Investors these days expect a lot from the companies they are buying stock in over coming years – earnings have to grow to meet current high expectations. Investor’s expectations tend to be wrong, not just about earnings and stock prices, but about Wall Street in general. Look no further then the scandals of recent years. ...read the rest of this article»

At the end of July we made some changes to the model portfolios. We mentioned this was coming in our last newsletter, and alerted subscribers to the actual changes when we made them. ...read the rest of this article»

All of our model portfolios are up since we launched them at the beginning of April 2002 save one, the Daredevil portfolio (our most risky) which is down 1.2%. We’re satisfied with this performance as the Dow, S&P 500, and NASDAQ are still down 12.42%, 13.4%, and 12.47% respectively in the same period.  ...read the rest of this article»

We’ve had a remarkable streak of choosing funds for our model portfolios that, soon after our allocating them, were either closed to new investors or were purchased by other fund families and converted to load funds. ...read the rest of this article»

Since the market peak of March 2000 stocks have lost money with some brief run-ups, while bonds have largely made money with some brief pullbacks. In statistical terms, the behavior of stocks and bonds over recent years is called low correlation ...read the rest of this article»

Let’s look back over the last 12 months since we launched the Powerfund Portfolios at what has been going on in the markets and with the 7 model portfolios we follow, and how we have done compared to the market and other benchmarks. ...read the rest of this article»

According to some January Effect proponents, January has predicted the year's returns over 90% of the time. This is why many investors are nervous these days. January ended down. If the January Effect is true, this means we have a 90% chance of losing money this year in the market. ...read the rest of this article»

On the surface, spending money is a great way to jump-start a weak economy. Ever since the government became such a large part of the economy (can you believe we didn't even have an income tax before 1913?) government tax and spend policy (AKA fiscal policy) has been used to "manage" economic growth. ...read the rest of this article»

If you recall from the last few issues of the Powerfund Portfolios, we talked about the panic investors felt when the Dow was in the low 7,000's, and how everyone had become severely risk averse. Much money piled into "safe" government bonds, lowering yields. Recently, as the market rallied back sharply, many of these same investors forgot all the things that made them scared in the first place - corporate scandals, a weak economy, looming war and terrorist threats, and lackluster earnings (to name just a few). ...read the rest of this article»

While there has been good news on some economic fronts, the sad fact is most of the activity in the markets is primarily from two forces: 1) the alternatives to stocks are bleak 2) the nagging feeling among investors that they if they don't get in now they could miss out on some action. ...read the rest of this article»