This article was originally published on TheStreet.com on September 26th, 2014 at 6:00am EST There seems to be a general consensus among market commentators and investors that rising interest rates will be good for US banks. In anticipation, bank stocks like Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), and the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF) have had…
A headline this week that is getting no small amount of attention is that CalPERS—one of the largest pension funds in the world—is “exiting hedge funds.” More specifically, CalPERS is eliminating their $4 billion of exposure to hedge funds and “funds-of-funds,” citing high fees (in conjunction with mediocre performance) as their primary reasoning. CalPERS currently holds more than $300 billion…
This article was originally published on TheStreet.com on September 12th, 2014 at 10:08am EST “Buy land. They ain’t making any more of the stuff.” – Will Rogers Applying this premise to the current investment landscape—what’s something else they ain’t making any more of? How about US Dollars? Sure, “they” have been “making more of them” for the past five years, but isn’t…
This article was originally published on TheStreet.com on August 18th, 2014 at 2:12pm EST Some of the biggest M&A news last week came from within the Master Limited Partnership (MLP) space. Pipeline mogul Richard Kinder, Founder and Chairman of the Kinder Morgan family of companies — Kinder Morgan Management (KMR), Kinder Morgan Inc (KMI), Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP), and KMI’s recently purchased…
This article was originally published on TheStreet.com on August 1st, 2014 at 1:19pm EST “Short interest” is a measure for what percentage of a company’s outstanding shares are currently held short. Ok, so what does that mean? To short a stock means you must first borrow the shares, on margin, and then sell them along with the promise to buy them back at a…
This article was originally published on TheStreet.com on July 18th, 2014 at 6:30am EST Equities in the U.S. look expensive but our debt looks cheap. Overseas it’s the exact opposite. Despite the fact that yields here in the U.S. are “below historical norms” there is still an enormous global appetite for our debt. The full faith and credit of the U.S. government…
This article was originally published on TheStreet.com on July 9th, 2014 at 6:00am EST There is a concept in the investment community that is discussed primarily behind closed doors: underperformance. Whether a manager is underperforming his benchmark (like the S&P 500) or his peers (think hedgies like Einhorn, Ackman, Loeb, Paulson, etc.), believe me he is paying attention. If that underperformance becomes dramatic —…
This article was originally published on TheStreet.com on June 13th, 2014 at 1:58pm EDT Trying to time the market is a fool’s errand which will end up costing you time and, more importantly, money in the form of trading costs, taxation on capital gains, and the prospect of being un- or under-invested on up days. At least, that’s what “buy and hold”…
This article was originally published on TheStreet.com on June 5th, 2014 at 2:03pm EST Back in March we posted an article here about how Linn Energy (LINE) was “walking the line” of risk versus reward. At the time we were reading one negative headline after another about Linn, though most of the information stemmed from 2013 accusations by Hedgeye’s Kevin Kaiser about Linn’s financials.…
This article was originally published on TheStreet.com on May 22nd, 2014 at 6:30am EST The following is an actual, “real life” example of a strategy we’re working on for a client — let’s call him Robert. Robert’s father, Fred, worked for Chevron his entire career. Fred accumulated a sizable chunk of Chevron stock in his employer-sponsored plan, which he passed tax-free to…
