Archive for the 'Investing' Category

The Housing Crisis

I think this explains it better than I have, at least it is more entertaining:

Technorati Tags: housing, investing, economics, hedge funds, mortgage debt, crisis, humor

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The Google effect

Elise Ackerman gives us the rundown on the cascading effect of Google’s IPO and growth:
A Mercury News analysis of company documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission provides a rough estimate of the wealth that erupted from the famous search engine, spreading throughout the Bay Area and far beyond.
From 2004 through 2006, the most […]

More Islamic Finance

Returning to an old subject we haven’t discussed in a while, I suggest this article on a couple of funds run by Islamic principles. Given the difficulties the financial sector is having a fund which avoids them (because they profit from interest) probably looks pretty attractive right now, especially given the funds stellar performance. I […]

Living History

Does the blogosphere make history more relevant? Is it possible that Santayana’s famous admonishment is made less likely by bloggers routinely wielding history as a foil to those arguments favoring actions proven desultory in the past? And that’s not to mention how blogs go about correcting historical inaccuracies trotted out by our betters. […]

Regulation and disclosure often destroys information

From Robert Lawson:
I hopped on the Chipotle website the other day looking for nutritional information on my favorite meal (carnitas burrito, rice, black beans, mild, hot, and green salsa, lettuce). But thanks to the nanny state, THEY CAN’T TELL ME!.
Unfortunately, for the time being Chipotle can no longer publicly post calorie and nutritional information on […]

The reassertion of the risk premium

One of the sure signs that problems are a pretty likely outcome is when risk is priced at levels which are unlikely to pay enough to adequately reward investors over time. When the world gets a bit too complacent, conditions seem perfect and volatility is low, we tend to project that into the future. Thus, […]

Pity Poor Wall Street

Mickey Kaus gets it right:
“My people have been in this game for 25 years . . . They are losing their jobs”: I thought Wall Streeters were paid big money because they took big risks. Capitalism, etc. But when those risks actually materialize, and the Wall Streeters are actually threatened with large losses that might […]

Are Hedge Funds Worth It?

Dave Leonhardt asks the question in the New York Times:
Last year, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index jumped 14 percent, while the average hedge fund returned less than 13 percent, after investment fees, according to Hedge Fund Research in Chicago…Since 2000, the average hedge fund hasn’t done any better, after fees, than the market as […]

Sunny Times for Chinese Solar Power?

To get rich is glorious in China nowadays. Scientists are no exception.
A top home-grown inventor, 41-year-old Ma Xin, is currently engineering a reverse takeover of a small Singapore-listed investment company, Rowsley, in a deal worth 2.7 billion Singapore dollars ($1.6 billion) that would bring a small part of his high-tech corporate empire, Sinocome Group, to […]

The heir to the throne

I think I am going to be sick. Luckily Tom Maguire chose being clever instead:

Left unreported by the AP - John Edwards built his 28,000 square foot home to learn about homelessness in America, and he got a $400 haircut to learn about the emerging baby-boomer crisis of male pattern baldness.

Old news to haunt Hillary?

I can’t tell you what will come of this, or if it should really matter any more, but Carl Bernstein is publishing a book about Hillary that is promised to shed light on a number of controversies and Hillary’s less than forthcoming and deceptive explanations for them.
Drawing on a trove of private papers from Hillary […]

News Brief, Harrowdown Hill Edition

Cross-posted at The Conjecturer.
The Pentagon

James Clapper, the UnderSecDef for Intel, wants the TALON database scrapped. This is because it recorded not just legitimate threats to U.S. bases, but information on civilian protests and anti-war marches. In other words, it had morphed into a tool for the abuse of power, and Clapper is right to want […]

A BRIC Through Our Window? The Global War for Capital

According to BRIC Consulting, by the year 2040 The BRIC Countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) will have surpassed the combined GDP of the G-6 (US, UK, Italy, France, Germany, Japan) as of the year 2050:

The US will of course do rather well according to this study, especially on a per capita basis:

Massive populations plus growing […]

The Price of Economic Stability

One of the real points of contention amongst those concerned with economic policy is the increased stability of economic growth and why it has occurred. It is also an area of real concern for investors, for economic stability has some interesting affects. My interpretation:

Increased stability leads to less risk aversion, thus an increase in valuation […]

Trying to smoke out “Big MO”

I may surprise some of you, but I am generally not fan of regulation. … What? No gasps of incredulity?
So why? Too many reasons to count, but I’ll suggest this is a good example of one of them. Thus I will steal an entire post from jk at Three Sources:
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The Democrats are in charge and […]

Will We See the Efficient Market Hypothesis at Work?

As the “Scooter” Libby trial draws to a close, speculation abounds as to the final outcome. According to Chicago Boyz (HT: Insty), the Intrade betting market sets the chances of Libby being convicted at around 70% for.
Despite wishful thinking by some conservative pundits, the odds that Libby will be convicted, as reflected […]

Spend More, Tax More (for Democrats business as usual)

Michael said the other day:
Even so, it’s getting harder and harder for Democrats to lay any fiscal irresponsibility at the feet of tax cuts, when such cuts are at least partially responsible for the increased revenues, and federal spending continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate. Ratchet down the spending side (sharply) and we […]

Real Estate and the Dems

This is an interesting take on the new Dem Congress from Real Estate Broker and “The Apprentice 3″ winner, Kendra Todd. I’m hardly an expert on matters of real estate speculation, but I’d like to examine this brief articles contentions in a bit more detail.

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Listening Notes: Capital Keeps Raining On My Head

Yields are low throughout the world, and despite the rising equity markets low yields on equities mean low long run returns on them as well as bonds. So we may actually be facing an end to the decade characterized by growth punctuated by either choppy to low returns on financial assets or a massive bubble […]

The Politics of Investments

Slate has pointed me towards information that we have never before had access to on the political class. The Center For Responsible Politics has been crunching the financial disclosure forms of our dear leaders. One interesting aspect to me (go figure) was the composition of the assets in their portfolios:

The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics […]

A Positively Crazy Idea

Following up on my previous post (”The Bomb Heard ‘Round The World“), in which I proposed no solution, a rather insane idea occurred to me last night that I will now share with you.
First Premise: The generous giving of private individuals in the aftermath of a crisis is truly astounding, and often surpasses […]

What Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution had a reader ask him which philosophers he would recommend she should read. The discussion was interesting; I decided a good starting point would be Hayek, Popper, Quine and Hume. I also suggested Plato along with Aristotle’s Ethics, Merleau Ponty to cover the phenomenologist’s, skip Bertrand Russell except for […]

Do cap weighted index funds profit from the Efficient Market Hypothesis?

(Listening notes: Veruca Salt- I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory tonight. Just me, no kids, I don’t want to hear any snickering from you people;)
Economist: That looks like a $20 bill lying on the ground over there.
Other Economist: It couldn’t be. If it were, somebody would have picked it up already.
Or so one […]

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