For the second straight month, the pace of hiring disappointed. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), while the headline unemployment rate fell to 6.6 percent in January, the U.S. added only a net 113,000 jobs, well below consensus expectations for an approximate gain of 180,000. The BLS revised… Read More

The major U.S. stock indices S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average will book their first monthly loss since last August. Today, soft Europe data added to global growth concerns. According to Eurostat, in January consumer price levels in the euro zone grew just 0.7 percent year-over-year, the fourth consecutive… Read More

U.S. stocks are on track for their worst one-week performance of the year. Some mixed earnings results from heavyweights such as IBM, Intel, Citigroup, and others plus soft manufacturing readings both at home and from abroad gave investors reasons to reassess the economic outlook and current stock valuations after equities… Read More

The week began with the worst one-day performance for the S&P 500 in more than two months as investors blinked after the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Dennis Lockhart (a non-voting Fed member this year) remarked that he supported "similar tapering steps" (namely, the $10 billion per… Read More

This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released an almost shockingly poor monthly jobs report, showing that the U.S. economy only achieved a net gain of 74,000 jobs in December, the worst monthly tally in 3 years, and undercutting even the most pessimistic analyst projections. The huge miss (versus consensus… Read More

Yesterday, for the first time since 2008, stocks logged a losing day on the first trading day of the year. Thanks to strength from our two miners and two biotechs, our portfolio nevertheless bucked the market and started the year off slightly in the green. While our proprietary stock indicator… Read More

Markets are on track for a record year, given the signs of economic strength and ultra-easy monetary policies of world central banks. If the world indeed stands en route to recovery, we might be in for another good year in 2014—especially when it comes to commodities. We… Read More

The big news this week, of course, is that beginning in January, the U.S. Federal Reserve will finally start to taper, or reduce the size of, its bond-purchase program. Although the stream of good economic data lately and a rare budget accord in Washington had increased the chances of taper,… Read More

Don’t look now, but the House of Representatives and the Senate finally could have an agreed federal budget for the first time since 2009. Led by House Representative Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray, the bipartisan committee has come up with a budget deal that would prevent another government shutdown… Read More

Coming into today, the S&P 500 had finished five consecutive sessions in the red—the first such streak since September—as a number of positive pieces of economic news increased the chances that the Federal Reserve could soon start to reduce its bond purchases, perhaps in the first quarter of 2014. The… Read More

Earlier this week, we added a new pick to our portfolio. This small-cap company is a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of a portfolio of branded, premium-quality footwear and apparel that span a broad price spectrum and are distributed primarily in North America. The product lines cover markets from outdoor to work and duty, and are popular with customers ranging from law enforcement to farming. Its best-recognized brand names include Read More

Our new portfolio addition engages in the discovery and development of drugs for the treatment of viral diseases. At the moment, the company has a very narrow focus in this market- projected to grow tens of billions of dollars within just a few years. The World Health Organization estimates that in addition to the 170 million people in the world already infected, each year an additional three to four million new patients are infected with Read More

Our newest recommendation dominates an increasingly popular Internet niche, operating one of the largest online marketplaces for vacation rentals in the world. The company runs multiple websites, and in recent quarters, has hosted hundreds of thousands of listings of rental homes all around the world. Owners and managers list their properties on the company's websites to rent to the public. While travelers get a vast choice of available vacation stays to choose from, often at better rates and with better amenities than at hotels, property owners and managers earn extra income by renting out idle properties. Read More

This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. economy added 204,000 non-farm jobs in October (212,000 in the private sector), obliterating economists’ median prediction of 120,000. Furthermore, the August and September figures were revised upward by a total of 60,000. The strong data is especially surprising considering… Read More

As at its previous meeting in September, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided this week to keep the rate of its monthly bond purchases unchanged at $85 billion. The market reacted, however, quite differently this time around. Heading into the September FOMC meeting, most observers believed that a modest… Read More

With the Washington drama now in intermission, investor attention has returned to economic data, potential monetary policy changes, and the earnings season. The Labor Department reported on Tuesday that in September the U.S. booked a net gain of 148,000 jobs, far below the consensus expectation of 180,000. Read More

With little time to spare, on Wednesday the House Republicans relented and approved the bipartisan Senate bill to fund the government through January 15 and, more importantly, to temporarily suspend the debt ceiling through February 7. This means that the Treasury Department can for now borrow without regard to any… Read More

With the October 17 debt-ceiling deadline fast approaching, yesterday House Budget Committee Chair (and former Vice Presidential candidate) Paul Ryan unveiled a stopgap budget proposal and debt deal to reopen government and buy the politicians another six weeks to generate a longer-term agreement. In essence, it would be little more… Read More

The federal government is now in its fourth day of minimal functionality. According to research firm IHS Global Insight, each week of the partial shutdown will cost about $1.6 billion in GDP. The hundreds of thousands of government workers and contractors are the ones most immediately affected by lost or… Read More

“Shutdown” has replaced “tapering” as the word du jour. If Congress is unable to agree on a continuing resolution by next Monday to temporarily fund the federal government, the government will shut down—more literally, activity will be reduced to the essentials—until the Washington gridlock breaks. In the event of a… Read More