Recently, there have been many stock market pundits who have remarked on the fact that even companies releasing stellar earnings reports have been getting punished in the stock market the next day.Indeed, most investors have probably noticed this phenomenon over the course of their investing careers, in which a company's earnings report will show...
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Index of Economic Freedom Released; U.S. slips
The annual Index of Economic Freedom, published as a joint effort by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, has recently been released for 2010.The Index is a valuable tool and one which investors should pay close attention to. We have previously explained our longstanding framework for measuring the climate for investing in any given...
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Paying yourself first, revisited
Nearly a year ago, on March 26 of 2009, we published a post entitled "Paying Yourself First," in which we reiterated the importance of establishing a systematic mechanism for adding capital into savings on a regular basis.Market corrections make systematic investments all the more powerful. For instance, since the date of that blog post, the broad...
Monday, January 18, 2010
What a farmers' market can teach us about money management
In his 2008 book In Defense of Food, author Michael Pollan explains some of the benefits to obtaining food from a farmers' market, and he does so in terms that strike a chord with us as professional money managers.Beginning on page 159, he writes: "If you're concerned about chemicals in your produce, you can simply ask a farmer at the market how...
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Was the decade lost?
We recently published "The Investment Climate: January 2010" in the commentary section of our website.In it, we summarize the current situation and provide some perspective on where we stand today.Subscribe (no cost) to receive new posts from the Taylor Frigon Advisor via email -- click her...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Excellent discussion from Scott Grannis
Economist Scott Grannis just posted a discussion of the role of business innovation versus the role of government and Fed policy in the aftermath of the Panic of 2008-2009.We recommend that every investor head over to his blog, the Calafia Beach Pundit, and check it out. The concepts he discusses in this most recent post, entitled "Why zero rates...
Monday, January 11, 2010
Composite performance through 12/31/2009
The composite performance for the Taylor Frigon Core Growth Strategy and Taylor Frigon Income Strategy data is now posted on the Taylor Frigon website from inception through December 31, 2009.The Core Growth Strategy is managed according to the time-tested investment philosophy which we have tried to explain to readers in the pages of this blog (in...
Friday, January 08, 2010
Solid convictions versus "snake oil"
As we reflect on the lessons of 2009, some of which we have discussed recently, one thing that strikes us as very important to pass along is the fact that the events of 2009 validated strong convictions that we have held and preached for almost two decades.Over the years, we realize that we may sound like "a broken record" (how's that for an expression...
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
The importance of good leadership at companies in which you invest
In the past, we have often mentioned the basic definition of a Taylor Frigon growth company using the words of Thomas Rowe Price: "dynamic, capable management operating in a fertile field of future growth."Today, Morningstar published the name of their winner for CEO of the year, Stericycle's Mark Miller. This selection comes as no surprise to us,...
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Ben Bernanke's non-New-Year's Resolution
Here's a clip that Bloomberg television posted of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke denying that the Fed's easy monetary policy had anything to do with speculation and the massive mis-allocation of capital that took place during the past decade.It had nothing to do with the Fed cutting rates to 1% and holding them there for thirteen months, making borrowing...
