LinkFest
Investing in farm stocks all over the world.----A very cool Magnetic Movie.----For Ray Kurzweil, the Future is Now. Did you know he runs a hedge fund?----The dreaded Black Swan formation just showed up on the S&P. I'm not going to even comment on Taleb's new diet.----Bill Miller is now underperforming the S&P over a 10-year period.----I am...
Periodic Table of Returns
Here is a nice table from Prudential that shows the benefits of a good asset allocation. The second page has a statistic that shows the performance of the same allocation I use in my paper (20% each in US Stocks, Foreign Stocks, Bonds, REITs, and Commodities). 83% of the years since 1973 are above inflation, and 89%...
Weekend Linkfest
You know you've made it as a blogger when someone gets to your site by searching "how to blow something up" (currently 5th ranked search query on Google for that phrase). The only weirder search was "Bill Gross's moustache".----Heebner is on fire.----Who knew something as cool as the Hybrid Tech 220+ MPG Supercar would come from Mooresville, NC?----Nice...
Factor Based Stock Screening for Up and Down Markets
Charles Kirkpatrick has been publishing his market newsletter for decades. His simple factor based stock-screener has been beating the pants off the market for a long time. Here is a paper he published in 2001 "Stock Selection – A Test of Relative Stock Values Reported Over 17-1/2 Years". He has continued to refine and simplify his...
Books in the Mail
The Intelligent Portfolio: Practical Wisdom on Personal Investing from Financial Engines by Bill SharpeHedge Funds: An Analytic Perspective and The Heretics of Finance: Conversations with the Leading Practitioners of Technical Analysisby Andrew LoHere is a FANTASTIC speech by Lo at the MTA meeting in New York. Highly recommended.Lots of white papers and info on Lo's AlphaSimplex page....
Alternatives Review
Occasionally I take a look at the US listed alternative funds. Below is their performance year to date. With equities down around 4%, many of the alternatives have put in good performances. Standouts include Diamond L/S (DIAMX) and Dreman Value (DHG, still trading at a -13% discount) in the long/short category, and TFS Market Neutral (TFXMX)...
Rebounding
Do markets rebound after really bad months?Back in January I examined some of the worst months on record for 5 main asset classes in a piece titled, "Time to put money to work". The summary:What are the key take-aways?- It does not pay to buy an asset class after a really bad month for the following 1 month.-...
Memorial Day Weekend
I bet Warren Buffett is cracking one open this weekend. BUD at all-time highs. (From Stockcharts)Also got a new book on the way: Smarter Investing in Any Economy: The Definitive Guide to Relative Strength Investing by Mike Carr.
When Buyouts Boom
Nice day for hedge fund favorite QCOM, up 4%.----Brevan Howard announces €1bn LSE float for a fixed income/global macro fund.Once again, not in the US. In related news, an ETF provider in the US filed to launch the Intellidump Micro Retail Dividend Weighted 4X Leveraged ETF.----Wait, so Red Rocks Captital is the advisor to the PowerShares Private Equtiy...
LinkFest
Consumer sentiment is the worst since I was (almost) 3 years old.----Young and small hedge funds perform better - I like the sounds of that!----Look at all that pork! From Carpe Diem:Imagine if Michigan's struggling Big Three automakers suddenly struck this deal with Congress: The U.S. government would buy the Motor City's cars for roughly twice the world...