There are lots of investments that are undeserving of investors’ money, and T-Bonds are at the top of the list. Even though the principal is guaranteed by Uncle Sam’s (or Uncle Ben’s) ability to print new money, the current yield on even the longest duration bonds is still at roughly the same level as the inflation rate. So any interest you earn on your money gets eaten up by the loss in value of that money due to the Fed’s unwillingness to do its job and achieve price stability.

Here’s a very good chart from Reuters showing one of the dominant trends in the market performance of the last 5 years.  It shows the 3 month moving average of …

Here’s the latest from Investor’s Intelligence on the 9 month high in the bull/bear spread:
“After a second weekly gain just above 2% the bulls were 52.7%, from 50.5% a week ago. Their number is …

There are many reasons why gold is still our favorite investment – from inflation fears and sovereign debt concerns to deeper, systemic economic problems. But let’s be honest: It’s been rising for over 11 years now, and only the imprudent would fail to think about when the run might end.

In our recent post “Treasuries vs Equities and Forex volatility – A Tale of Three volatilities”, from the 21st of March, we looked at a historical chart showing the relative valuations of benchmark indicators for short-term implied vols in the three main asset classes (equities / forex / rates):

Here is an update to an article I posted in September 2011, describing the leading indication that lumber prices give for the shares of housing related stocks. Back then, it was saying that a rally was ahead for homebuilders, building materials providers, and others involved in the housing industry.

As the Spanish government spreads grind higher, it is becoming increasingly clear that Spain will have a difficult time reaching its target of 5.3% debt to GDP this year and particularly the 3% targeted for next year. Goldman’s latest report is forecasting this year’s number to be 6.8% and next year to be double the target of 6%. Achieving targeted fiscal consolidation will be nearly impossible, at least in the near term.

During bullish market advances there is a lot of faulty analysis done in order to promote a bullish bias. Wells Fargo Advisors today pretty much just captured the gold in this competition with this piece of lunacy via Bloomberg: “Wells Fargo Advisors examined return for stocks over next 10 yrs when the start date is three years into a bull market and found in prior cycles that stocks have risen a median of 162%; implies S&P 500 can reach ~3700 by 2022.

Here is a follow-up to the post on the declining US coal demand. As natural gas hits a new low today, the pressure on US coal industry increases further.

A pick-up in this spring’s housing data doesn’t seem to be translating to much in terms of housing prices.  Case Shiller reported another decline in housing prices through January as …