A lot of strategists and investors have been talking about what the “new normal” will look like as the economy recovers from the recent financial crisis and unwinds the excess leverage that many companies and individuals had been using. Mike Thompson, managing director of Standard & Poor’s, offers some interesting thoughts on that new normal in this interview with CNBC. According to Thompson, companies had spent two decades building more leverage into their business models,… Read More
Despite all the talk of “green shoots”, Warren Buffett says that he’s seen no bounce in the economy. He tells CNBC that, while the government has done a good job getting us through the financial crisis, it will take time for the economy to get rolling again. Buffett also gives his take on the need for and challenges involved in new financial regulation, and whether Ben Bernanke deserves to be reappointed as Federal Reserve chairman.… Read More
Famed contrarian investor David Dreman says inflation concerns have him “terrified” of bonds and seeing good times for stocks and real estate. “I think we’re going to have some of the worst inflation, with all the printing presses around the world running 24/7,” Dreman told Reuters. “Probably the two worst investments over the past two, three years have been stocks and real estate. They could be the best investments two or three years out.”
In an interview with CNBC’s India affiliate, Yale economist Robert Shiller says that governments across the world should be focused on greater economic stimulus — and put concerns about rising national debts and potential inflation on the back-burner — in order to capitalize on the recent jump in confidence. Shiller says that the recent rise in confidence has not been accompanied by true improvement in the economy, and that there’s a chance that confidence could… Read More
In his latest “Thoughts from The Frontline” newsletter, John Mauldin makes a pretty bold proclamation that goes against a long-held principle of investing — this time, he says, things really are different. “If memory serves me, I have written several e-letters disparaging various personages who have uttered those very words, and gone one to confirm later that it wasn’t different,” Mauldin writes. “It almost never is. … But my premise for uttering the heresy ‘This… Read More
While buy-and-hold investing continues to draw criticism from some pundits, money manager and newsletter guru Jim Oberweis begs to differ. In a recent interview with The Motley Fool, Oberweis says that buy-and-hold is alive and well, because timing the market remains an incredibly difficult task. “Show me some quantitative evidence that someone’s right, and then I’m interested,” Oberweis said in response to the buy-and-hold bashers. “I’m a numbers guy. I don’t know anyone who has… Read More
In the video below, John Buckingham of Al Frank Asset Management — who last week explained why history shows now might be a good time to buy value stocks — offers his take on what he’s looking for from the economy, and says that it’s a “great time” for long-term investors to be buying equities. A couple of Buckingham’s points: He says home prices don’t need to rise much to justify buying stocks, and says… Read More
Steven Leuthold, the longtime bear who has turned bullish in recent months, tells Bloomberg news that he doesn’t think the current pullback will run more than 5% or 6%, and says he still sees the S&P 500 getting to 1,100 by the end of the year. Leuthold says there are definite signs the economy is improving, and discusses some of the areas of the market he’s currently bullish on. Leuthold also offers his take on… Read More
BusinessWeek recently took a look at the dilemma facing value investors right now — that is, with the economic outlook still extremely hazy, the big recent rally generating predictions of a pullback, and valuation metrics bouncing around quite a bit, is it time to scale back stock holdings to wait for even better prices? Or should value-minded investors be happy with the current good buys in the market? One of those weighing in is Oakmark… Read More
Jack Bogle covers a wide variety of topics in a recent interview with The Motley Fool, including just what the “long-term” in “long-term investing” should mean, why traders usually lose out, asset allocation, and whether the S&P 500 is a “good” index. Bogle’s belief that that the best approach for individual investors is to hold the entire stock market for the long term through an exchange-traded fund or index fund is well known, and he… Read More