This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• George Soros (Financial Times): Do not ignore the need for financial reform, October 25, 2009. It is not the right time to enact permanent reforms. The financial system is far from equilibrium. The short-term needs are the opposite of what is needed in the long term.

• Paul Sandison: The two main threats to democracy and modern capitalism, October 20, 2009. In the present burgeoning economic crisis, already well over a hundred million people across the globe have been thrown into poverty, despair, sickness and are struggling to avoid a premature death. Billions of people abroad are vowing never to allow the United States and the United Kingdom to do this to them again. The remaining question is whether the

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Michael Santoli (Barron’s): Five modern myths, October 19, 2009. For some of us, it’s always a Mark Twain moment. The current juncture in the markets seems a particularly appropriate time to invoke the American Aristotle’s observation that, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” This article provides a selection of items that most investors and market observers seem to “know for sure” - and that just may not be so.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): The stock market has never been this (intermediate-term) overbought, October 18, 2009. We can no longer find a single historical instance where stocks were more overbought

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): We’re speaking Japanese without knowing it, September 28, 2009. After the bubble burst in Japan in 1990, Japanese banks were not compelled to properly disclose their losses either. The predictable result is that the problems resurfaced later, but worse, because they had not been addressed.

• John Authers (Financial Times): A risky revival, September 25, 2009. The speed of the rally is itself cause for concern. Historically, big sell-offs have typically been followed by big bounces. But as measured by the S&P 500, the current rally is stronger after six months than any predecessor, including those that followed the lowest points of the market in 1932, 1974 and 1982.

• Tom Petruno (Los Angeles

This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find of interest.

• Dan Holland (RealClearMarkets): An interview with Doug Kass, September 21, 2009. Hedge fund manager Doug Kass has been called many different names over the course of his storied and successful, nearly forty-year investing career. Names like the “Bear of Boca”; “The Peerless Prognosticator of Palm Beach”; as well as the “Anti-Cramer.” He’s earned them all. As a noted short seller unafraid to swim against the tide of consensus, he seems to relish his self-appointed role bucking Wall Street groupthink and profiting handsomely from betting against the crowd.

• Intelligent Investing Transcript (Forbes): Jean-Marie Eveillard, September 14, 2009. An interview by Steve Forbes of Jean-Marie Eveillard, is senior adviser of First Eagle Funds.

• Peter Boone and Simon

This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find interesting.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): Conditional expectations and September seasonality, September 14, 2009. One of the arguments we’ve seen a lot lately is the idea that September and October have historically been the worst months for the stock market, coupled with rebuttals by bullish analysts along the lines that the discussion of this historical tendency by the bears makes it likely that nothing bad will happen this time. The fact is that yes, on average, the combined September-October period has historically produced slight declines for the S&P 500 whether you look back since 1870, 1900, 1940 or 1970. But the variance around that slightly negative return is large enough that it’s really misguided, in my view, to base predictions on it.

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This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find interesting.

•John Hussman (Hussman Funds): Showtime for visible roots and fruit, September 8, 2009. In my view, the next 12-16 weeks will be extremely important in shedding light on any incipient economic recovery. Investors have become so used to the idea that stocks often foreshadow economic strength that actual, convincing evidence has been dispensable - beyond the excitement over “less bad” economic news. The next 12-16 weeks will change that.

• Alan Blinder (The New York Times): The wait for financial reform, September 5, 2009. Back during the Obama transition, the newly designated chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, enunciated what I’ll call the Emanuel Principle: “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste,” he said. “It’s an

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find enjoyable.

• Lori Montgomery (The Washington Post): Tax pledge is a target as deficits, debt grow, August 29, 2009. During last year’s campaign, President Obama vowed to enact a bold agenda without raising taxes for the middle class, a pledge budget experts viewed with skepticism. Since then, a severe recession, massive deficits and a national debt that is swelling toward a 50-year high have only made his promise harder to keep.

• Peter Goodman (The New York Times): A reluctance to spend may be a legacy of the recession, August 28, 2009. Even as evidence mounts that the Great Recession has finally released its chokehold on the American economy, experts worry that the recovery may be weak, stymied by consumers’

This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find of interest.

• Edmund Andrews (The New York Times): World bankers suggest rebound may have begun, August 21, 2009. Central bankers from around the world expressed growing confidence on Friday that the worst of the financial crisis was over and that a global economic recovery was beginning to take shape.

• Rich Miller and Alison Sider (Bloomberg): World economy emerging from worst recession since World War II, August 22, 2009. The global economy may be coming out of the worst recession since World War II as record-low interest rates and trillions of dollars in fiscal stimulus spur demand.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): Bernanke sees a recovery - how would he know?, August 24, 2009.

Nouriel Roubini

This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find interesting.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): Biting a bullet, July 27, 2009. In my view, investors have left themselves far too little room for error, not only in stocks, but also in corporate bonds. We’ll take our evidence as it comes, and change our positions as the expected return-to-risk profile of the market changes. For now, we remain defensive.

• Alan Blinder (The Wall Street Journal): The economy has hit bottom, July 23, 2009. How’s the economy, you ask? I have the proverbial good news and bad news, but in this case, they’re exactly the same: The US economy appears to be hitting bottom.

• Wolfgang Münchau (Financial Times): There is no easy way out for central

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days (while touring through Europe) that you may also enjoy.

• Gary Stix (Scientific American): The science of economic bubbles and busts, July 2009. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has prompted a reassessment of how financial markets work and how people make decisions about money.

• Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone Magazine): The great American bubble machine, July 9-23, 2009. From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression - and they’re about to do it again.

• Bill Gross (Pimco - Investment Outlook): “Bon” or “non” appétit?, July 2009. Investors who stuffed themselves on a constant diet of asset appreciation for the past quarter-century will now be