Strategies

Hedge funds are vehicles some of the wealthiest people in the world use to invest their capital, and the people managing the funds can make a killing as evidenced by the infographic below.

I believe that the economy is headed toward a deep recession and that the stock market is extraordinarily overvalued based on unrealistically high expectations for economic output and corporate income...

It’s hard not to see some disconnect between recent disturbing world news headlines and the market’s quiet advance but this disconnect is rational in the short term, but not necessarily in the long term. Here are 3 rules of thumb for how investors can potentially respond.

If you want to make money long-term, you have to bet against the prevailing consensus of most financial experts. I have never seen such an overwhelming bullish consensus as there is today that the economy is going to do great, that gold is a sell, and that the stock market is going to go higher, and if you want to build speculative wealth, you have to bet against that.

Obtaining a second passport and an offshore bank account are crucial parts of an overall diversification strategy, but they are not the only ones. Capturing international opportunities for your investment portfolio also has an important role and one of the easiest ways to do this is to own foreign currencies. Below are my 10 favorite reasons for doing so.

Below is a description of what I believe to be the best stock market indicator – ever. I am referring to the percentage of S&P 100 stocks above their 200 DMA which gives traders a clear early warning signal of impending serious market downturns and later safe re-entry points.

...Everyone is worrying that we are at or near a market peak and this has investors extremely hesitant to buy stocks for fear of a big decline or perhaps even a crash. Obsessing over the risk of a crash, however, could lead to analysis paralysis but there is a basic investing strategy that can save investors from losing too much hair as they make the decision to buy stocks. It's called dollar-cost averaging. Let me explain how it works and why it's great for investors with long-term investing horizons.

Since the U.S. stock market still appears to be trying to make up its mind which way things will go from here, this appears to be as good a time as any to expand on the idea of using the VIX to "buy the freaking dips."

Following the 2007-09 financial crisis, many investors decided they needed insurance on their portfolio to protect against the possibility of another “black swan” event and poured money into a host of new funds that were supposed to help if there was another downturn — long/short funds, tail risk strategies, absolute return funds, option hedging strategies, tactical asset allocation funds and the like - but they missed the idea completely. They were trying to plan ahead for uncertain events that could surprise everyone. Of course this is impossible, because you can’t hedge out the risks of unknown events - they’re unknown after all. So how should an investor protect oneself from another such occurrence? The answer is below.

If you have 401k assets, are a financial professional or individual investors looking to construct portfolios and not move monies very often, and looking to beat inflation over an extended period of time, the chart below is well worth being aware of.