EUROPE’S ENERGY CRISIS IS KEEPING ENERGY PRICES AND INFLATION HIGH

America leads the world in oil and gas production. We believe midstream energy infrastructure offers predictable cash flows to investors..

IT Risk as an Investment Consideration

Last week’s Knight Trading (KCG) disaster marked the first time that I can recall when a software glitch actually threatened the surivival of a public company. In recent years computer technology has played an increasing role in the functioning of the equity markets, and KCG’s mis-hap was preceded by the Facebook (FB) IPO mess and the Flash […]

New Ideas

In late July I had the opportunity to present the ideas in my book, The Hedge Fund Mirage, at the CFA Institute’s Financial Analysts Seminar in Chicago. Flying to Chicago for the day afforded me time to catch up on some reading, and some new ideas. From time to time we’ve written about the Equity […]

Why a Greek Exit from The Euro Isn't Inevitable

As we head towards another deadline for Greece, during which they must convince the troika that austerity is on track, there is growing speculation that Greece may be forced out of the Euro. A “Grexit” to use a popular term. Well, maybe, but here’s why it’s not inevitable. First, from Germany’s point of view, Greece’s […]

The Dumbest Idea in Finance

Modern financial theory holds that a diversified portfolio of securities is the most efficient way for an investor to access an asset class. Idiosyncratic risk, the risk associated with an individual stock say, can be diversified away and therefore theory holds that investors don’t achieve any additional return for holding concentrated portfolios of their favorite […]

Patriot Coal Succumbs to Cheap Natural Gas

The Energy Information Agency (EIA) is a rich source of data on everything related to energy production, consumption and storage in the U.S. This chart caught my attention, showing that coal use for electricity generation continues to fall sharply, with the result that in April for the first time natural gas was used to produce […]