capital investment

In an interview with CNBC India, international investor Marc Faber says that gold is his commodity of choice right now. Marc Faber sees demand for commodities to come off in second half of 2008 in India and China. He will rather buy gold…

Today, American Express said that consumers are increasingly falling behind on payments. This suggests that credit card charge-offs at banks are about to go much higher in the coming quarters.A story by Bloomberg News reads:American Express…

Hourly wages in the U.S. have not kept pace with inflation in the past 35-40 years. To the degree that U.S. households have been able to maintain higher real household earnings, it is all due to the influx of women into the workforce.…

From Bloomberg News: Regional Banks Tumble Zions, the lender with operations in 10 Western U.S. states, tumbled 10 percent to $33.44 for the steepest decline in the S&P 500. ``Weakness'' in residential construction and land values in…

This is what the recently released retail sales data look like over a longer time-frame.

Knowing when to invest is just as important as investing at all. When one analyzes the returns in the market over longer periods (5+ years), it becomes obvious that certain periods of investing are much less lucrative than others. We are…

Remember when you used to hear pundits say "'Buy and Hold,' that's the ticket to shareholder wealth?" Is that really true? I have put this thesis to the test over a number of years and it just doesn't hold water. Bear markets are always…

UPDATE: The latest chart on U.S. consumer credit growth is here. I have been focusing on debt as a primary contributor to the slump the U.S. is experiencing. We've seen skyrocketing Debt-to-GDP and Mortgage Debt. Now, I want to look at…

The United States has gone from saving an average of 8-10% of income for decades to zero or negative savings today. If you look at this chart of 12-month rolling average monthly data, it looks like people actually saved more as inflation…