Investors face some important decisions.  For those approaching retirement it is a crucial time. There is plenty of advice.  The television commercials, blogs, and email messages include a variety of appeals: Those telling you to buy an annuity to lock in your income, marketing to the fear of market losses, and perhaps playing down the death by a thousand cuts from inflation. Those telling you that you can do better than your financial advisor.  Go on your own!  You have a "feel" for the market. Those advising gold.  Everything is about to go wrong, so you need to have hard assets. Those offering speculative gains.  Here are some stock ideas that are "home-run" ideas, where you can triple your money in a couple of months.  Often these are penny stocks. Any of these strategies could be right --- as a part of an overall plan.  For those ...

From the Associated Press: As the European Union prepares to restart talks on cooperation with Russia, the United States is warning that the move could undermine Western attempts to rein in the Kremlin's aggressive foreign policy. (...) "We cautioned the EU and its member states about starting the partnership and cooperation negotiations in light of Russia not fulfilling the cease-fire agreement," U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Merkel said in a statement to The Associated Press. Beginning the negotiations "before these commitments have been met could be misunderstood by Moscow, leaving it with the impression that the EU values its relationship with Russia far more that Moscow does with the EU."

From the Associated Press: As the European Union prepares to restart talks on cooperation with Russia, the United States is warning that the move could undermine Western attempts to rein in the Kremlin's aggressive foreign policy. (...) "We cautioned the EU and its member states about starting the partnership and cooperation negotiations in light of Russia not fulfilling the cease-fire agreement," U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Merkel said in a statement to The Associated Press. Beginning the negotiations "before these commitments have been met could be misunderstood by Moscow, leaving it with the impression that the EU values its relationship with Russia far more that Moscow does with the EU."

At "A Dash" we join many others in closely following David Merkel's work on The Aleph Blog, one of our featured sites since its inception.  David covers a variety of interesting subjects.  He is authoritative on some and inquisitive on others, and he knows the difference. Today he cites a Bloomberg article pointing out the failure of candidates to speak out on the credit crisis.  Rich Miller writes as follows: The U.S. is facing the worst financial crisis since the Depression. You would never know that from the Democrats' platform in Denver or its Republican counterpart, or from listening to Barack Obama or John McCain.

While both candidates have bemoaned the ravages of the subprime crisis, they have yet to spell out

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The fundamental question in buying stocks is the expected earnings (or cash flow, depending upon the sector) compared to the stock price. One compares this to alternative choices like bonds or real estate or foreign markets. On a risk-adjusted basis, one’s asset allocation should favor the undervalued asset classes.

At “A Dash” we believe that U.S. equities, despite a multi-year, double-digit profit expansion, and some market reaction, still reflect intense investor skepticism about future earnings. The biggest cloud over the earnings picture is the continuing (and so far incorrect) forecast of a recession by bearish pundits, mostly non-economists.

A principal mission at “A Dash” is developing a guide for the intelligent individual investor.    Sometimes our interest intersects with that of more active traders, and this may be one of those times.

Our Current Posture
As we have indicated, our investment posture varies with the time frame.  Since we have different products for different investors, our positions may seem to be at odds.  It is actually quite consistent for those with different time frames to have different perspectives.

In times of great market stress, the investor doing homework needs to know where to look for information. Friday’s trading highlights the problem. The Bear Stearns conference call on fixed income issues is at the center of this question.