ManyPeaks.com

NYU professor and economist Nouriel Roubini says from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland:
“It’s not whether we have a soft landing or a hard landing in the US, but rather how hard a landing it is going to be.”

As soon as I mention the shaky bond insurer group, they bounce big on news that New York’s insurance regulators are cooking up a deal that would keep Ambac & MBIA from simply dying off via their ill-fated move into insuring mortgage CDO’s (instead of sticking to plain old municipal project bonds).
Things like that — […]

Ambac Financial (ABK), one of only a dozen United States corporations with a coveted AAA-rating, is in severely dire straits. They need capital because the municipal, mortgage, and asset-backed bonds they get paid to insure are defaulting… meaning they contractually must make those bond investors whole, just like an insurance claim.
But few market participants […]

I’ve been put off by Jim Cramer’s drama for many years. He is flat out annoying.
Just came across a memorable segment from CNBC’s show Fast Money thanks to venture capitalist, shrewd stock trader (and extremely witty guy), Howard Lindzon.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVeBzkVgaik]
I remember the mid-2007 episode, watching Cramer pathetically challenge Eric Bolling (an outstanding, smart oil/energy trader) […]

Thanks to the Piptopia Blog for verbalizing a concept I totally believe in.

Improvements in one’s skills don’t progress in a linear fashion.
The equity curve for successful traders/investors also resembles a staircase pattern.  Our status has been quite Ho-Hum recently.  I’m staying patient, but certainly look forward to the next Woo-Hoo cycle.

Here is the quote that’s taped to one of my computer monitors. It serves as a constant reminder of how to make decisions with our clients’ capital. Each of the first 3 are acceptable outcomes. I work hard to avoid that 4th scenario, crossed-out in red.
The idea is not original — I gladly […]

Full year 2007 performance statistics are updated on ManyPeaks.com.
Our typical client account was up 18.5%, versus much smaller — and some negative — figures in our benchmark indexes.
We achieved all three of our goals, and then some.

Positive for the year
Double digit returns for clients
Beat both market indexes

Individual performance reports and our 2007 Client Letter are […]

Market indexes have been slapped silly in 2008’s first few days — and the carnage in more speculative stocks is, in many cases, several magnitudes larger than the Dow and S&P’s fall.
The markets seemed to be finding their footing after 7 straight down days — but during the 11:00 hour, Countrywide was reported to have […]