RSP and Tax Advantages

I don’t mind paying taxes but if there is ever an opportunity to pay less I am certainly interested. When my wife and I bought our home we had amassed a nest egg in RSPs. We cashed in the RSP funds as part of the first time home buyer’s plan.
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Obama’s Bad News For Investors

While I have often been impressed with both President Obama’s speeches and candor I honestly was not a big fan of the President’s speech to Wall Street this last week. His comments, in my interpretation, amount to nothing short of bad news for all long term investors.
Obama, in his speech, said:
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Presidents and the Stock Market

How good are Presidents at predicting the future of the market? Often times they are down right terrible, the spin in speeches is often more prevalent than the truth. With President Obama’s comments about sunshine being the best disinfectant I thought it would be interested to see how his comments match up to reality.

The following collection represents many of the quotes Obama has made related to the US economy. Green arrows mark those days in the market where President Obama has made a positive comment about the future of the United States, red deltas indicate a day where President Obama has made a negative comment on the future of the economy. Click on the red and green arrows to read the exact quote.
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Recession & Depression Facts

The following are a compilation of interesting US recession facts I have collected by examining the DOW indicies between 1929 and now. All facts are compiled as a result of data drawn from yahoo finance and the use of the wikipedia page List of Recessions in the United States.

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2008 Recession and the Great Depression

Chiefly for the purposes of comical perspective if this was the second coming of the great depression this is where we would be as of this month.

Data points show change in % from previous months market close on the DOW.

Value Investing Four Filters

I am always looking for good high quality companies that are trading at a discount. Finding these companies is both challenging and time consuming. Finding cheap companies isn’t hard- finding cheap good ones is. A professional investor will spend the entire day researching company after company trying to find something the market has overlooked. As an amateur investor I don’t have that kind of time so I needed a method to reduce the number of companies I examine every week to a small handful that merit my further investigations.
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Is the stock market crash over?

Is the stock market crash over, Has the market rebounded, are we safe to jump back in?

Well lets look at the current state of affairs.  Unemployment rates are mounting all around the world and show no signs of rebounding. Companies both big and small are laying staff off and are revising financial estimates down for the coming year. Banks are still on life support. I just don’t see the good news.
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The Best Month To Buy Stock

Before starting I should say that I am not a fan of market timing, I think trying to plot an irrational event rationally is next to impossible. However, having said that, if you have the choice between two options both with equal merit why not pick the option with a track record of previous success? In my case the question is, should I get my tax forms prepared early and wait for the final forms to arrive next month and then send in, or wait until the final forms arrive before I start putting everything together.
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Buy What you Know: A Recipe for Investing in Tough Markets

“Buy what you know”, this quote first coined by Peter Lynch has been interpreted a number of different ways throughout the years. I am going to add to that list and suggest there is a way to interpret it in this economy and secure your investments.
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Banks Stopped Investing and Started Speculating

Over Christmas I have had a bit of a chance to catch up on some reading, one of the books I read through was Garrett Gunderson’s Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths That Are Destroying Your Prosperity. In Gunderson’s book he suggests individuals look at investing in the same way that banks do as they have been so extremely efficient. As Gunderson puts it banks mitigate investment risk in personal loans by doing the following:
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Presidents and the Market

I was flipping through some books in the book store over Christmas I saw something similar to this in the Investor’s Almanac. So I borrowed the idea for this post (thanks Investor’s Almanac).
With President Elect Obama’s swearing in ceremony coming up in about 25 days it is somewhat interesting to have a look at what the first year in office typically looks like for new U.S. presidents.
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Automotive Bailout

A little bit of fun one today after so many serious articles. I was talking to my good friend the other day who works at a newspaper he was telling me how shocked he was that the bailout did not pass in its current form. Apparently he did not read my post in November
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Buffet on the Economy

I enjoyed this so much I thought I would share it. Clipped from a Fortune Magazine Blog earlier:
Warren Buffett emailed this note to the directors of his company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), Tuesday after he heard that the U.S. Treasury sold $32 billion in 4-week bills at a yield of 0%:
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Insider Traders Get Hungry

There is on old phrase, people sell stock for all sorts of reasons, but only buy them for one reason.
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No Senate Bailout for Auto Industry (with new money)

Ok, at risk of tainting my own poll a friend asked me my thoughts on this question today so here we go….

For the bailout plan to pass it must go though the senate first. Here are a few facts:
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