Don Luskin

Don Luskin is Chief Investment Officer for Trend Macrolytics, an economics research and consulting service providing exclusive market-focused, real-time analysis to the institutional investment community. You can visit the weblog of his forthcoming book ‘The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid’ at www.poorandstupid.com. He is also a contributing writer to SmartMoney.com.

Hot, Bubbling Oil

Crude is quickly approaching $50 a barrel, leaving no doubt in my mind that oil is in a speculative bubble — very much like what happened to the NASDAQ in 1999 and 2000. Previoiusly I wrote about some of the forces behind the alarming price rise: increasing...

Conventional Wisdom: A Test for the Market and For John Kerry

This week’s national convention of the Democratic Party was a test for nominee John Kerry. It was a test for the stock market, too, with all the major indexes probing their lows for the year. It’s no coincidence that these two tests occurred in the same...

Intel’s Letdown

Despite the sensationalism surrounding Martha Stewart’s sentencing on Friday, the disappointing earnings report out of Intel late Tuesday was the true big market event of the week. Shares of the chip maker lost more than 10% in Wednesday trading as investors...

How to Play the Rate Hike

I’m going to be on vacation all next week, riding horses on the western slope of the Rockies at the fabulous Home Ranch in Clark, Colorado. No phones. No TV. No Internet. No markets. So I’ll miss the Federal Reserve’s meeting on June 30. It’ll...

The Inflation Monster Is Back

The factor dominating the strategic situation is the long-overdue end to the Federal Reserve’s patience in maintaining low interest rates. The single most important matter now facing the market is the urgent need for the Fed to raise interest rates — now!...

Terrorists Attack Already Priced Into Market

This column is going to be about what no investor wants to talk about: another terrorist strike on American soil, and how could it affect the stock market. How likely it is to happen — and when? “When” is really the only question. Not...

Buy, Buy, and You’ll Fare Well

Are your surprised that the stock market has broken out of its funk this week, even though it practically seems like the world is coming to an end? If you’ve been reading this column, you shouldn’t be. Last week I said don’t worry about high oil...

Outsourcing: Threat or Menace?

Speech by Donald L. Luskin to the Corporate Finance Council of San Diego. Tonight I’m going to be talking about the controversy over “offshore outsourcing” in the context of a book I’m writing. My book is about the intersection of the science...

Outsourcing: Threat or Menace?

Speech by Donald L. Luskin to the Corporate Finance Council of San Diego. Tonight I’m going to be talking about the controversy over “offshore outsourcing” in the context of a book I’m writing. My book is about the intersection of the science...

Jobless Recovery My Foot

The Bureau Labor Statistics released its payroll jobs report for March earlier this month, and the reported growth of 308,000 jobs for the month is a blessed relief in what has been called a “jobless recovery.” But this should really be no surprise. As I...

The 10-Year Mistake

With the Federal Reserve holding official overnight interest rates at 1.00%, the yield on the typical money-market fund is about one half of one percent, after management fees. With yields this low, you’ve got to be tempted to do something — anything!...

The New Yorker on Michael Moore

There is so much that is overpoweringly vile about Larissa MacFarquhar’s portrait of Michael Moore in the this week’s New Yorker, that it is hard to know where to begin. Start with the multiple layers of radical chic phoniness entailed in the New Yorker...

I’m Mad as Hell at PeopleSoft

Antitrust laws are supposed to protect us little guys, right? Think again. Here’s the story of how PeopleSoft chief executive Craig Conway is using the antitrust laws to deprive his own shareholders of the opportunity to sell their shares at the best price....

Bush or Kerry? You Bet!

I love markets. Just think of all the things they make possible. Whenever there’s a way for people to trade with each other, they always find ways to make money and reduce risk. So whenever market principles get applied in new ways, the world becomes a better...

The Fallacy of Insider Trading

With Martha Stewart going on trial this week, it’s a perfect time to take a look at insider trading. From what I can tell, Ms. Stewart is being railroaded. And whatever the merits (or lack thereof) of the case against her, investors shouldn’t be especially...

Great Investing Secrets Revealed

Successful investing all about having the right information. That must be why I frequently get emails from readers asking me what sources of investment information I like best, or where on the Web to locate this or that specific piece of data. So today’s column...

Advice for 2004

Last week was my 2003 year-in-review column. This time it’s about 2004, the year ahead. I do think we’ll have another good year. I’ll explain why, but I’ll also talk about what I see as one significant risk factor. And I’ll give you an...

Politics Is One of the Drivers of Good Investment Strategies

Many of my readers can’t understand why, as an investment strategist, I write so much about politics and government policy. Politics doesn’t have anything to do with investing! Well, unless you slept through 2003, now you know that they do. The year 2003...

Outlawing “Soft Dollars” Will Crush Independent Analysts

I’ve been a vigorous defender of the investment-banking and mutual fund industries against over-reaching shakedowns by regulatory vigilante Eliot Spitzer. But now, in at attempt to deflect attention from the scandals raised by Spitzer, the funds business has...

A Giant Step to Improving “Social Security”

Last April, I had the opportunity to sit across a table from President Bush and discuss his plans for the economy. I asked him what his most important policy priorities were, and he gave me a refreshingly simple and direct answer: “In the first term we’re...

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