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We previously wrote a short post asking "Does the Fed have the guts to do it?".
Well, today the Fed did raise rates, after keeping their target at essentially zero for seven years.
Economist Brian Wesbury, whose interpretation of economic events has been cited many times on the pages of this blog through the...
Friday, December 11, 2015
Hissy Fit, Part 2; Does The Fed Have The Guts To Do It?
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We wrote about the concept of the market throwing a "hissy fit" back in the summer over the prospects of the U.S. Federal Reserve Open Market Committee's (FOMC) decision to raise the target for the Fed Funds Rate.
At the time it was expected that the Fed would hike...
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Naysayers and Interest Rates
We've discussed our views on the economy and what effect we think higher interest rates will have on it many times over the last 6+ years since the bottom of the "crisis"-driven stock market in 2009.
It would appear that the Federal Reserve is finally ready to end the "zero interest rate policy" (ZIRP) that it has pursued for half a decade...
Thursday, October 08, 2015
Investment Climate: Get out of the "Market"??
The Fed didn’t raise rates and the market still had
a fit. Many continue to say the next
crisis is upon us, as they have for years now.
Europe is a mess. China is
collapsing. The Middle East is a bigger
mess. Politics is…well POLITICS! And, about the market? Get out!
Our longest term clients, those who...
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Fed This, Fed That...
Once again the financial world, and in particular the financial media, are all in a tizzy over the statement that will be coming out from the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) later this morning, September 17, 2015, regarding the decision on whether to begin the long awaited end to the Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP). Anyone...
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Toxic Bloom: How the unexamined dangers of ETFs threaten investors and the efficiency of markets
Linked above is the latest whitepaper from Taylor Frigon Capital Management, entitled "Toxic Bloom: How the unexamined dangers of ETFs threaten investors and the efficiency of markets," published on August 27, 2015.
In it, we compare the massive growth of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) within financial markets to a runaway "toxic bloom" of algae...
Monday, August 24, 2015
A Hissy Fit In The Market
The market opened this morning in a very chaotic manner which is indicative of the kind of reaction that comes from a market which is dominated by trading and non-economic decision-making versus investment based in business fundamentals. Quite timely given our commentary recently about the disfunction...
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Carl Icahn says what he means on a very important subject: all investors should pay close attention
We have been concerned about the rapid rise in popularity of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for a long time. Over ten years ago, at a conference on the topic of ETFs, we were given a book that explained how they worked and how to use them in strategies; the book was almost 700 pages long. It struck us that any investment...
Monday, July 06, 2015
Why Employers are Rethinking Turnkey 401(k) Plans
Turnkey retirement-plan programs sounded like a great idea.
When fund companies and other big firms started offering them in the 1990s, employers were promised solid employee benefits delivered with groundbreaking simplicity and low cost.
What was not to like? Plenty, it turns out.
Turnkey plan providers like to boast about the number of funds...
Monday, June 01, 2015
How Diversification Became “Di-Worsification”
Charles Dickens once wrote that virtue, carried to excess, could become vice.
If he were a modern financial expert, Dickens could be talking about portfolio diversification. Diversifying the kinds of assets you hold helps you to maximize potential gains and minimize risk. But when diversification is carried too far, it becomes “di-‘worse’-ification.”
Having...
Friday, May 22, 2015
Frigon highlights tech companies on radio interview
Recently, TFCM's CIO Gerry Frigon was interviewed by our own John Summer on KVEC radio in San Luis Obispo. Mr. Summer was guest hosting for Dave Congalton as he discussed Taylor Frigon Capital Partners' most impressive technology companies. You can hear the interview on this podcast, starting at 1:00. http://920kvec.com/podcasts/conga...
Thursday, May 14, 2015
QuickLogic (QUIK): a venture capital-style opportunity for public market investors (RESEARCH)
QuickLogic (QUIK): a venture capital-style opportunity for public market investors, offering a solution for the incipient flood of sensor data
05/08/2015
Bottom Line: QUIK is trading at 5-year lows, having been sold off successively in recent weeks for guiding lower than investors expected, and then announcing the departure of their CFO....
