Today’s consumer credit report was in some ways very bullish and in other ways extremely bearish.  The Federal Reserve reports that consumer credit increased by $6.1B in December compared to [ … ]

Pring Turner Capital has an updated version of their secular bear market comparison.  According to them this bear is years from being over: “Updating our duration and valuation benchmarks, again [ … ]

My point here is not to argue that the financial services industry is useless. The financial services industry greases the engine of capitalism. That is an incredibly important function. But we must not become deluded into believing that it IS the engine of capitalism.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Monthly House Price Index took a step backward in the three months ending in November, with the 10-city and 20-city composite indexes falling 0.4 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively.

Looking at the longer-term picture, the chart below helps illustrate how the size of the civilian labor force, which grew from slightly less than 143 million people in January 2000 to 155 million at the end of 2007 (paralleling the growth of our country’s population) has since flatlined despite continued population growth.

Alcoa is about to kick-off earnings after the bell so it’s worth focusing on the topic that is likely to dominate headlines in the coming 8 weeks – earnings.  Although [ … ]