Entries for September 2011

In Francois Trahan's recent interview with WealthTrack's Consuelo Mack, Francois explains why he believes the Fed has run out of bullets in managing the economy via the Fed Funds rate. In short, he believes the old economic rules do not work and new market drivers should be considered by investors. Francois believes the new Fed Funds rate is actually the consumer price index or CPI.Francois has been rated the #1 portfolio strategist for the last three years by Institutional Investor. The intervi...  Read more...

The low level of interest rates on fixed income investments is forcing investors to consider alternative income sources in their investment portfolio. One income source investors have considered as an alternative is dividend paying stocks. A caveat is stocks have historically been more volatile (standard deviation) than bonds as noted in the below table.From The Blog of HORAN Capital AdvisorsHowever, given the low level of bond interest rates, the yield on dividend paying stocks is now at its hi...  Read more...

As I have noted in the past, one investment strategy that seems to garner press attention from time to time is the "Dogs of the Dow" investment strategy. The strategy consists of selecting the ten stocks that have the highest dividend yield from the stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Index (DJIA) after the close of business on the last trading day of the year. Once the ten stocks are determined, an investor would invest an equal dollar amount in each of the ten stocks and hold them for a year.T...  Read more...

With the recent sell off in the equity markets that began in mid July, one would suspect cash balances would be elevated. As the below chart notes, cash balances as a percentage of all mutual fund assets is near record lows though. Historically, low levels of money market cash have been associated with equity market tops.From The Blog of HORAN Capital AdvisorsOn the other hand given the meager interest rates paid on deposits investors might be going elsewhere with their cash. From a strategy per...  Read more...

Today HORAN Associates, HORAN Capital Advisors' business partner, launched a blog focusing on industry trends and data related to health care and wealth management. The blog, HORAN Health.Wealth.Life, will focus on articles written by HORAN Associates' CEO, Terry Horan, CLU, ChFC, and will focus on two of the greatest challenges Americans are facing today:access to quality, affordable health care; andsecuring professional counsel to build and sustain wealth for a lifetimeAs Terry notes, readers...  Read more...

In today's release of the unemployment rate, there really isn't much positive data contained in the report. The unemployment rate remains at 9.1% with the non-farm payroll report showing no increase versus expectations of +75,000 increase. The broader measure of labor force utilization is known as the U-6. This measure shows the unemployment/underemployment rate increased to 16.2%. The U-6 measure is one that captures marginally attached workers which are individuals not looking for work althoug...  Read more...