Newsletters
Checking in on the Four Horsemen of the Markets
Today marks the end of the first quarter, and what a quarter of action it’s been in the financial markets. We kicked off the year with a continuation of the buying we saw in December, but by mid-January, stocks began retreating. The decline lasted only until the first week of February, however, and since then, […]
Time for a Little Levity
“A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.” –Groucho Marx In light of the heavy economic and political issues the country’s been grappling with lately, I decided to choose a little, health-care themed humor for this week’s quote. I hope you enjoyed it. Wisdom about money, investing and life can be found […]
Wise Words from the Global Guru
My friend and colleague, Nicholas Vardy, is a money manager and writer of the weekly e-letter, The Global Guru, which I highly recommend to all of my Alert readers. In the latest edition, titled “The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be,” Nicholas offers us some profound observations on the perils of financial prognostication. He […]
ETF Talk: The Potential Silver Lining of ObamaCare (XLV)
After months and months of debates, gridlock and uncertainty, President Obama signed into law his coveted health-care overhaul, “ObamaCare,” with implications for you and your investment portfolio. If you feel like I do about the folly of tax-and-spend politicians adding wildly to our deficit, it’s difficult to have a “glass-half-full” kind of attitude about this […]
Your Risk-Management Roadmap
The sharp sell-off we witnessed in late January and early February, followed by the 180-degree turnaround in stocks from early February to the present has many investors in a quandary about how best to navigate this tricky market terrain. I’ll admit that I’ve found it hard to identify a good entry point for putting new […]
Thoughts on Bad Government
“The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.” –Ludwig von Mises The celebrated economic thinker was a genius at identifying the true nature of the state. In this poignant quote, he reminds us that the very worst mankind has ever had to endure has come straight from the […]
Tax Day Is Getting Really Close
It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and that means you have slightly more than four weeks before you need to send that tax return to Uncle Sam. Over the past month, I’ve been working particularly hard on my own tax situation by meeting regularly with my CPA, Lee Haight. You may recall that Lee wrote an excellent […]
The Difference between Brokers and Advisors
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) has been all over the media lately with his plans to impose new regulation on the financial industry. One of the proposed changes to the current body of regulatory law includes the potential of designating brokers and other financial advisers as fiduciaries. Now, you may have already thought […]
ETF Talk: Is It a China Miracle or a Mirage?
The promise of the Chinese market is both alluring and foreboding at the same time. It is enticing due to the country’s estimated average 9.3% economic growth rate for the past 25 years, 1.3-billion population and the opening of its markets to foreign investment after decades of anti-free market policies carried out by backward-thinking communist […]
The March Higher Continues
On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve let Wall Street know that it’s going to enjoy an “extended period” of low-cost capital. The central bank was widely expected to leave interest rates untouched, and it did that. But all eyes were on the Fed’s accompanying statement, which included the “extended period” language that the bulls wanted to […]
Jim Woods is a 30-plus-year veteran of the markets with varied experience as a broker, hedge fund trader, financial writer, author and newsletter editor.
His books include co-authoring, “Billion Dollar Green: Profit from the Eco Revolution,” and “The Wealth Shield: How to Invest and Protect Your Money from Another Stock Market Crash, Financial Crisis or Global Economic Collapse.” He’s also ghostwritten many books and articles, as well as edited content for some of the investment industry’s biggest luminaries. Read more about Jim Woods.
