There have been complaints about the quality of government data as long as there have been stock markets. The US is not much better than emerging markets, like China, where numbers are subject to huge, after the fact revisions. A broker friend of mine emailed the conversation below, which has been circulating around the street. [...]

Global Market Comments February 7, 2013 Fiat Lux Featured Trade: (HOW MUCH TO GO WITH PALLADIUM), (PALL), (HANGING OUT WITH WOZ), (AAPL), (THANK GOODNESS I DON’T LIVE IN SWEDEN), (EWD) ETFS Physical Palladium Shares (PALL) Apple Inc. (APPL) iShares MSCI Sweden Index (EWD)  

I first spoke to Steve Wozniak via HAM radio when I was 12 and he was the 14-year-old president of the Homestead High School Radio Club in Cupertino, California. With seven children, my dad was pretty stingy with allowance money. But when it came to electronic parts, I had an unlimited budget, as that is [...]

I recently found the chart below showing world tax rates as a percentage of GDP for the past 40 years. Sweden suffers the world’s heaviest tax burden at 51%, compared to only 27% in the US. The US has among the world’s lowest tax burdens, which has been falling for the last ten years. Listening [...]

Global Market Comments February 6, 2013 Fiat Lux Featured Trade: (WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT THE IRANIAN RIAL COLLAPSE), (WHEN YOUR OPTIONS ARE EXERCISED)

The Iranian Rial (IRR) has just suffered one of the most cataclysmic crashes in the history of the foreign exchange markets. It is off a mind numbing 75% since the beginning of 2011. One dollar now buys 12,200 Rials. Watch out Zimbabwe! When communications between intelligence agencies suddenly spike, as has recently been the case, [...]

I received a few emails from readers whose option holdings have been exercised against them, and have asked me for advice on how best to proceed. So, here we go. The options traded on US exchanges are American style, meaning that they can be exercised at any time by the owner. This is opposed to [...]