Vanguard Founder John Bogle continues to see a lengthy period of continued pain ahead for the U.S. economy — but now he says the stock market has to be getting near a bottom. Bogle, who in mid-November of 2007 — just weeks before the current recession began — said there was a 75 percent chance that the U.S. would enter a recession as consumers pulled back, told Bloomberg that the recession could last another two… Read More
PIMCO’s Bill Gross says that the U.S. government needs to be bolder in its handling of the financial crisis — and says that bank nationalization is not the answer to the problem. “The U.S. and global financial systems require credit creation and foreclosure prevention, not bank nationalization as currently contemplated by some,” Gross writes in his latest market commentary on PIMCO’s web site. “Trillions will be required in the U.S. alone and it is critical… Read More
Showing the contrarian bent that made him one of the most successful investors of all time, David Dreman says it’s time for investors to jump into banking stocks. “They will come back at some point. It’s essential to the economy,” Dreman tells Q1 Publishing. “We need a banking system we’re confident in. We can’t work without a banking system. We can patch it up for a while and the government will probably take some stake… Read More
Index funds may sound boring, but in his latest New York Times column, Mark Hulbert offers some data that indicates index funds may, in the end, actually yield higher net returns than mutual funds and even hedge funds. Hulbert details a study performed by Mark Kritzman, president and CEO of Windham Capital Management and a professor at M.I.T. In the study (presented in the Feb. 1 issue of Economics & Portfolio Strategy), Kritzman developed an… Read More
Fortune asks the million dollar question: “Have we hit the bottom, or will we resume our downward slide?” To try to find the answer they tap a number of investment experts, including Charles Schwab’s CIO Jeff Mortimer, BlackRock’s vice chairman Bob Doll, Doug Noland of the Federated Prudent Bear fund and GMO chairman Jeremy Grantham.
Forbes has put together an extensive guru-inspired special report entitled “Sage Advice to Save Your Portfolio”, explaining, “Extraordinary times require a special dosage of sage advice.” The feature includes pieces about the strategies of such great investors as Warren Buffett, Ben Graham, Philip Fisher, Peter Lynch, William O’Neil, John Templeton, James O’Shaughnessy, Martin Zweig, and Joseph Piotroski. In addition, the special report features articles from John Reese on what you can learn from the similarities… Read More
They say that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But, when it comes to the “Great Depression” comparisons now springing up amid this terrible economic climate, an equally fitting adage might be that those who dwell too much on history are doomed to repeat it — that’s essentially what Robert Shiller, the Yale University economist who predicted the housing bust and much of the current financial crisis, says. “The attention… Read More
Robert Rodriguez of First Pacific Advisors, who deftly avoided financials last year and earned praise for the strong performance of his bond fund, tells Barron’s that he remains hesitant about stocks, and thinks the government’s stimulus package is missing the point. In 2008, Rodriguez’s FPA Capital equity fund lost 34.8% for the year despite his avoidance of financials, in part because energy companies got hit hard in the second half of the year. But he… Read More
Todd Sullivan often posts some great speeches or client letters from successful investors on his ValuePlays web site, and he recently featured a particularly interesting speech that former hedge fund star Mark Sellers gave to Harvard Business School students. In the speech, Sellers tells these top students that they “have almost no chance of being a great investor”, the type who can compound money at 20%+ a year for the long run. “You have a… Read More
“Expert”. It’s a term that gets thrown around an awful lot in parts of our society, and the financial world is no exception. But in an interview with Money magazine, researcher Philip Tetlock warns not to trust someone just because they’re called an expert, and explains why so many of these supposed “experts” failed to see the market crash and economic crisis coming.