ProfitScore IQ

In This Issue:

Our Monthly Performance Update
My Decision on Buying My Next House
Cocaine, Profits & Your Brain
Top Ten List of Risks to Watch Out For
Interesting Stories 
Portfolio Performance Analysis
Basketball, Dancing and Mom's Scavenger Hunt

In this letter, I have produced my top 10 list of risks I see in the immediate future.  Several months ago, Greece would have been lower on my list.  However, economic conditions are very fluid and seem to be changing at increasing speeds.  I will also discuss my decision on when I plan to buy my next house.  For those not familiar with my housing saga, I sold my house in May, 2006 because I fortunately saw this housing crisis approaching.  I have been renting a home since then, and now my rental contract is due for renewal in March, so I need to decide whether to buy a house or continue to rent.  I'll outline my research on this decision.

In This Issue:

Our Monthly Performance Update
Dollar Reality Check
Are Valuations Justified?
The Mother of All Carry Trades
Market Summary
Portfolio Performance Analysis
Can I Do It This Year?

Timing is everything and being early with your investment decisions can be almost as painful as being late.  Since most investors lost significant sums of money in 2008, they feel a deep-seated fear of getting left behind.  It is called the heard instinct.  This important emotion kept us alive when we hunted with knives and spears, but today it runs investors off a cliff.  In dealing directly with retail clients, the heard instinct is the most prevalent emotion I see.

In This Issue:

Global Home Price Comparison
Lessons from the Forgotten Depression
Resisting the Intervention Urge
Chaining the Tiger
More Difficult Than Timing the Market

Quote of the week
"Institutional equity investors fear missing out on the rally. Bond investors fear deflation and the stock market is way overdone and is ripe for a steep correction. The gold bugs fear that the fiscal and monetary largesse globally will lead to inflation and fear that the U.S. dollar is on the verge of collapse. Never before has fear felt so reassuring - pick an asset class, and it's going up in price." -- David Rosenberg in a recent newsletter to clients

In This Issue:

Warren's "Desert Island" Indicator
So What Is It Telling Us?
The Weekly Rant - The Rocket-Riding Stimulus Junkies
Moose for Dinner

In This Issue:

An Update on Our Performance
Incomes - A Four-Decade Long Report Card
The Incredible Shrinking Work Week
The Curious Case of Hourly Earnings
What a Difference a Week Makes
What's a Buck Worth?
Incomes Just Don't Buy What They Used To
Wow, I Didn't Know That!
Questions and Comments
Definitions
Take My TV Challenge

Tuesday, September 14^th marked the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers.  This historic event almost brought our financial house down and exposed a multitude of inherent Wall Street vulnerabilities in the process.  Only time will tell if the government response of throwing trillions at the problem to bail out industry giants like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Citigroup, Bank of America and AIG, deemed "too big to fail," was the right move.

In This Issue:

An Update on Our Performance
The Great Inflation/Deflation Debate
Is Inflation Causing a Rippling Effect?
Getting Real on Inflation...
Paper Money Siren Song
Fiat Money Time-bomb?
Portfolio Performance Analysis
The Idaho Back Country

Over the next 20 years, you are going to see significant changes in how we function as a nation.  With our back up against the wall, it won't be business as usual for the foreseeable future.  I am not sure how it will end, but I am fairly certain that the reset button will be hit.  I just wish I knew what was going to be on the other side.

In This Issue:

An Update on Our Performance
A Revealing Voice from 1938
Paying the Presumptuous Piper
Misery Loves Company
Pertinent Facts
Government-Induced Portfolio Pain
Les (Tax) Miserables
The Bad Dreams of Our Forefathers
Portfolio Performance Analysis
4.6 Pounds and Counting

Most everyone has read or watched movies about the Roaring Twenties in America.  In hindsight, it looked much like the 90s.  If you could go back in time and interview a few people, what do you think their opinions would have been about the future?  If you conducted the same interviews in 1935, their opinions would have certainly changed, but their points of historical reference would have still been based on the Roaring Twenties and this point of reference would have positively skewed their forecast about the future.

Wall Street has been doing the stock hard-sell for more than a year now and you'd think they'd be getting tired. They've been using the financial networks to permeate their message that now is really the best time to buy. However, Wall Street is currently admitting to have jumped the gun the other dozen or so times, but they insist they have it right this time.