What surprises me the most on this day after the election is the outpouring of advice pundits are freely offering to President Obama on how to deal with the current state of our economy. Following are just a few comments from today.Mohamed El-Erian: Congratulations, Mr. President. Here's how to fix the economy.Kiplinger Magazine: 7 Priorities for Obama's Second TermCNBC: Economists' advice for Obama: Avoid 'fiscal cliff'I surmise many pundits feel compelled to offer their advice to the President...  Read more...

No matter what your political affiliation, the significant growth in food stamp rolls versus little new job creation since January 2009 is an unsettling data point in the weak U.S. economic recovery. From The Blog of HORAN Capital AdvisorsAs noted in a recent Weekly Standard article:"In January 2009, there were 133.56 million Americans with jobs and 31.98 million on food stamps. Today, there are 133.76 million Americans with jobs and 46.68 million on food stamps. The employment rolls have thus g...  Read more...

The title of this post is a little misleading since Congress hasn't passed a federal budget in over three years. Nonetheless, one is able to gain insight into the actual revenue and expenses going into and out of Washington and it is not positive.A recent presentation by Mary Meeker, general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, at the Ira Sohn Foundation Conference titled USA, Inc, provides detail on the out of balance nature of the federal government's budget. Some highlights from her p...  Read more...

An article written by Ali Meshkati on his Zenpenny site provides his take on the potential price action for Apple (AAPL) in the coming weeks. He notes:"10-28-12: The best case scenario with AAPL going forward is a period of sideways chop. Those highs at $700 won't be challenged for some time. The low created on Friday will likely be broken within the next few weeks, following a move up to $630 - $640 to convince the convincible that the iPhone 6 & 7 mean a $1,000 stock price in the near future....  Read more...

A few days ago, HORAN's Director of Financial Planning, Michael Napier, joined the blogosphere by starting HORAN's financial planning blog. As Michael notes in his initial post,"Everybody blogs. In fact, it is estimated that close to 44 million blogs are created each year. Doing the math, that is nearly one new blog per second! So why am I jumping into the blogosphere? To help you get one step closer to achieving your financial goals in easy-to-understand language.Two of the biggest challenges f...  Read more...

The Chart of the Day charting service recently noted the valuation or P/E for the S&P 500 Index is at levels last seen in the early 1990s. Importantly for investors though is valuation alone does not make a particular equity attractive. As the below chart notes, valuations can certainly get cheaper. Chart of the Day noted in the commentary to the below chart:"[The] chart illustrates the price to earnings ratio (PE ratio) from 1900 to present. Generally speaking, when the PE ratio is high, stoc...  Read more...

Much is being made about the impact on the economy in light of the impending "fiscal cliff" in the U.S. Most strategists agree the impact on the economy will be significantly contractionary if the U.S. goes over this so-called cliff. In reality though, the negative impact of the cliff is already being felt and it appears businesses are positioning themselves for a potential worst case outcome.Over the course of the last week or so, many writers have referenced the chart of manufacturers new orde...  Read more...

Investors continue to shun U.S. equity investments as noted in the below chart. In spite of this data most U.S. equity indexes have continued to move higher this year. As we have noted in several earlier posts, it appears investors are allocating increasingly more of their investment assets to fixed income funds. Then what is driving U.S. equity prices higher?From The Blog of HORAN Capital AdvisorsAs discussed in our third quarter investor letter, the Federal Reserve's Flow of Funds Z.1 quarterl...  Read more...

The below video contains a rare interview with Steven Romick, portfolio manager of the FPA Crescent Fund (FPACX), and Consuelo Mack of WealthTrack. Romick provides insight into his investment approach that includes his current views surrounding his portfolio's current construction. In large part, he is most concerned about the consequences of the money printing that is currently taking place by the monetary authorities around the globe. As he notes, this appears to be a grand experiment that cou...  Read more...

The investor sentiment survey, a contrarian indicator, released today by the American Association of Individual Investors noted the bearish sentiment level increased by 5.7 percentage points to 44.55%. This level of bearishness was last seen this past summer when the S&P was trading in the low 1,300s. Bullish sentiment fell to 28.66%, also at levels seen this past summer. In spite of this level of sentiment negativity, the S&P has continued to move higher. This higher move in the market is typic...  Read more...