We have a short week of trading in light of US thanksgiving. Just enough time to position your portfolio for a year-end rally? A year-end pop seems to be the consensus opinion among the largest US hedge funds. Mind you that may be hype or at a minimum wishful thinking. Fact is many large hedge funds have under performed a...
The Unintended Consequences of...
In this Blog I occasionally follow up on previous recommendations. Taking some credit where due and blame when trades are not so successful. The idea is to engage in self-examination with the hope that it will make us better traders. I began 2014 with the Blog “New Year Optimism” where I talked about the possibility that...
The Company is a Canadian icon. Like Canadian Tire, Hudson’s Bay and even the Timothy Eaton Company once Canada’s premier department store. Despite the familiarity of these brands in Canada there has been little evidence that Canadian brands carry any weight south of the 49th parallel. Canadian Tire being a case in point....
There is an old adage in the investment industry; “sell in May and go away ‘til labor day.” Not everyone agrees… Warren Buffett for example! Still, enough investors believe in the concept, and when you think about it there is rationale underpinning the theory. Summer holidays can limit liquidity and often there is...
The markets have been tepid lately as investors watch for signs of an improving US economy, a message telegraphed by Fed Chairman Yellen in her first news conference a couple of weeks ago. If the data come in as Yellen expects – or more importantly as analysts think Yellen will interpret the data – traders may have to...
For gold aficionados, it has been a rough eighteen months. Even diehard doomsayers who see gold as crisis insurance have been asking; “where’s the glitter”? From my perspective, I have never been a gold buff and have never believed it was reasonable to view gold as portfolio insurance. So, we are left with short-term...
It’s not often you see a company rally despite declining earnings, especially a company that is in the process of overhauling its business model! Nonetheless, that that is exactly what is happening with Blackberry under the guidance of recently appointed CEO John Chen. Blackberry continues to fall short on earnings no matter...
Something I have discussed at a number of the Montreal Exchange Option Education Days is the theory that markets are efficient, which is to say the stock market is a pricing mechanism where investors come together to evaluate potential return. You buy shares when you believe them to be undervalued and sell them because you...
John Aziz (www.msn.com) penned an interesting article recently where he asked the question “are financial crisis really preventable?” And the answer, not surprisingly, is that they are not because “the world is just too unpredictable.” In order to prevent something, you have to first be able to articulate a cause and...