From the category archives:

S&P 500

An Interactive Look at the Markets Over the Past Decade

January 6, 2010

From The Financial Times: here’s a very useful and interactive look at the previous decade’s financial markets (stocks, bonds, and commodities) with highlights of all significant global events.
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Thinking Gold? Gold as Part of a Portfolio

January 29, 2009

Many investors have been thinking about gold recently.  Some have considered it because it has been a relatively strong performer with the iShares COMEX Gold Trust (IAU) closing up 5.4% in 2008. It’s up 2% year-to-date as of yesterday’s close. The iShares S&P 500 Index ETF (IVV) was down 36.94% in 2008 and is down [...]

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Five Questions I Have About the Obama Administration

January 21, 2009

 
These are certainly interesting times.  The unequivocal enthusiasm and excitement for yesterday’s inauguration of Barack Obama is back dropped by a general panic about the state of the economy.  The financial markets are in disarray (as evidenced by the Market dropping 4% on inauguration day).  While there’s a lengthy list of questions about how Obama [...]

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Time to Break Out the Rally Caps?

January 10, 2009

Just when it looked like the wave of grim outlooks on the current state of the economy couldn’t get any larger, a number of new reports emerged this week that show the US is in its biggest slump in the Post-World War II Era. A revised unemployment report increased the total job loss estimate for the month [...]

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Will 2008 be a fat tail year?

December 12, 2008

Clay Shirky, author, professor and media & technology enthusiast, recently posted a graphic on Boingboing visualizing where 2008 YTD S&P returns fall in historical context.  His conclusion: the distribution of S&P returns is “a rough bell curve, with 45 of those 185 years [between 1825 to 2008] falling in the +0-10% column.  There are only [...]

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