Quote of the Day

Remember what I said yesterday about the counter-productiveness of the financial networks? Well, here's Bespoke Investment Group on 2016's winners and losers:

.... the worst performing decile in the entire matrix is the 50 stocks that Wall Street analysts collectively were most bullish on coming into the year. 

The financial media/networks is the platform from which Wall Street's wiz's promote their prognostications.

This Week's Message: Oh No, It's January!!!

Wandered into one of our staff's office this week and heard a gentleman on CNBC ask another gentleman (I presume a market wiz) what to expect this January, given that it's been a rough month the past three years running. I quickly exited the room so as to not hear the wiz's answer (seriously!). Other than Janet Yellen's December press conference, and maybe to catch a monthly employment release or two, my office TV has been turned off for months. Honestly, I have come to the conclusion, the enlightenment, if you will, that the financial media has virtually nothing to offer the investor, let alone the investment adviser. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it is utterly counterproductive to the business of long-term investing altogether. Heck, I wouldn't even suggest that a trader try to glean anything useful from the attention-grabbing, ad-selling noise that is packaged up for the public on CNBC (the old default on my TV), Fox Business and Bloomberg Television.

Our 2016 Year-End Letter Part 3: Present Market Conditions -- and -- The Most Useful and Pertinent Information I Have to Offer

Part 1
Part 2

In parts 1 and 2 we touched on 2016's winners and losers, equity valuations, the present risk in bonds and an economic backdrop that strongly suggests that a recession is not something we should be presently losing sleep over. So, in terms of prevailing market conditions, we've already seen a picture that inspires optimism over the prospects for economic growth and, thus, corporate earnings growth going forward. Okay, so what else?

Our 2016 Year-End Letter Part 2: The Economy

Link to Part 1

While the economy and the stock market do not necessarily move in lockstep -- we've had up years during recessions and down years during expansions -- we can all agree that, over the long-run, a healthy economy is essential to a healthy stock market.

Here's a look at the U.S. (although many, if not all, have global implications) economic indicators I track and record each week (there are more, but these are the ones I take the trouble to formally document for myself). The color coded titles denote my view of the signal each is presently sending. The red-shaded areas in the charts highlight past recessions:       click each chart to enlarge...

Our 2016 Year-End Letter Part 1: Some Look Backs, Valuations, and Bonds

Year-end letters can really be long, so, like last year, we'll break this year's into parts.

Part 1:

Today's Friday 12/23/2016, so the following can't be full-year stats, but I suspect they'll be close:

2016 New York Stk Exch Composite Index: +9.57%
2016 Dow Jones Industrial Average: +14.31%
2016 S&P 500: +10.62%
2016 S&P Global 1200: +6.58%
2016 MSCI Europe, Australia, Far East: -3.09%
2016 MSCI Emerging Markets: +7.54%

Quote of the Day: Just a blip...

I couldn't agree more with James Altucher:

This Week's Message: The Magic of Thousand-Point Milestones...

I look at markets from a number of angles. There's the fundamental view, which is the assessment of the general condition in terms of valuations, economic conditions, interest rate trends, currencies, etc. Then there's the technical approach, which is where we consider price trends, relative strength, breadth and a host of other indicators. But I must tell you, with regard to the overall market condition, as well as, and in particular, our work with individuals, I find the study of behavioral investing to be utterly fascinating.