June 10, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal “The best thing we can do is get back to pricing risk. Getting to that point should be and will be painful.”  -- PJ Grzywacz, President, CMG Capital Management Group “Central banks don’t like being the only game in town, but they don’t know how to get out of [...]Read More >

June 3, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln Do you remember back in the early 80s when interest rates peaked at 15.25% and most everyone felt rates were moving higher, certainly not lower?  [...]Read More >

May 27, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal “The problem with human beings is that they buy what they wish they had and they sell what they are going to need.” – Mark Yusko Yusko took the stage Thursday morning and told a story about a time in 1999 when he served as the chief investment officer of the [...]Read More >

May 20, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.  It will not lead you astray.” -Rumi Sometimes it is good to sit back, reflect, recharge and then, once again, drive forward.  I pulled open a drawer and found, tucked at the bottom [...]Read More >

May 13, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal “Invest in good companies, don’t use leverage, invest in liquid investments, don’t do private deals and light a candle and pray for a positive outcome.” -Leon Cooperman, Omega “Debt drains away vital resources from economic growth. Fighting a debt crisis with [...]Read More >

May 6, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal "The Fed has borrowed from future consumption more than ever before. It is the least data dependent Fed in history. This is the longest deviation from historical norms in terms of Fed dovishness than I have ever seen in my career... This kind of myopia causes [...]Read More >

April 29, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal The road is long With many a winding turn That leads us to who knows where Who knows when But I'm strong Strong enough to carry him He ain't heavy, he's my brother So on we go His welfare is of my concern No burden is he to bear We'll get there For I [...]Read More >

April 22, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal “In the time it takes to raise a child and pack her off to college, the world order that existed in the early 1990s has disappeared.  Some three billion people who once lived in sleepy or sclerotic statist economies are now part of the global economy.  Many [...]Read More >

April 15, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal “Seemingly logical, but as I’ve pointed out in recent years – not working very well because zero and negative interest rates break down capitalistic business models related to banking, insurance, pension funds, and ultimately small savers.  They can’t earn [...]Read More >

April 8, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal “The Fed may succeed in stretching this cycle until 2017.  But sooner or later it will have to grasp the nettle, and then we will discover how much monetary pain can be taken by a dollarized global economy with post-QE pathologies and total debt ratios some 36pc [...]Read More >

April 1, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal  “Now these monetary institutions are expected to continue producing miracles. But their ability to repeatedly pull new rabbits out of their policy hats has been stretched to an increasingly unsustainable degree.” -Mohamed A. El-Erian, The Only Game in Town I [...]Read More >

March 25, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal “Corporate sector metrics have been disappointing of late... Companies are scaling back expenditures of all kinds (capital expenditures, hiring, and inventory-builds, for example), as their top-line revenues and earnings decelerate.  Though first-quarter numbers [...]Read More >

March 18, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal “So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.” - Lee Iacocca “This is the persistent tendency of men to [...]Read More >

March 11, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal Last week’s mention of the great Art Cashin sent a number of emails my way.  The one that touched me most was from Richard who worked for Paine Webber from 1974 to 1987.  Back then every broker had a small speaker on his or her desk.  We in the industry know it [...]Read More >

March 4, 2016 By Steve Blumenthal “The best state pension plan is only 42% funded.” I was in Florida this week attending the 32nd Annual Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE) Risk Management Conference.  Attendees were mostly asset managers and larger pension and endowment managers.  Several [...]Read More >