Month: July 2014

Huge earnings from Tesla: Tesla reported adjusted earnings of $0.11 a share, beating Bloomberg’s consensus for earnings of $0.04 a share and loss of $0.26 a year ago. Revenue came in at $857.5 million, versus a consensus estimate for $813 million. Of course, the libs cry ‘socialism’ because Tesla got a loan and subsidies; the… Continue reading Tesla Reports Huge Earnings; Score One for America and Capitalism

Not much going on in this glacial news cycle. Just the usual blah blah blah about Iraq and Putin, like ambient noise of the air conditioner. The gloomers like Aaron Clarey say that America will enter a major decline due to too much debt and the usual factors that have already been covered to death,… Continue reading Enjoy the Decline? No thanks

If you go on most conservative sites, the decay of the ‘family structure’ in America tends to be presented as a predominantly African American and Hispanic problem, and this is true, but it may come as a surprise to some that outside of America, in predominant white countries, out of wedlock birth and cohabitation has… Continue reading Out of Wedlock Births: Not Exclusively a Black Problem

America’s Poorest Shoppers Are Putting Discount Stores Out Of Business Sensationalism at its worst and yet another example of liberals, such as the author of the article, wanting to see successful businesses fail or the predicting failure of successful business. Same goes for liberals freaking out over Putin – lots of hype for clicks and… Continue reading Today’s Example of Bad Journalism

I’m taking my own advice to stop reading the news, but unfortunately that means less to blog about. Anyway, last Friday I discussed low volatility “Madoff’ portfolios. One of the most important statistics to keep in mind when constructing a portfolio is the Sharpe Ratio, which measures the risk adjusted return. A low ratio means… Continue reading High Sharpe Portfolios

Cannot tell if this is good news or not, but, in 2013 dollars, the wealth of middle class is below where it was before the recession: The Typical Household, Now Worth a Third Less: The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a… Continue reading Most Americans Poorer Than Before Recession

Robert Shiller says we could be in another hosing bubble, but the Bay Area didn’t get the memo. After a huge 2013, prices are off to the races again for 2014: In the most expensive regions of the Bay Area, such as Palo Alto and Atherton, the gains since 2011 have been so pronounced, by… Continue reading Bay Area the Center of the Universe as Home Prices Keep Surging

As a diversion from the usual politics, using a linear combination of ETFs I was able to construct a ‘Madoff-like’ portfolio, without the whole fraud aspect to it. Here’s what it looks like versus the S&P 500: As a rule, I only used liquid, long-only ETFs and no re-balancing. Here’s Madoff’s actual portfolio just before… Continue reading Constructing a ‘Madoff’ Portfolio

Washington Is Giving Up on Everything A can’t-do spirit is settling over Congress and President Obama, writes a leading political handicapper. I, for one, applaud the do-nothing congress for not doing too much. Let Wall St. self-regulate. The private sector, with the help of the fed, has created more wealth in the past five years… Continue reading The Good News: Washington Is Giving Up on Everything