There is a lot of uncertainty out there, which isn’t an entirely new scenario. We’ll continue to try and play it a little safe right now by keeping all stocks previously rated hold at the same rating.
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THE BIG IDEA
There are over 100 million people around the world suffering from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a condition in which a partially blocked airway prevents airflow to the lungs when a person is asleep. The typical length of a breathing pause is seconds...
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I’m going to go off on a little tangent this week to share something with you that I think will help put this market, and the action in our stocks, into context.
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For the first time in a while we’ve had a relatively calm week. On average, our portfolio is unchanged from last Thursday’s close.
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Looking at the broad market, it seemed like a calm week. Even a good week! The S&P 500 moved up near all-time highs and even the languishing S&P 600 Small Cap Index broke out of its funk and shot up near 2019 highs the...
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THE BIG IDEA
I have vague memories of the Electrolux vacuum salesman coming to our house to sell his wares. Over the last 40 or so years, the basic idea of enticing people to take advantage of a “deal” hasn’t changed much. But the and...
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This is one of those periods when there’s not much going on in the market. Earnings season is essentially over, the summer is winding down, kids are about to go back to school and it feels like fall is right around the corner.
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With earnings season largely over most of our stocks are now moving based on news that affects the broad market, and less on company-specific trends, with a few exceptions.
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The big news that affected the market this week was, of course, the dreaded yield curve inversion. This happens when the 10-year Treasury yield goes below the 2-year yield.
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The market has been up, down and all over the place lately. So have our stocks. Oddly enough, from last Thursday’s close through yesterday’s close our portfolio is relatively unchanged—down just 2% using a simple average of each stock’s weekly return.
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THE BIG IDEA
Back in the late 1800s if you called a company for information you were routed through a telephone exchange and were able to speak with a person that could help.
The last switchboard operator for a hand-crank phone, Susan Glines, walked away her...
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Our portfolio is outperforming the index by roughly 100%, on average. But we’re not the only ones. Many targeted mutual funds are also demolishing the Russell 2000 Small Cap Index.
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This week marks the beginning of the second-quarter earnings season. I don't foresee any major changes in the trends in any of our companies, but stock price reactions and trends don't always line up in the short term.
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This week’s market recap is a familiar story—the major big-cap market indices are doing great! But the small cap index is still wallowing in the mud.
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THE BIG IDEA
A few years back the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a report with an astounding conclusion:
Most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences.
That’s not cool.
Diagnostic accuracy of some conditions is staggeringly bad. For the...
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Not surprisingly, this week wasn’t a great one for our portfolio. I had a feeling the party was winding down last week, when we had an average gain of 105% going and had just seen our stocks pop an average of 6% over days...
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This was another one of those weeks where you look at what the S&P 500 did—up 1.5% to a 52-week high—and you look at what the S&P 600 Small Cap Index did—up 1% to 945 and back above its 50-day line, but well its...
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With the market having come back strong since its swift retreat in early June the immediate threat of a larger correction has diminished. The S&P 500 index is back above its 50-day line and within a couple percentage points of its all-time high.
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THE BIG IDEA
On a whim, I recently reviewed our car insurance.
Something didn’t feel right, so I went online and got a quote from another provider. It turns out they could cover our two cars with essentially the same coverage – for half the was...
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Altogether it felt like a calm week. Considering the worsening performance of the S&P 600 Small Cap Index, which broke below its comfort zone, and the S&P 500, now 6% off its high, our portfolio’s resiliency continues to stand out.
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