taking a Rip-Van-Winkle-style nap, it's been a year since investors awoke to a Monday morning (September 15 fell on a Monday in 2008) in which the financial world as it had existed for decades imploded and came to an end. Lehman Brothers had declared bankruptcy the day before, and Merrill Lynch had hastily arranged to be...
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Melanie Oudin, Billy Beane, and the portfolio management process
Today in the Wall Street Journal an article appeared highlighting U.S. Open women's tennis sensation Melanie Oudin and in particular the research and coaching innovations of coach, Brian de Villiers of Atlanta's Racquet Club of the South.The Journal article notes that Mr. de Villiers' use of extensive analysis of the videos and statistics of opponents...
Friday, September 04, 2009
The ETF industry and their promise of easily adding alpha to all
In several previous posts, we have argued that the "intermediary" structure inherent in the "wealth management" industry constitutes a huge problem with respect to long term returns achieved by investors served by the industry.The crux of the problem is that investors seeking professional assistance typically receive that assistance from an intermediary...
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
"Repeal what remains of the misguided stimulus" -- Allan Meltzer
Today in the Wall Street Journal, distinguished economist, author, and Carnegie Mellon Professor Allan H. Meltzer published an opinion piece entitled "What happened to the 'Depression'?"In it, he made some excellent points that investors should understand, and which resonate particularly well with assertions we have been making in print on the pages...
