Folks, this is a big time for earnings—130 of the S&P 500 companies report before the end of the week. These reports coincide with a debt-ceiling debate here at home and a situation where European banks are playing havoc with pricing. Let’s distill this, shall we? What’s happening in Europe right now all comes down [...]

Folks, first it was Greece, now it’s Italy. More bad news about debt problems in the Eurozone caused the market to open down about 1% across the board this morning. I’ve been talking for a while about how the flow of funds from Europe affects U.S. equity markets.  European fund managers get news like this [...]

Folks, we talked a little yesterday about Growthflation—this once-in-a-lifetime global growth story that’s coupled with inflationary pressure on the demand side—and I wanted to pick up on that more today. I believe that if we tune out the day-to-day noise—Greece, the Fed press conference, the pullback in oil this morning—and take a macro view of [...]

Folks, the Producer Price Index and the Consumer Price Index numbers came out this week. The PPI was a little hotter than expected, and the CPI was up slightly and right in line with the target. These numbers are telling us a story. Inflation is here, folks! We’ve got a global debt threat, the end [...]

Folks, as I mentioned yesterday, I went out to Las Vegas to attend The Money Show. It was a great time. I’m always happy to see a few thousand people congregate to learn more about the financial services industry that used to be such a mystery. I talked to a lot of people while I [...]