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Bob's Journal

Found 589 Articles.
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April 2009

April 1, 2009

April 30, 2009 03:00 p.m. Contracting Less First, for those who are interested in more details about the Bernard Madoff scam, the most details to date have been published by Fortune online. The article indicates Madoff was not acting alone but says there is no evidence is family was involved. You can read the article […]

March 2009

March 1, 2009

Short-Term vs. Long-Term March 26, 2009 12:00 p.m. The stock market indexes have been on a tear since March 9. It is quite a turnaround. January and February were among the worst months on record for the indexes. The decline finally ended with new 12-year lows on March 9. The markets were oversold at that […]

February 2009

February 1, 2009

It Isn’t All Factored in Yet February 27, 2009 09:00 a.m. When the asset declines began in 2007 (and even before that) a number of investors and advisors began saying all the bad news already was factored into market prices. This mantra was repeated during and after each leg down in the markets, and especially […]

January 2009

January 1, 2009

January 29, 2009 10:25 a.m. Optimism Makes a Comeback Financial stocks soared Wednesday. Wells Fargo alone gained over 30%. Last week I discussed the sort of policies the government should implement to right the financial system and resolve the crisis. The recommendation involved having the government set up one or more bad banks to take […]

October – December 2008

December 1, 2008

RMD Relief for 2009, not 2008 December 19, 2008 05:00 p.m. Many IRAs experienced steep declines in their values in 2008. This can put a strain on those over age 70½. They are required to take minimum distributions from their IRAs and other qualified retirement accounts based on their values as of Dec. 31, 2007. […]

April – September 2008

September 1, 2008

September 30, 2008 10:30 a.m. The Shadow Bank Run Well, so much for the notion that short sellers were driving stock prices down. You know how much stocks declined yesterday, and they fell that far without anyone being allowed to sell short 900 or so stocks. I don’t know if the rescue plan that was […]

March 2008

March 1, 2008

March 24, 2008 01:00 p.m. Finally, a Bottom? There have been several false bottoms in the markets since the mortgage and credit crises began in August 2007. Last week’s holiday-shortened market action looks more positive than the previous bottom attempts. It was accompanied by several prominent forecasts that we had reached a bottom, including a […]

February 2008

February 1, 2008

February 24, 2008 03:00 p.m. A Digest of Analyses and Forecasts This past week I was treated to a range of presentations by a number of top investment professionals. You haven’t heard of many of them, but they are well regarded and worth listening to. I attended a seminar in Stamford, Connecticut and also heard […]

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