Posts Tagged ‘Holiday Season’
14 Habits for Happier Mornings, and Other Weekend Reading
Friday, December 18th, 2009
Here are this weekend’s reads. Wishing you Happy Holidays with your family!
The 4 worst foods you can eat - Improve your diet by limiting your consumption of four of the worst foods you can eat
14 habits for happier mornings
14 habits for happier mornings - If you’re like many people, the start of the day isn’t your favourite time. Here are 14 habits you can sneak into your routine without much effort
Unitasking Meets Dog World: Walk WITH Your Dog When You Walk With Your Dog
The nerve of our dogs, having their own agenda when we’re out trying to get some walking done! For many of us, walking with our dogs is a struggle of excess: too much stopping when we want to go, too much going when we want to stop, too much jumping on people, too much pulling, etc. In this article we’re going to talk about how to cure the struggle, which is actually simpler than you might think – because it’s all about your focus and expectations when you’re walking together. After all, it should be a time for you and your dog to be on the hunt together, taking in the smells of the neighborhood (or park, or woods, or wherever) and enjoying your experience of the world in all its stimulating-your-emotions glory.
Movie roles that stars turned down
Movie roles that stars turned down
During the holidays, most families take the time to formally acknowledge the abundance in their lives — the love, security and material comforts. But why stop there?
Let’s Bring Back: The Holiday Season Edition
It seems that Americans have always been nostalgic around the winter holidays. Just look at the lyrics of Irving Berlin’s iconic song, White Christmas, written around seventy years ago:
Hanukkah Sufganiot
Looking for a holiday treat? Then try sufganiot, a jelly donut perfect for Hanukkah—or any other holiday that falls this month.
Money : Secrets for Well-Funded Wills
Writing your will is about as enjoyable as listening to someone scratch their nails along a chalkboard. But are you aware of what could happen you don’t?
Tags: Abundance, Advertisement, Canada, Christmas, Consumption, Diet, Dogs, Emotions, Hanukkah, Holiday Season, Irving Berlin, Love, Lyrics, Material Comforts, Money Secrets, Neighborhood, Nerve, Struggle, Weekend Reading, White Christmas, Wills, Winter Holidays, Wishing You Happy Holidays, Worst Foods
Posted in Markets | No Comments »
Setting the Bull Trap
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
This post is a guest contribution by Bennet Sedacca*, President of Atlantic Advisors Asset Management.
Long time students of the market will tell you that “the crowd is usually wrong at the extremes”. Judging by what I see, hear and read in the media, the current consensus is that stocks bottomed on November 20th-21st, an economic recovery will begin in the second half of 2009, corporate bonds are a buy, stocks are cheap and the stock market is now discounting all the bad news. This is surely a sign that the worst is likely behind us.
Even though I was looking for a low in the S&P 500 around 750 (it bottomed around 740 on November 21st only to close at 800 the same day), I continue to believe that was a low point, but not THE low point for this bear market. We were large buyers of Mortgage Backed Securities during the Wall Street de-leveraging and have been rewarded with handsome gains, although we began to take some profits on Friday where appropriate.
Corporate bond spreads have tightened during a slow holiday season as well as spreads in CMBS (Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities). Corporate spreads may or may not tighten further as I believe there will be a wave of issuance at every level - Government, Emerging Markets, Corporations, Municipalities, etc. Treasury yields have crashed as the Fed has taken the Federal Funds Target Rate to a range of 0-0.25%.
Stocks have rallied even more to S&P 931 and could possibly make a run at 1,000-1,100 if “performance anxiety” sets in among those portfolio managers that are afraid to miss the rally. We are not afraid of missing the rally because we are absolute return investors and have the luxury of having missed the big down move from nearly 1,600. The managers that are subject to performance anxiety are the same group that managed to a market benchmark only to get tattooed during the downturn.
The Fed is punishing savers and the Prudent Man by manipulating interest rates to zero. You can sit in cash and earn zero or you can be forced out on the risk spectrum just so you can keep up with inflation or your benchmark. Forcing money into risky assets is perhaps the most dangerous experiment ever done, and is so large in scale and so unprecedented that we have no idea how it will end. I expect it to end poorly and with hyper-inflation. The funneling of assets into risk is masking the deteriorating fundamentals and giving the appearance of a market that has bottomed. But this is sleight of hand, an illusion.
The Fed has declared a war on savers, a war on prudence and provided the ultimate Moral Hazard Card - and with our money no less. They are also setting up the ULTIMATE BULL TRAP - a trap so large that when it is sprung, perhaps as early as the end of the first quarter/beginning of second quarter, there will only be sellers left.
Click here for Bennet’s full report.
* President of Atlantic Advisors Asset Management, Bennet Sedacca brings with him more than 26 years of securities industry experience. From 1981 to 1997 he worked for several major investment banks, specializing in high-grade fixed-income securities marketing, trading and portfolio management. In 1997 he formed Sedacca Capital Management focusing on portfolio management for high-net worth individuals and small to mid-sized institutions.
Bennet graduated from Rutgers University in 1982 with a degree in Economics.
Tags: Absolute Return, Bear Market, Buy Stocks, Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities, Corporate Bond Spreads, Corporate Bonds, Downturn, Economic Recovery, Emerging Markets, Holiday Season, Issuance, Level Government, Mortgage Backed Securities, Performance Anxiety, Portfolio Managers, Prudent Man, Stock Market, Target Rate, Time Students, Treasury Yields
Posted in Bonds, Emerging Markets, Markets | 2 Comments »
