ManyPeaks.com

There are occasions — sometimes years — when stock markets are so unrelentingly strong that a good active manager who was previously known to be “prudent” becomes viewed as a laggard. This most often happens near major tops in the stock market. Teresa Lo of PowerSwings.com discussed just such situations in a very […]

We have been honoring some of my mentor RevShark’s words this week. Saved from a long-ago post on RealMoney.com, I break out this quote whenever the market gets dicey.
“Keep the Damage to a Minimum.
If you can avoid taking a large hit now, you will be much better positioned when things get better.”
Words to invest […]

There’s lots of wrangling about who in government is going to “fix the problem” of high energy prices. It doesn’t need fixing.
Now I’m no proponent of tobacco consumption, but MSNBC’s report that — far from expectation at the time — production of the golden leaf has done nothing but increase since the federal price […]

It sometimes pays well, but is a tough line of work.
One of my core tenets is to never, absoulutely never, let one individual trade or transaction impair our capital to a degree we can’t recover from quickly. Opportunity comes around far too often to cling to losing positions very long.
While preferable with a beautiful […]

With 2008’s first quarter ending soon, I certainly would rather have made a ton of money for clients rather than having basically broken even.
When in doubt, our philosophy has been to reduce the risk we’re willing to take, both on any one trade and the overall exposure levels across the portfolio, rather than try to […]

Thanks to long-time financial blogger Charles Kirk for rehashing these quotes from a legendary trader..  I relate most to the final point.  That’s precisely how Teewinot has kept losses to a minimum during 2008’s destructive market action.  Client accounts are basically breakeven for the year.

“If a betting game among a certain number of participants is […]

Wednesday’s market news was dominated by a hot reading in the United States government’s monthly CPI report, and speculation about its effect on the FOMC’s interest rate reduction campaign.
As most readers know, I reside firmly in the “CPI is baloney” camp, although it is tough sharing the philosophy of a grown man sporting a mullet […]

Bear markets are tough to trade. You obviously want to participate on the short side, but until Bernanke cut rates 1.25% over 8 days last month, I was always concerned about the high risk of being heavily short overnight.. and walking into my office one morning to the disaster of seeing S&P futures up […]

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.”

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 […]