by P.J. DiNuzzo June 20, 2013 The Value of Education Now that college graduation exercises are upon us, you are no doubt hearing reports that young people matriculating from this or that prestigious alma mater are having trouble finding jobs. The easy conclusion seems to be that a college degree doesn't matter very much anymore […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo June 25, 2013 The Rollercoaster Effect There are two kinds of investor in this world. One type pays close attention to the daily (and sometimes hourly) flood of information, looking for a reason (any reason) to jump in or out of the markets. The other kind of investor is in for the […]
by P.J.DiNuzzo July 1, 2013 First-Half Report Card: Mixed Gains The recent turmoil in the investment markets might cause one to think that people have lost money this year in U.S. stocks. But in fact, most of the U.S. indices are sitting on double-digit gains, and the second quarter actually added to those gains. Despite a […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo July 26, 2013 As Detroit Goes… You've probably read that the city of Detroit has filed for bankruptcy protection. If you're like most Americans, you assumed that this is because the city has been declining, economically for decades. And indeed it's true that America's 18th largest city, once the 4th largest, has […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo August 1, 2013 New Market Highs (Yawn…) The headlines have been telling us over and over again that the U.S. stock market is achieving record highs, and the not-so-subtle implication is that they have nowhere to go but down. In fact, the "lost decade" of 2000 to 2010 has obscured the fact […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo August 12, 2013 A Long-Awaited European Recovery? You may be enjoying this long respite from reading about the European debt problems, which just a year ago still scared many observers into thinking that the world was on the edge of a deep economic malaise. The last time Europe made headlines, Greece was going […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo August 20, 2013 Dividends: A Bird in the Hand There's a lot of focus on the dividend component of investment returns these days–for a variety of reasons. First, dividends represent money in hand, which is more of a sure thing than stock price appreciation. Many investors still have a wary eye […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo September 5, 2013 Interest Rates are Trending Up. So What? If you haven't already, you will soon be hearing alarming reports of the "dramatic rise of Treasury bond rates," and the breathless implication in the articles and on the financial cable programs will be that this will have a disastrous effect on […]
by P.J. DiNuzzo Scary Headlines, Remarkable Returns The threat of a government shutdown virtually guaranteed that the investment markets would close out the third quarter with a whimper rather than a bang. The S&P 500 index lost 1.1% of its value in the final week of the quarter as the U.S. Congress seemed to […]
October 15, 2013 “Stock prices reflect all available information.” This simple, yet profound concept has won Eugene F. Fama, “Father of Modern Finance,” the 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. What are the implications of Fama’s Nobel-prize winning notion? It all boils down to the fact that it’s impossible […]
