We wish all of our readers and clients a very happy and prosperous New Year!2012 is sure to be a very interesting year for investors with much to look forward to and many opportunities for those who stay patient and disciplined and look to take advantage of owning great businesses at values not seen in decades...
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Seasons Greetings and Warm Wishes
Seasons Greetings and warm holiday wishes from all of us here at Taylor Frigon Capital Management!Above, a wreath at the General Grant tree in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park rests in the snow. The General Grant tree was designated "The Nation's Christmas Tree" by President Calvin Coolidge in 1926, after a little girl visiting the tree was...
Thursday, December 15, 2011
The fantasy world of modern portfolio theory
The calendar year of 2011 will soon come to a close, and active managers will be watching to see how the performance for the year will turn out.Many who hire active managers will also be watching closely, and will be judging whether or not they should continue to keep their investments with this or that manager based upon the outcome when the market...
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Have you heard of this company? PNRA
While most of the financial world focuses on Europe and waits with bated breath for every new development in Greek parliamentary voting, S&P sovereign-debt rating, or ECB bank-lending stimulus, we would like to point out that economic indicators in the US have been showing modest but real progress.Without downplaying the importance of the issues...
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The biggest lesson from Europe
Six central banks -- the ECB, the US Fed, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Canada, and the Swiss National Bank -- rushed in to the European crisis today by taking steps to ensure liquidity for banks (essentially, lowering the cost of lending backstops that European banks can use as a source for short-term liquidity).This was obviously...
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Another lesson from Europe
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, data for shopping activity in the US blew away the forecasts of most economic prognosticators. Sales for the full weekend (from Thursday to Sunday) were up 16.4% over the previous year -- an astonishing increase and an all-time record in terms of dollar value spent during the period.This data should indicate that the...
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving 2011
We would like to take this time to wish all of our readers a very warm and happy Thanksgiving. This of course includes our readers around the world, who can also share in the special message of this most American of annual holidays, wherever they may be.As always, Thanksgiving is an opportunity to reflect upon and be thankful for the blessings in...
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
I'm glad I actually opened my account statement!
Anecdotally, we have now had more than one private client call us to say something along these lines:"I was afraid to open my statement, knowing that things must certainly be going off a cliff, and when I finally did look at it, I was surprised to discover that things were far better than I imagined!"Why would clients be so afraid to look and so sure...
Friday, November 11, 2011
Why you can't pay off your home loan with Monopoly money
First Trust Chief Economist Brian Wesbury recently published an outstanding one-page explanation of some of the underlying issues surrounding the ongoing eurozone debt crisis.Entitled "The Drachma is Dead, and so is the Welfare State," it is an excellent primer on the topic of strong currencies versus weak currencies.For those who might be wondering...
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Financial innovation is largely bunk
Here's a conceptual diagram of all the companies listed on the NYSE from September 2006, grouped by sector and sized according to market capitalization (value of the companies).It is roughly based upon the excellent "map of the market" tool that is available to look at on a daily basis in the "Market Data Center" section of the Wall Street Journal....
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
"Stop me before I ease again!"
Halloween is over, but that didn't stop markets worldwide from reacting in terror to the news that Greek leaders have decided to put their bailout up for a popular referendum, which is a little bit like asking a sick child to vote on whether he would like to take a bitter-tasting medicine or not.The latest consternation arrives just in time for this...
Monday, October 31, 2011
7 billion
In light of the headlines about the arrival of the seven billionth human being somewhere in the world today, and the inevitable hand-wringing over whether we have enough resources to sustain such a population, we thought it was appropriate to revisit some things we have written previously on the subject.Back in 2009, we published a post entitled "The...
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
The corporation as a legal person, the stock market, and other things Occupy Wall Street protesters don't like
While it is impossible to state exactly what everyone associated with the "Occupy" movement is for or against, some general themes are emerging, some of which are captured in the above video. Some of the things that emerge in that video include:against: the concentration of wealth among "the 1%" of rich persons and corporations.against: the concept...
Monday, October 24, 2011
Quick comments from Gerry Frigon, October 24
Here's a little commentary from Gerry Frigon from this morning, discussing the current state of the European situation, earnings season, and this week's GDP report (the advance report for Q3 GDP is due to be released on Thursday).* At the time of publication, the principals of Taylor Frigon Capital Management did not own securities issued by Caterpillar...
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Another inspired presentation by Mary Meeker
Mary Meeker's presentation at the Web 2.0 Summit on "Internet Trends" given yesterday, October 18, provided a wealth of data and some insightful analysis regarding the direction and speed with which the networked world is moving.We have linked to previous presentations by Mary Meeker on the same subject before (2009 and 2010) and explained that the...
Friday, October 14, 2011
More data says "no recession." So why is everyone so uneasy?
The Census Bureau released their data for estimated monthly sales for retail and food services for the month of September this morning, and the numbers came in much stronger than most economists expected.For the past month or so, many economists and pundits have been growing more and more pessimistic, with many of them declaring that a recession is...
Monday, October 10, 2011
Have you heard of this company? IDXX
In order to explain what kinds of businesses we look for as potential destinations for investment capital, we have published many previous posts describing some of the important criteria. Readers may wish to go back to the series on "Beautiful Growth Companies" (part one, part two, and part three) for some discussion of those criteria, and they may...
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs
It is no exaggeration to say that Steve Jobs changed the world and that he was directly responsible for shaping the way we all interact with technology and the way that technology will interact with our lives for years to come -- probably for generations to come.There are many heartfelt and well-written tributes to him on the web today, and they all...
