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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.

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 […]

Last week, Harvard University’s endowment fund released its investment performance figures for its fiscal year ended June 30. At just over 23% to a new high of $35 billion, the endowment’s returns were nothing short of spectacular — especially for an institution of its size. The S&P 500 (using its proxy, SPY) came […]

Stock markets in Euro-land are trading up, and unless the retail sales number throws a wild pitch, the US will likely open higher also. We are unlikely to load up on stocks in response.
It’s still a difficult proposition on the long side in general, and my mentor RevShark expressed as much in his late […]

I found this story about the S&P 500’s low, low price-earnings ratio quite interesting.  We generally don’t make investment decisions based on macroeconomic factors, but it’s hard not to consider that with historically elevated corporate profit margins, there is some downside risk to the “E” in that ratio.  Regardless, calling today’s market “cheap” because its […]

This market was negative this week for the first time in what seems like forever. Stocks kept showing a tendency to sell off during the afternoon hours, and Thursday saw the most relentless selling pressure since the March lows. I believe there is more to come.
Currently, our ManyPeaks clients are out of most […]

I know you’ve gotten some of this junk in your email inbox.

With news that the SEC is coming after the newest generation of ridiculous penny stock hypsters, I couldn’t help but recall the days at my last employer when these things came streaming in.. on the fax machine! (They somehow always landed on my desk […]

While on vacation in Jackson Hole last week, a client inquired why — after mostly dodging the waterfall selloff 2 weeks ago — their Absolute Return account hadn’t participated in the 3 day rally from Monday 3/19 thru Wednesday 3/21.
My email response:
First, on a daily chart — my primary timeframe for gauging the health of […]

My view is likely colored by the +1% performance in client accounts, but it’s an objective fact that we saw plenty of sweet upside action today. It was all under the surface, decidedly not represented by the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 48 point loss that the public heard about on the national news […]