A few weeks back, I noted how the stock market had become unusually top-heavy, with just five companies—Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft—accounting for 20% of the overall value of the S&P 500. But a chart that appeared online this week illustrates the impact of that imbalance. What [...]
What to worry about
In recent weeks I’ve focused on some of the growing risks in the financial system. In the stock market, there are day trading enthusiasts and their obliging brokers. And in Washington, there is a Federal Reserve that seems to have served up a bottomless punch bowl of new money. The result is [...]
One feather at a time – continued
Last week, I talked about some of the unsettling trends in financial markets. In that article, I focused on the role of brokers and day traders and noted that it takes two to tango. But it turns out the dance floor is quite a bit more crowded than that. Yes, the brokers and the day traders are doing [...]
One feather at a time
In her most recent book, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright quotes Mussolini: “If you pluck a chicken one feather at a time,” he said, “no one will notice.” Don’t worry—I‘m not veering into political commentary. But when I heard this quote, it brought to mind what we’ve been seeing in [...]
Too slow?
This week, I received an email from a reader—let’s call him Tom. He described his experience managing through this year’s unruly market. After the market dropped in February and March, he said, the equities side of his portfolio lost a lot of value. So he decided to rebalance his account—that is, to [...]
