The financial media is in an uproar over proposed new New York Stock Exchange and National Association of Securities Dealers rules that would require stock analysts to stop talking to reporters who didn't include mandated disclosures when the analyst is quoted in...
When an investment celebrity like Pimco's Bill Gross calls for Dow 5,000, we can't help but see it as a sign of extreme investor pessimism suggesting that we must be getting near a bottom. It reminds me of the kind of thing we heard at the top in 2000 -- in reverse....
Ever since Alan Greenspan surprised the markets by lowering interest rates 50 basis points a week ago Wednesday, the financial media have been frantic with worry about deflation. Well, you heard it here first -- exactly a year and a day ago in this column, on November...
Wall Street Journal reporter John Gasparino has been on a rampage this week to be the first with every new bit of gossip leaked from NY attorney general Eliot Spitzer's office trying to connect Salomon Smith Barney telecom analyst Jack Grubman's upgrade of AT&T...
Whatever you may think of Microsoft, the decision last Friday by federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kottely to approve the company's settlement with the Department of Justice was a much needed rebuke to the scorched-earth prosecutorial mindset of today's state attorneys...
The proposed restructuring of stock research at big Wall Street investment banks -- if "proposed" is the proper word when NY attorney general Eliot Spitzer is doing the proposing holding a rubber hose in his hand -- is an even worse-than-usual regulatory solution to a...
It's interesting to compare Bill Gates' and Microsoft's victory last Friday in obtaining a favorable settlement of their antrust case with another battle in the war on capitalism from ten years ago -- one that turned out very, very differently. In September, 1998, the...
On May 16, 1998, Bill Gates walked away from negotiations with the US Department of Justice's Antitrust Division and the attorneys general of 20 states to prevent the threatened filing of a sweeping antitrust suit against Microsoft. Gates had offered many concessions...
Stocks are first and foremost growth instruments -- a bet on the potential upside. But the best thing I can say for the stock market right now is that it's deeply undervalued. That has been reason enough for me to tell clients over the past several months to...
The markets, big business and Wall Street have been held hostage by politicians and regulators for so long that the hostages are starting to identify with their kidnappers. How else can you explain the October 30th Wall Street Journal front pager, breathlessly...
The markets, big business and Wall Street have been held hostage by politicians and regulators for so long that the hostages are starting to identify with their kidnappers. How else can you explain the October 30th Wall Street Journal front pager, breathlessly...
Investing is the most supremely arrogant thing that you can do. In effect, whenever you buy or sell an individual stock -- or even if you trade an index fund with the intention of timing the market -- you're placing your judgment ahead of the judgment of the entire...
Friday marked the 1001st day since the Dow Jones Industrial Average touched its all-time high at 11908.50 on Jan. 14, 2000. 1,001 days was the precise duration of the bear market that followed the peak of Sept. 7, 1929 -- which included the Great Crash and ushered in...
In the good old bad old days of corrupt Chicago politics, the voters were urged by city bosses to "vote early and often." Now that's exactly what you can do -- and you might even make some money at the same time. If nothing else, you'll be participating in an...
At the top of the late great bull market in 2000 investors kept coming up with reasons why stocks weren't really overpriced. I came up with a few juicy theories myself that will live forever in the Rationalizations Hall of Fame. But now, in the bowels of the longest...
The August 14th deadline for CEO's and CFO's of America's largest 947 companies to certify their financial statements has come and gone without incident. There have been no significant or unexpected earnings restatements, and virtually every company has fully complied...
Earlier this year big institutional investors were blithely telling themselves that Enron was just an exception. After all, it was a case of outright fraud. How often does that happen? And sure, every company cooks the books a little. But we expect it of them and make...
There's a game of "can you top this?" going on, with the Senate, the House, and the White House all trying to one-up each other to see who can talk the toughest tough-talk about corporate crooks. The media sits on the sidelines, egging on the politicians, lavishing...
As of yesterday's close, the S&P 500 has lost 46.2% on a total return basis (including receipt of dividends) since the top in 2000. That exceeds the loss of 45.1% in the 1973-74 bear market -- but it's still shy of the 49.9% lost in the 1937-38 bear market. If the...
A seasoned Silicon Valley businessman -- an older man of the pre-dotcom generation who's seen his fair share of booms and busts -- once told me that he had discovered the fatal weakness of the technology industry. It is that semiconductors are the most...
WorldCom has rallied as much as 53% in the two weeks since it was ignominiously ejected from the S&P 500 Index on May 14. Low-priced securities of distressed companies are often subject to such large moves in percentage terms. But WorldCom's rally following its...
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