An upshot of the financial crisis could be that investors go back to basics. In the case of equities, the means “plain old stock-picking” as Mario Gabelli of Gabelli Asset Management describes it. The paragraphs below are an excerpt of a recent interview Hedgeweek had with Gabelli.

GFM: Will the US be the first country to lead the way out of the crisis? How do you assess the administration’s actions up to now?

MG: Economic stimulus is co-ordinated, global and powerful. The US economy represents 24 per cent of nominal world GDP, and is about 60 per cent greater than the faster-growing China, Russia, India, and Brazil combined. However, we have our challenges. Within the US, the consumer is about 70 per cent of our economy and has been in a recession for the past year and a half. About nine per cent of Americans are now

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With investors taking heart from better-than-expected earnings announcements (albeit only as a result of cost cutting negating a decline in revenue), the major US equity indices reached new highs for the year on Thursday/Friday and the S&P 500 Index closed in on the roundophobia 1,000 level.

Newsweek’s cover declared “The recession is over”, but a footnote stated “Good luck surviving the recovery”, implying a hard slog ahead.

Elsewhere, Washington hosted a US-China Strategic Dialogue, as the Chinese is increasingly focusing on America’s deficit, the value of the greenback and the implications for its Treasury holdings. After almost doubling, a mid-week sell-off in Chinese stocks raised concerns about the sustainability of the Chinese economic recovery and repercussions for the rest of the fragile global economy.

Unsurprisingly, four of the clips included in this week’s video compilation deal with Chinese -related issues. Covering these and other topical issues are David Rosenberg,

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The Dow Jones Industrial Index on Thursday breached 9,000 for the first time since January and the Nasdaq Composite Index notched up a 12th consecutive advancing day (the first time sine 1992) as favorable reactions to earnings and economics reports propelled stocks and other risky assets higher. Meanwhile, the usual debate on the outlook for the economy and shenanigans of financial institutions again dominated the video channels over the past few days.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s bi-annual testimony on Capitol Hill (and an expected grilling by Alan Grayson) and other highlights of the week’s trials and tribulations were captured on video and are included in this video-o-rama compilation. Strutting their stuff were a star-studded cast including the likes of Martin Feldstein, Stephen Roach, Bill King, Nouriel Roubini, Sheila Bair, Mario Gabelli and George Friedman.

The compilation starts off with an interview with Harvard’s Martin Feldstein about his “double-dip” economic

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The financial debate during the past few days was dominated by President Obama’s sweeping revamp of financial market supervision, and this issue also occupies a number of slots in today’s Video-o-rama.

But it was not all about regulation, as pundits were also trying to figure out whether there were in fact economic “green shoots” and what the implications for financial markets might be. Commentators include Michael Lewis, John Rogers, Robert Kleinschmidt, Jack Welch, Barry Ritholtz, Nouriel Roubini, Stephen Roach, Mario Gabelli and George Friedman.

The compilation kicks off with author Michael Lewis discussing his article “The End of Wall Street”, and concludes with a fascinating analysis of the Iranian situation by George Friedman of Stratfor, geopolitical analysts.

You Tube: Michael Lewis - the end of Wall Street? “Author Michael Lewis discusses how his experience working at Salomon Brothers and writing Liar’s Poker influenced his article, ‘The End of Wall

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While investors’ attention was focused on global government bond yields marching higher, the holiday-shortened week produced a surprisingly small number of video clips.

Some quality footage was nevertheless produced, featuring the likes of David Rosenberg, now in his new role as chief economist and strategist of Gluskin Sheff, Mohamed El-Erian, Barry Ritholtz, Puru Saxena and Mario Gabelli.

And then there is “out of the box” analyst Marc Faber arguing that the US economy will enter “hyperinflation” approaching the levels in Zimbabwe. “I am 100% sure that the US will go into hyperinflation,” Faber said in an interview with Bloomberg. “The problem with government debt growing so much is that when the time comes and the Fed should increase interest rates, they will be very reluctant to do so and so inflation will start to accelerate.”

The selection kicks off with a humorous take by Emmy

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Liberty Media [LMDIA: 17.34, +0.15 (+0.87%)] has been in the news a lot lately, due to CEO John Malone’s recent bailout of Sirius XM Radio [SIRI: 0.2473, +0.0123 (+5.23%)]. This article is not about that deal, however. This article is an attempt to explain the structure of Liberty Media, which is sure to confuse most amateur investors, as well as some professional ones. This is because Liberty uses “tracking stocks,” which have not been popular since the dot-com days of the 90’s.

According to investopedia.com, a tracking stock is a “common stock issued by a parent company that tracks the performance of a particular division without having claims on the assets of the division or the parent company.”

When a parent company issues a tracking stock, all revenue and expenses of the applicable division are separated from the parent company’s financial statements

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Warren Buffett’s 32st annual Chairman’s Letter to Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, BRKB) shareholders, released over the weekend, is one of those must-read reports that every serious investor should spend a few minutes perusing. It is essentially Buffett’s annual review of the various Berkshire Hathaway operations. Yes, it has been the worst year ever for Berkshire, but the Letter nevertheless contains a treasure trove of wit and wisdom from this iconic investor.

We are confronted with grim economic news every day, but it is nevertheless sobering to year Buffett saying: “The economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 - and, for that matter, probably well beyond.” And as far as the US government’s actions to resolve the economic crisis

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Fuzzy Math

The Wall Street Journal has another article taking off from an original piece done nearly two weeks ago at TheStreet.com  on how leveraged exchange-traded funds don't always provide the perfect mathmatical returns that would seem readily apparent.

It's a fairly routine story that has been re-reported several times since the original popped up online. These re-examinations for investors of how inverse and leveraged ETFs work -- and how their returns are calculated on a daily basis -- have been showing up lately coming on the heels of huge distribution projections by Rydex and later ProShares for their leveraged ETFs. 

You can read the WSJ's version here.

 

Year In Review

An update of the Dow Jones Newswires' review of 2008 ETF performance can be found here.

 

Famed Vanguard Manager Neff Buying Stocks

It's always an interesting game keeping up with the more renowned active fund managers. In this piece from Fortune,

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John DevaneyJohn Devaney | Hedge Fund ManagerA few days ago I read an odd article within the New York post on John Devaney and how he was supposedly booed off of stage at a recent conference. Click here to read this article now. This seemed far fetched but I figured anything could happen in today's market environment. Here is an excerpt:Devaney, who made no friends after his United Capital Markets' flame-out left investors with zero payout, began to speak during a Monday morning discussion at the conference but soon began a rant on why the markets were wrong and he was right.The crowd began to boo and the microphone was taken away from him, according to several spies in attendance. This morning Mr. Davaney is claiming that this story has been completely fabricated by a ...

George Soros PredictionsGeorge Soros Hedge Fund PredictionsJust a quick note to let you know we have updated the Hedge Fund Tracker profile for George Soros after his recent speech at MIT where he predicted the hedge fund industry to fall from 50-75% from its peak.To view the updated profile please click here: George SorosRelated to George Soros Hedge Fund Industry Predictions:Geographical Hedge Fund GuidesMario GabelliAndrew LahdeStanley FinkT. Boone PickensDavid Einhorn...