Investing

At this mature stage of a cyclical bull market, it’s important to avoid allowing your hubris to go haywire - to believe you’re just so damn good that your next goal should be to “beat an index.” I offer 3 ways to let you keep yourself in check - to avoid losing your ass - as markets eventually revert to a mean.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Warren Buffett’s favorite tool for measuring the overall valuation of the market: the ratio of total market cap to GDP. Today, we’re going to dig a little deeper into that analysis and compare the U.S. market to 20 other countries you may be interested in investing. Take a look HERE at a chart showing the current market-cap-to-GDP ratio within the context of its historical range. You will find the results very interesting.

There is literally nowhere for the bond market to go except down and, when this bull market turns into a bear, it will create chaos and financial devastation all over the planet.

Equity markets in the U.S. have bounced back over the past couple of weeks and have shown strong momentum to the upside. We are now well into the fourth year of a rising equity market and we might now reasonably ask the obvious question, "When might this end?"

There is a simple way for any logical person to determine whether a crash is imminent. It isn’t listening to fear mongering, or a commentator trying to grab attention so stop listening to the experts who are blowing out their ……. Start looking around yourself.

At its current pace there are 3 developments underway that paint an ominous picture of new gold supply soon becoming unable to keep up with demand which will push gold prices higher. In the meantime, the longer prices stay at current levels, the greater the impact. This setup makes current gold prices a must-buy opportunity.

The forward price/earnings (PE) ratio is probably the most popular way to measure value in the stock market - when the forward PE is above average, the market is expensive and future returns will be low and, when the PE ratio is below average, the market is cheap and future returns will be high. Putting such popular rules of thumb aside, what does the forward PE really tell us?

Even seasoned U.S. investors can make basic (and wrong) assumptions and generalizations when it comes to investing internationally. Here are a few common traps that investors tend to fall into when they start looking outside their own country’s borders.

Numbers don’t lie. You’re either making money or you’re losing money. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you make incredibly careless errors that could cost you dearly. There’s no better meritocratic environment. So, do you possess the characteristics of what it takes to become a successful trader? Here are 10.

Don’t ever take financial headlines at face value. They seldom tell the whole (or true) story - and you definitely shouldn’t rely solely on insiders to govern your investment decisions. They’re just as unreliable.