January 31, 2014 By Steve Blumenthal “Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well.” – Warren Buffett So where are we today?  I thought about the above quote as I listened to Dr. Jeremy [...]Read More >

January 24, 2014 By Steve Blumenthal I’m deep in season four of Breaking Bad and completely enjoying the series.  Are we Breaking Bad?  Have we become too addicted to the Fed’s super drug (a pure form of liquid currency)?  After all, they are pretty good at making the stuff. This week’s On My [...]Read More >

January 10, 2014 By Steve Blumenthal In this week’s On My Radar, I share the following: Asset Class Returns – An Interesting Look at Annual Returns (best to worst) With All Due Respect – An advisor’s response to last week's On My Radar Time to Pick a Ladder – by Blaine Robbins Trade [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 1831 By Steve Blumenthal January 3, 2014 There have been just three times since 1995 that Investor Crowd Sentiment (overall investor confidence in the stock market) has registered a higher bullish reading than today.  To shout caution would be an understatement. In this [...]Read More >

Best ETFs For 2014: 9 Picks From 9 Strategists December 26, 2013 By Trang Ho Investor's Business Daily asked several investment strategists to share their one best ETF that investors should consider buying for 2014. Steve picked ProShares Ultra Short Yen (YCS) as the ETF with the most upside [...]Read More >

December 20, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal “People who habitually purchase common stocks at more than about 20 times their average earnings are likely to lose considerable money in the long run.”  Ben Graham and David Dodd in their 1940 book Security Analysis: Principles and Techniques In [...]Read More >

December 13, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal I was in Scottsdale, Arizona this week presenting at the IMN 18th Annual Global Indexing and ETFs Conference.  Goldman Sachs was the lead sponsor and all of the big industry players were there.  The content was particularly rich this year.  It was a two and [...]Read More >

December 6, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal It was a rough call with an advisor friend.  Corporate profits are on the rise and he is of the view that those profits will continue rising thus proclaiming, “we are in a unique new period”.  I’m of the view that he’s wrong.  Boy - do we all want to be [...]Read More >

November 29, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal Today I share our UK partner, Niels Jensen’s, November client letter.  I always enjoy Niels thinking and particularly enjoyed this letter.  It begins, “In his masterpiece The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, John Maynard Keynes referred to [...]Read More >

Barron's reporter, Shuli Ren poses the question "How Much Weight Should EMs Have In Your Portfolio?" She spoke with Steve to talk about exposure in Emerging Markets and whether or not the MSCI ACWI’s 8% exposure is enough. To read the article on Barron's, click here. [...]Read More >

November 22, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal Each week it is the same routine. As I read through a diverse pool of research my head clicks, "doesn't matter, doesn't matter, matters." Who are the players at the table (prop desks, market makers, hedge funds, pension managers, foreigners, individuals, [...]Read More >

November 15, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal I’m in San Diego this week speaking at the Bloomberg ETF Master Class Conference– an interesting group of advisors seeking further knowledge on trading ETFs.  Throughout the conference, I kept thinking about being in the midst of a speculative spike in the [...]Read More >

"For near-term boost, go with high-yield fixed income" By Jeff Benjamin Excerpt: "Yes, high yield is attractive right now, but there are also significant risks when your starting point is low interest rates and narrow spreads,” said Steve Blumenthal, chief executive of CMG Capital Management [...]Read More >

October 18, 2013 By Steve Blumenthal For now, interest rates look to be range bound between 2.40% and 3% as illustrated on the following chart.  Which way are they headed and what should we keep our eyes on?  In today’s piece, I share some thoughts around the direction of interest rates and [...]Read More >

In last week's Wall Street Journal Voices column, Steve discussed benchmarks and how to have a conversation with your client that sets proper expectations for portfolio returns relative to benchmarks. Excerpt: As human beings we're competitive and we want what's best. So when clients see the [...]Read More >