At the rate it's going right now, profitability will accelerate, but at a very, very slow pace, ... much slower than what's implied by valuation in the market. |
Because of the lack of pricing power, earnings expectations might be too optimistic, despite the fact that they are being lowered. |
From our lens, the U.S. housing market has become seriously overextended and a correction looms, posing the largest risk to 2006 consumer spending. |
Historically, S&P 500 earnings growth, on average, has been negative when the dollar has appreciated 10 percent or more in a 12-month period. |
History suggests that the most powerful factor influencing the profit cycle is pricing power. |
I don't think people realize the market has been flat for the past seven years ? people don't realize that because there have been big ups and downs. But without market volatility, the market hasn't done much. |
I think many investors have failed to make the link between global growth and the U.S. housing market. The U.S. consumer remains 20 percent of the global economy, and a slowdown in housing and, in turn, U.S. consumption could hurt emerging market exports. |
I've been passionate about this ever since I came on the board; transit is a huge issue for me. |
If you're in the equity market, you want to focus on the largest cap, highest quality companies, |
It will be interesting to see if these companies' misfortunes are indeed attributable to weather and temporary, or perhaps better attributable to the Fed and slowing economic growth. |
Lower quality companies are dramatically overstating their growth rates by using pro forma earnings. |
Most individual investors get caught up in the hype. They forget that the constant reinvestment of dividends can be a huge component of building wealth. |
Our students just got hit with an 18.5 percent increase in tuition, and now gas prices are causing a crisis. We are going to lose students on the edge. They cannot deal with all these increases all at once. |
People say these companies are closely held and that the executives are trying to diversify, but why now? |
People used to build wealth through building equity in their homes. Today, people prefer to speculate on the price of their house by using historically high levels of leverage. |