One of the themes of this blog and of Happy Hour that we covered extensively with Mort Zuckerman on our Wall Street block party last week is that investors should often just focus on the individual stocks and not the broader market. And indeed, I still maintain that caution is king as we now clearly are seeing the down part of the economic cycle. But I still see a stock or three, especially in ... read more

1. Flip It: Buy When It Hurts 2. Micheal Moore’s Dream Come True! 3. AAPL About to Break Out…Again 1. This market is horrible and the economic recession (Yes, that same one the Fed, Dems, and Repubs said they could stop by giving your money to Bear Stearns shareholders and by borrowing $160 billion from our children for their stimulus package) is getting worse. Remember that ... read more

In a while will the smile on my face turn to plaster? Stick around while the clown who is sick does the trick of disaster For the race of my head and my face is moving much faster Is it strange I should change? I don't know, why don't you ask her? -- Neil Young All day Wednesday at Fox, my right eye was watering and really bothering me. I don't have allergies, but I figured the only ... read more

I've always liked Thoreau, even though I associate him with the time my college basketball coach (by title, not by mentorship), Dave Bliss turned to me in the middle of a practice one day and asked me if knew who Thoreau was. We UNM Lobos had lost a couple games in a row and dropped out of a short-lived run in the Top 25, and he was not happy about it. Sure I said and he said, "you know what ... read more

Though I've been preaching caution for the last year or so after being a rather big bull during my hedge fund days since 2002, I want to drive home my oft-repeated point about the importance of picking great stocks and not just putting money into the broader markets. I like to focus on buying the best stocks possible, and then getting more aggressive or less (or even getting bearish as I did on ... read more

Let's just do a quick run through of the NY Times headlines since that's what I had to read this morning before I head back to NYC.

U.S. Weighs Takeover of Two Mortgage Giants

I don't mean to pick on the NYTimes, as I do like the newspaper and read it regularly both online and in print. But as my mom said this morning in the midst of straightening up my apartment one last time before she heads back to New Mexico, I do tend to get a lot of blog fodder because I get so upset at the paper as I read it. So here's today rant.

How Fallout Could Affect Main Street

Hey all you socialists who call yourselves Republicans and Democrats, can I get something straight here? You created these "government-sponsored enterprises", FRE and FNM (call them Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to make them sound warm and fuzzy), to enable the markets to offer under-market rates on loans to high-risk people (read: use tax-dollars to make cheap loans available to the people in the ... read more

I tied my bandana, took my pack from the floor You were still sleeping,as I stood at the door Once more I was heading to,God only knows where That's when it hit me, I was already there I could ramble, a thousand miles or more Never find the light I've seen in your eyes before You gave me the freedom to go on my own way But you gave me much more, you gave me the freedom to stay -- Waylon ... read more

We're all wrong a lot, especially when you're putting predictions and money on the line...but you do have to admit, it was awfully irritating when all those permabulls ignored recent history and told everyone "Don't fight the Fed". The logic went that when the Fed is in a cutting rates phase, that you have to be long stocks...even though when the Fed was cutting rates from 2000 to 2002, stocks ... read more