30. September 2010 by Dan Walkow, CFA, CMT.

Unless the Bush tax cuts are extended by the end of this year, tax rates on capital gains and dividends will increase in 2011. Taxable US investors are locking in investment gains this year and not risking an increase in tax rates beginning in 2011.

Read more here.

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29. September 2010 by Dan Walkow, CFA, CMT.

There are good deals in the bond market, for issuing corporations that is, money has not been this cheap for almost a generation. From buyers point of view the risks are increasing. As the old saying goes “More money has been lost chasing yield (read bonds) than a the point of a gun”

Read the story here on Bloomberg

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12. September 2010 by Dan Walkow, CFA, CMT.

Sy Harding makes for an interesting comparison of the market conditions now relative to the end of the bear market in 1992.  Then as is the case now the media was full of doom and gloom reports prognosticating that there was no end in sight.

Shortly after a headline article in detailing the malaise in September 1992 the market then went on to gain 50% in the following three years.

History does not repeat itself exactly but it sure does rhyme! Read Sy’s commentary here.

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5. September 2010 by Dan Walkow, CFA, CMT.

The fears of a double dip in the economy have investors running to the percieved “safety” of bonds and bond mutual funds in droves. As a result interest rates paid by bonds have been pushed down to generational lows.

Doug Kass of Real Money sums it up well, “At current yields, bonds represent certificates of confiscation, and bond holders face the likelihood of large capital losses. ”

If you have to own bonds one wants to own only very short term maturities where you intend to hold the bond to maturity. At particular risk are bond mutual funds where there is no fixed maturity.

Doug Kass sums it up well here, well worth a read!

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