This weekend’s papers provided new signs of global economic slowdown. The first came from Japan. For the first time in 26 years – a long time – Japan became a net importer (imports exceeded exports). FT article sums it up:
The contraction was led by plunging sales of Japanese cars and trucks in a weak US [...]

I am sorry, I could not contain myself.  I got a call today from a financial journalist asking me if gold is “the” asset for the doomsday portfolio.  I took this question very seriously after all if you are reading the news we are on the brink of one.  I weighted my words very carefully.  [...]

“Don’t worry they’ll bail them out.”
 Those words are jumping off my tongue couple times a day now when my clients call and ask if I think their auto insurance policy with AIG or their money market fund will be around tomorrow or their CDs will be made whole if FDIC goes bankrupt.  Though I love [...]

“Don’t gamble. Take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it doesn’t go up, don’t buy it.”   – Will Rogers
What if you failed to follow that sage advice from Will Rogers? You bought a stock and it did the unthinkable–it declines.   Real world [...]

Reader asked me a question about Joseph A. Bank’s profit margins, as a follow up to my early JOSB analysis.
Vitaliy,Thanks for your thoughts on Jos. A. Banks (JOSB). In you book, Active Value Investing, you speak about the reversion to the mean in net profit margins. JOSB’s net profit margins have grown from under 1% [...]

I tell you, every time I talk to someone who has shopped at Jos. A. Bank (and had a great experience by the way), has seen company’s commercial on TV, or simply read the company’s quarterly earnings report (key word here is earnings, not losses), I have to pinch myself to remind myself that the [...]

I was interviewed by a super-smart and funny Kate Welling at Weeden & Co I am attaching the interview (link opens PDF). In the interview I am touching on several topics I’ve discussed in the past and some new ones (mentioning two new/old stocks too).