Fire Drill - Weekly Blog # 782

 

Mike Lipper’s Monday Morning Musings

Fire Drill:

On board ships and in schools, why not in investing?

 

Editors: Frank Harrison 1997-2018, Hylton Phillips-Page 2018

 

 

 

Any Smoke?

Implications: US stock index returns are almost normal for the full year if we use the year-to-date performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average +7.16% and the S&P 500 +8.14%. Even the NASDAQ +18.64% is representative of a good speculative year, perhaps benefitting from short covering. The VIX indicator is almost asleep at 15.76, compared to 30 in past mildly troubling times.

 

There are some whiffs of smoke in the air, including a continuing 2 to 10-year yield inversion spread of 4.08% - 3.45%. Updating one of the oldest technical indicators with a more modern twist. In the latest week the 30-stock DJIA had 20 stocks rising to 10 declining, but the 20 transports split 6/14. (In the original Dow Theory, it was only the rails in the index. Today the number of rails has dropped, and a number of airlines, trucks, and other transportation securities have been added.) This could be significant if the normal buyers of rails, which are freight driven, are looking for future declines. 

Another group that appears to be worried are the CEOs of traditional financial services companies. The latest to announce a 10% layoff from both their investment banking and investment management functions was Lazard. (Mid-market M&A industry revenues hit a 9-year low in the first quarter.)

 

Publishers Note

The popular distinction between a recession and a depression is your neighbor losing his job in a recession and you losing yours in a depression. It can be helpful to explore the possible roads to a depression by focusing on the needs of securities analysts regarding layoffs. In focusing on the way companies handle layoffs, they should first be aware of the lost art of making money from bankruptcies. All too often layoffs are the first act of self-inflicted worsening conditions. Since they don’t teach about surviving bankruptcies today, they are unequipped to adequately analyze layoffs. (I admit the thought came to me in a recent meeting with the Dean of an upcoming Business School, where there are no classes on bankruptcies.) 

While a Columbia College undergraduate I was privileged to take Securities Analysis from Professor David Dodd, who was both an academic and investment partner with Benjamin Graham. David Dodd collaborated in producing the seminal work on Securities Analysis based on their experiences in the 1920s and 30s. It occurred to me that the whole basis for the course was the knowledge necessary for those who’d lived through the depression. This knowledge could be important in the coming era, and I will consequently devote the rest of this blog to the types of things one should look for prior to and during such a period.

 

The Fixed Income World is Different

There are two critical differences between fixed income and equity.

1. The first is the legal relationship. Fixed income is a contractual relationship with an initial investment, periodic payments, maturity, and rank in the order of payments in a bankruptcy.
2. Owners of fixed income securities are expected to be paid a pre-determined amount of interest and pre-payments of principal, as well as a final payment.

If payments are not delivered as promised, the default process is governed by the issuing documents. Things change dramatically when a bankruptcy begins. All debts immediately come due, sourced from the potential sale of all assets. Debts are paid in priority order, as specified in the issuing documents.

 

However, compromises are often made to get agreement from the holders of different classes of claims. This helps expedite payments rather than having to endure long, expensive court hearings. The size of the payments is a function of the price paid for the assets, less the costs of the sale. The cost of the sale includes the cost of highly specialized attorneys, accountants, and other experts.

 

Fixed income securities rights and privileges are senior to common stock rights. Owners of common stock will probably be wiped out, as there is generally no additional money to pay out after the senior debt holders have been paid. However, to avoid long and expensive court battles by equity owners, they will often be awarded a small amount of a subsequent new equity class.

 

What is a Bankruptcy Worth

Up to this time the focus has been on the current appraised value, usually in a quick liquidation. To the extent there is a belief that a “going concern” will survive bankruptcy, a different kind of analysis is needed based on the current use of the assets and their user in the future.

 

Growing up in Manhattan there were neighborhood cigar stores on many commercial street corners. They were good business in the late 1920s and became less good as time went on. By the early 1940s those businesses had effectively died. A chain of these went bankrupt, but their stock went up in price!!! The reason for this was that these stores were on busy corners and had long-term leases. A classic case of being worth more dead than alive.

 

There were a couple of cases of railroads who lost lots of money throughout the depression and went bankrupt. However, a couple of sharp investors saw a similar situation, as the railroads had considerable land along their right-of-way. In the WWII expansion of plants and military camps, these lands and their proximity to the rails became very valuable.

 

The unfortunate attitude of too many of today’s analysts and portfolio managers is that “value” is found on the published financial statements. To them, stock selling at a discount to book value is a bargain. In truth, book value is a collection of unamortized assets not written off. Because of changes in the market for a company’s products, the use of their facilities is less than their original purpose. For example, strip shopping malls in poor locations today.

 

What is not reflected in the financial reports are the developed new products, self-generated patents, a good sales force, key employees, etc. These are the types of assets we look for as investments.

 

The items mentioned in the last paragraph are critical in evaluating various layoffs. To the extent the layoff managers husband these types of assets I am not concerned, but if they are shedding valuable assets I am.

 

 

How Do You Evaluate Layoffs of Owned Stocks?

 

 

Did you miss my blog last week? Click here to read.

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Searching for Bottom, Understanding, and Select Futures - Weekly Blog # 620

Mike Lipper’s Monday Morning Musings

Searching for Bottom, Understanding, and Select Futures

Editors: Frank Harrison 1997-2018, Hylton Phillips-Page 2018 –

“The Bottom”
Even before the end of hostilities, survivors begin to determine how bad is bad when someone is attacked. Is this the bottom? For those in and around the stock market there is lots of history to provide clues. At 9:26 AM on the 13th, Larry Goldstein, a very successful micro-cap fund manager and a junior analyst in the same shop with me years ago, wrote the following:

The factors that make a bottom in the US stock market include a combination of climatic selling with an intraday reversal, combined with a breakthrough announcement on testing and treatment for the Coronavirus...This will turn, it always does.

On Monday he was generally right. There was a sizable price gap opening in the DJIA compared to the previous day’s close. The low for the day (21,159 vs 21,200 Thursday close). The close on Friday, which may be close enough to fill the gap, was 9% higher than Thursday’s close.

A Largely Predictable US Stock Market Fall
What was not predictable is the size of the decline in one month’s time. A student of history could have predicted two out of the three causes for the decline. I know of no way to predict the rapid spread of Covid-19, although it’s clearly possible that some in the medical sphere had knowledge of Chinese conditions. The rapid spread of the Coronavirus was a convenient time for Russia to attempt to grab a much larger share of the oil market from US shale frackers and “swing” producer, Saudi Arabia. A student of 19th century world trade history would not have been surprised.

In the 19th century a great German military strategist proclaimed that war was just another way to execute national policy. In the 21st century one could easily substitute trade wars for military wars. Some may even suggest that Germany provided the muscle for WWI due to that country’s late economic development. Germany needed more global markets but found themselves blocked by the trading strengths of the US, Great Britain and others. One could also point to the Japanese attempt to build a “Co-Prosperity Sphere” as being a contributor to the Pearl Harbor attack.

In the current era, China’s contribution of at least one quarter of the growth in world trade was dramatically changing. Under their command economy they needed to create both employment and a rising standard of living. They were evolving from being an export driven economy to having greater reliance on internal market development. Thus, the growth rate of their exports declined, so too would the rate of import growth. The trade issues with the US added to these contractions, Europe lost some exports to China and they received lower price imports diverted from the US.

Europe’s general economy had slowed and in some cases was approaching stall speed, while Russia and Saudi Arabia attempted to catch up with the more developed world through massive capital projects. Both are critically dependent on oil exports to generate the capital needed to hold off the global drive of popularism. Thus, the Russian move to capture greater market share makes sense, it came with much lower prices, contrary to the Saudi’s own needs.

Remember, most large expansions by industry and government are debt financed. The equity market is often slower to react to economic trends than the fixed income market. That is exactly why the following quote from BlackRock’s CIO of Global Fixed Income was so unnerving.

“If you don’t know where the safest asset in the world is, it becomes impossible to figure out (where) everything else is.” 

This uncertainty for the week ended Wednesday led to net redemptions in corporate investment grade bond funds of $7.3 Billion and $5.1 Billion from high yield bond funds. (More on the threat of the bond bomb later.)

Going Forward
The odds are favorite that we have seen the bottom of the major US stock market indices for some time. (I am guessing there is a 60%-75% chance that this is a correct assumption.) I assume any top or bottom will be tested before investors accept a major turn in the cycle. The test can be above or below the bottom, but it will have less sustained force behind it. I have reasonable confidence in the turnaround as a result of measuring the price differences of our closely followed roster of financial services stocks, between Wednesday and Friday closing prices were within 0.3% of being equal.

The reliance on reported earnings per share is a worry for equities. It is a much-manipulated figure due to changes in accounting standards, federal/state tax rates and rules, plus buy backs. Utilizing I/B/E/S data from REFINITIV, analysts estimated that fourth quarter reported S&P 500 earnings would be +10.2%, but net income only +8.2%. That spread widened from 2% in their first quarter 2020 estimate to 2.4 % (+14.3% earnings and +11.9% net income). Since mid-February, or even earlier, no one is holding to 2020 earnings estimates.

The reason for showing the spread is that analyst and perhaps corporate management believe others will accept the reported per share numbers. I always look at any equity in terms of what a knowledgeable person in that or an affiliated business would pay for the entire company. I believe most acquirers would start with net income in building their price bid, or 20% lower before adding premiums and discounts. Thus, many stocks were priced too high, historically they normally are priced at a discount to what an occasional acquirer would pay.

The problem of valuing fixed income paper is more fundamental. There is far too much reliance on debt in our society. Starting with most governments running a deficit, businesses issuing debt to meet current needs, and individuals use debt through credit cards and other devices to cover living needs.

Too many in the population are not using debt to leverage their equity in the purchase of investment producing assets. Those that properly use debt, their underlying equity assures the lender is not taking the first or possibly the largest long-term risk. These days, most debt issues are largely for refinancing existing debts, not increasing earnings generation. (Most of the time, long-term gold owners use their gold positions to hedge against the valuation of other assets. However, after an extended price rise, such as now, they use some of their gold to meet current cash needs or payoff their debt.)

Opportunities 
In many respects we have involuntarily entered a new era. Because Coronavirus it is now critically important that most families be connected electronically. Instead of traditional European style food shopping where one goes to the food market daily, we will attempt to regularly store essential food needs for two weeks or more. We may change our entertainment mix so that more is delivered electronically and less in theaters and stadiums. Universities and other schools may have to learn how to educate differently, rather than putting on classes and giving exams on paper. Perhaps we will need to reconfigure the structure and size of campuses and student housing.

To me, as both an analyst and entrepreneur, I believe we have this year a unique opportunity to build soundly without paying too much attention to the impact on the record. We have involuntarily entered a “gap year” and the track handicapper can throw out one or more races as long as the horse, jockey and trainer are building skills.

As an investor and portfolio manager for others, I am going to be searching for what will be different after these crises are over. Covid-19 and similar problems will be addressed with increasing success throughout the year. Near-term energy prices will settle as market forces find equilibrium points. The “debt bomb” will take much longer, perhaps a generation of both write offs and long-lasting penalties.


Discussion for the week: I am happy to chat with subscribers and explore the opportunities they did not see as we finished 2019.         



Did you miss my past few blogs? Click one of the links below to read.
https://mikelipper.blogspot.com/2020/03/searching-for-bottom-and-plan-weekly.html

https://mikelipper.blogspot.com/2020/03/should-changes-in-markets-change-your.html

https://mikelipper.blogspot.com/2020/02/hate-doesnt-work-for-investors-weekly.html



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Where are We and So? - Weekly Blog # 602

Mike Lipper’s Monday Morning Musings

Where are We and So?

Editors: Frank Harrison 1997-2018, Hylton Phillips-Page 2018 –

All too often those commenting on the stock market and the economy are either out of date or clueless about important changes. One of the more instructive research exercises is to review the prognostications and analysis written between September and December of 1929. While most histories focus on October 1929, few note that by December the Dow Jones Industrial Average had already returned to its October peak. This lack of understanding and its implication is similar to the six-month period after the murder of the Archduke, where troops did not start to position for open conflict until six months later. This period has been called the phony war.

As of this weekend all three of the US stock market indices are at record levels after a twelve-year climb. Currently, I don't know what this means, hopefully a subscriber or their advisor can share their wisdom on what this means for the future. My lack of clarity is based on conflicting views of the data. The averages and many diversified equity mutual funds are showing gains of over 20% year to date. While not the highest on record, these are extremely good results. The gains are more than double the long-term gains of the S&P 500, with dividends reinvested, since 1926. Typically, high valuations are caused by the sudden entry of new money from unsophisticated investors into the equity market. Due to the lack of enthusiastic volume on the upside this does not currently appear to be the case.  Additionally, there have been significant flows into fixed income funds at low interest rates. These investments could lead to total return losses when rates rise.

The other issue driving performance is the belief that better markets lie ahead. This is clearly possible, but it won't be easy. For it to happen two partially interrelated events must occur. There needs to be sufficient tariff and trade relaxations and the Chinese economy needs to begin to grow at close to prior rates. Without China's growth, global GDP growth is likely to be quite modest.

The problem facing most advanced economies is that their political leaders are focused on elections and the biggest group of voters work directly or indirectly for the goods-producing industries. (If global trade issues modify, value investors who own goods-producers may benefit). However, in the US and other advanced economies, most employees and entrepreneurs are in the enlarged and growing service sector. For political reasons, many governments are not overly friendly to this portion of the private sector

Technology can continue to spur national and international growth if government policies don't retard growth too much. However, there are a series of hurdles that must first be jumped. Technology must replace labor's repetitive work, requiring more skilled workers to run the machines and processes. This trend is already at work in retail, hospitality, and healthcare, where there are many job openings. The demand for even more jobs is likely, as customers want/demand more services. The problem is that many of those that are legally unemployed are not qualified for the openings, due to a combination of attitude and poor training at home and/or in school.

An Unhappy Solution is Possible
There is a chance that many individual and institutional investors, including Pension Plans, lose so much of their investment in private debt that they largely abandon their reliance on fixed income. They then might foolishly devote 80%+ to equities and we could then all sell into that.

On Monday we celebrate all the Veterans and their families who ever wore a uniform to protect their family, country, and way of live. Originally, the day was intended to recognize the Armistice that ended World War I. I hope that it is a reminder that it much easier to spend blood and resources than build a lasting peace.

Until we find the way to accomplish that goal, I say to my fellow US Marines, Happy Birthday. We will protect you and others until we collectively find peace.




Did you miss my past few blogs? Click one of the links below to read.
https://mikelipper.blogspot.com/2019/11/top-down-dictums-measured-digitally-are.html

https://mikelipper.blogspot.com/2019/10/two-questions-length-of-recession-near.html

https://mikelipper.blogspot.com/2019/10/things-are-seldom-what-they-seem-weekly.html



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Copyright © 2008 - 2019
A. Michael Lipper, CFA

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Four Investment Traps to be Avoided1. Asset Allocation 2. GDP & Unemployment Statistics 3. Co-Investor Risks 4. Statistical Record vs. People

Introduction

In an imperfect world I am always studying to see what I can learn that will help my clients to make smarter decisions. As an analyst I have never been satisfied with any given number as a complete summation of past or present events. In this search I often question the perceived accepted knowledge. Often I find the summary is either incomplete or wrong in the terms of usefulness for future decision making. This blog post deals with some of the generally accepted views.

Asset Allocation

As we all are very much aware, investment performance has left a lot to be desired recently. In preparation for an upcoming client discussion I was considering some managers of funds that put a great deal of faith in allocating portions of their portfolios to different asset classes- equity, fixed income and cash and whether their decisions led to better investment results. One of the fortunate elements of my investment practice is that I have easy access to my old firm’s data. Lipper, Inc., a ThomsonReuters company has produced a computer service known as Lipper for Investment Management. With some help, I asked to see the investment performance of Multi-asset mutual funds for the one year period ending January 31^st, 2016. I compared the results with the proportion of each portfolio in the three main asset classes. The universe contained 433 funds. Some of these funds were the old Balanced fund type, some were Target Date Funds either with fixed or managed allocations; others were flexible funds that regularly used the three asset classes. Further I focused on the top quintile in each sort of performance and asset classes. Thus to be in the top quintile a fund had to be in a select group of 86 funds. Over this particular period the universe on average produced a small single digit loss. The single best fund was up + 3.14%.

One would have thought that the funds that had the highest portion of their portfolios in cash would have done the best in view of the general market decline. Only 21 out of 86 of these funds were in the top performance quintile. Only 32 funds with the largest commitment to fixed income also were in the top performance quintile and finally 55 of the equity funds were in the group that showed the best results.

My working conclusion, assuming that this specific one year time period is representative of some future periods, is that while asset allocation can help performance it is less important than selection of individual securities. In the case of Lipper Advisory, as a manager of portfolios invested in funds, the individual selection of funds can be more important than sole reliance on asset allocation. (As this is a somewhat contentious opinion, I look forward to hearing from our subscribers with their views.)

GDP & Unemployment Statistics

Market pundits as well as politicians spout GDP and unemployment numbers as if they are accurate and meaningful. To me they are not to be used for decisions but as indicators as to what other people think who don’t spend time with people in the marketplaces of commerce and finance. It is these people as decision makers of both small things as well as large that affect the real world. That is why markets often move differently than the perceived numbers. While not as bad as the Argentine inflation numbers, which the new government is addressing so all can understand what is really happening; the US statistical budget has been starved for more than twenty years on an inflation-adjusted basis. Part of the problem with most countries’ GDP data is the failure to recognize the unreported numbers. One clue in the US and the Eurozone is that the fastest growing portion of both currencies is in large denomination bills, 100s and 1000s. You can guess who needs these and what they do with them. Further in the US there are at least six different measures of unemployment. If one takes the most severe and subtracts that from those employed the proportion of the population is indeed still large. Some might even suggest that these two factors (the under-reporting of GDP and the most severe unemployment) could be connected.

From my standpoint I do not put much reliance on the government produced numbers. I find it interesting that when the Presidents of the local Federal Reserve Banks get together they are questioned as to what have they learned from their interfaces with their local communities. Investors and portfolio managers do the same thing. Thus, my suggestion is to follow the markets for the best near-term feel as to direction.

Co-Investor Risk

Too many investors, including professional investors, focus on the risks of the issuer of the securities they own or are considering. To me there is almost always a bigger set of risks. The risk of my co-venturers in the security is the bigger risk. If enough of them want out immediately before I want to exit the security, their selling can damage my terminal price.  The current prices of financial securities are a good example. The MSCI Europe Financials index through February 11^th is down ‑32%, the KBW Bank Index is also down ‑19% (26% since July) with the S&P 500 only down ‑8.8%. While there are some more non-performing loans in Europe, particularly in Italy, most Bank analysts believe the majority of banks are in better shape than when the last crisis hit. I believe the reason for the materially larger decline in bank securities is the fact that 45.9% of the oil-related Sovereign Wealth Funds were invested in financials. By the way, perhaps I am the only one that got nervous when we were told that Jamie Dimon bought 500,000 shares of JP Morgan Chase^* stock on Thursday. This action reminded me of the quote from Mr. JP Morgan in 1929 that he and his son were buying. In the earlier case it worked for awhile but had no lasting stock price benefit. We will see what is the impact of Jamie’s purchase.

*Held in a personal account.

Statistical Records vs. People

There were lots of lessons from last weekend’s Super Bowl. There was no doubt that on the surface the Carolina team not only had a better record as well as a younger more athletic star quarterback, but they lost in a not too close game to the Denver team driven by a few very aggressive defenders who forced the supposedly better team to make mistakes. This reminds me that at times and under appropriate circumstances we select to invest with managers who we think are good and determined over those that have better records. Sometimes statistics can lead to the wrong decisions. Currently in the stock tables General Motors’ price/earnings ratio is listed at 5.5 times. This is historically cheap and therefore to some, attractive. We don’t follow the stock, but I wonder whether looking forward, the market is saying that the stock is selling more like 15 times or similar to the overall market or perhaps higher because the long-term outlook is for materially lower than recently reported earnings.

PS:

I am writing this blog post on Sunday evening, watching Bloomberg Television over my shoulder and seeing the Chinese-related markets are opening down even though their currencies strengthened during the Lunar New Year holiday.

I will be in my office on Monday.    

____________

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Fixed Income Risk Hurts Alternative Funds

Introduction

Debt and equity are the two essential building blocks for all portfolios. With the current dichotomy between equity and debt indicators that were hinted at in last week’s post there appears to be more risk of capital loss in many alternative funds than investors perceive.

Surge in Introducing New Alternative Funds

As with most “new” ideas, nothing is rarely new, but a reworked old idea in new clothes, often the famed emperor’s new clothes. Early British Trusts as well as US vehicles were primary concerned with the preservation of capital for multiple generations; an idea that appeals to me and many of my investment accounts. The adopted solution used in many cases were the selection of investments that often move in inverse directions avoiding chances of complete destruction from a single event, think of Lloyd's Shipping syndicates. As these investment vehicles grew an additional defensive mechanism was added, diversification. Thus, in the US many of the first funds were balanced funds that held diversified bond and stock holdings. Still today many bank trust accounts as well as other institutional investors compare their investment performances to the Lipper Balanced Fund Index found in the Wall Street Journal and currently produced by my old firm. However, the traditional Balanced fund has been replaced by a whole category of Mixed Asset funds with current net assets of $2.2 Trillion or roughly equal to the total US hedge funds and in the same region of US listed ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). In Canada Balanced funds are the single most popular fund type.

From this base many new funds were launched with the same desire; that is to offer to investors a less risky way to achieve good upside performance with controlled downside risk of loss. Right now there are approximately 500 of these products on offer in the US. Recent trips to Canada and Europe revealed that alternative funds have become a hot sales item. Almost all of the newer versions of Balanced funds in addition to stocks and bonds of various types include derivatives, private equity, venture capital, use of leverage, and selling short. In the past, there have been a handful of experts that have produced very worthwhile results individually with these types of investments.

There are two types of risks in these funds, the management company created risks and the inherent investment risk in the asset class. Many of these vehicles are being produced and sold by investment groups that have hungry indirect and direct sales forces for new products after several years of lackluster performance from their historic book of business. They either try to develop portfolio management talent internally or hire past winners in smaller shops with significant incentive contracts. Considering many of these firms past history to me either approach adds to the risk in their vehicles.  As we not only invest for clients and ourselves in many mutual funds, we also invest in many of the world’s publicly traded management company stocks. Thus we measure results from different vantage points. This is similar to a comment in the recent The Economist on celebrating the 100 anniversary of Einstein’s 10 equations where they said “What you measure depends on your vantage point.” To us the long term profitability of the management company contributes to the attractiveness of some of its investments, particularly in markets that are crowded with good competitors.

The inherent investment risk in most Alternative Investments is based on the structures of interest rates and credit conditions. Granting a huge assumption that the specific portfolio is not at risk as to what looks like significant changes coming, other portfolios will be at risk and that will cause prices and flows to change, perhaps in an unpredictable fashion.

Fixed Income Indicators of Investment Risks

The market speaks often in numbers and price movements not providing full explanations. For example:

Last week Barron’s measure of “Best Grade” bond yields declined 3 basis points to 3.75%. indicating an increase in popularity for high quality. In the same week its measure of yields for intermediate credits rose 6 basis points to 5.12% measuring some uneasiness about intermediate credits. (One might look at these relationships and postulate that the stock market is not in danger of losing assets to bonds until short-term rates run up to 3.75%  to 5.12%. I have always believed that the Bond Market is a better analyst than the stock market, as it has to be, for it has a lower upside potential.)

Last week one of the credit agencies noted that since there has already been 99 defaults this year, we will soon be in a triple digit period which is likely to grow.  Considering in general the relatively low revenue growth of non-energy companies, the odds favor more defaults and are the reason for the increasing of the yield spread on “junk bonds.” Stock funds including ETFs had inflows of $2.9 Billion and Bond Funds had net outflows of $2.8 Billion in the week ending before Thanksgiving.

By nature I am uncomfortable with crowded markets because the participants often accelerate their price/volume actions to get out of the crowd as fast as they can. Thus, I found of interest that Bank of America/Merrill Lynch produced a list of the four most crowded markets in the eyes of hedge funds:

 1. Long US Dollar

 2. Short Commodity Stocks

 3. Short Emerging Market Stocks

 4.  Long US Tech Stocks

If I had long-term risk capital, my instinct would be to take the opposite views of these hedge funds for the first three and possibly the fourth bet.

The three Alternative investment objective classification averages on a year to date basis are minimally above or below the average of US Diversified Equity funds and well below the average Large Cap Growth fund and other funds that own the “FANG” Group = Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google or a slightly larger group known as the “Nifty Nine,” including the first four plus Priceline, eBay, Starbucks, Microsoft, and Salesforce. Both groups are up 60%.

Perhaps, the most salient point of analysis is that because of the other somewhat dour coverage I did not see the need to go over to the Mall at Short Hills to report “good, but not great” Black Friday. I will be interested to see how the merchants handle their inventory liquidation.

Question of the week: How much risk do you perceive in your bond holdings?     

_________   

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