This post was written by Minyanville contributor Jason Goepfert.

Regarding an observation I saw on the Dow's six straight losses, I show it's happened roughly every 20 years since 1896.

The last occurrence wasn't that long ago, September 2002, though a couple of those months were just barely negative and may actually show a positive return depending on who your data vendor is.

Anyway, what I think is interesting is that the Dow's performance after the others was mixed when looking out one to three months -- sometimes up, sometimes down. After six months, only two of the six were positive and the average risk during those six months was -11%, compared to an average reward of +8%.

Continue reading An interesting trend in the Dow

An interesting trend in the Dow originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It was certainly an exciting year for wireless. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s iPhone was a game changer, there were some big announcements from Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), and even Nokia (NYSE: NOK) made an impressive comeback.

As for 2008, it's a good bet we'll continue to see some big headlines.

I interviewed Frank Dickson, who is the chief research officer at MultiMedia Intelligence. According to him:

The handset as a platform: The introduction of the iPhone was the first example of this. It did not create the trend, but it did add fuel to the fire. Google's Android and a rumored Java-based OS are elements of the developing trend. Essentially, we are seeing the rise of a new class of mobile devices that are applications centric with voice functionality. These devices are internet browsers, music players, text messengers, and e-mail devices. Yes, they still make voice calls, but they are clearly optimized for other uses. Operators such as Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) are seeing the coming explosion of this product class and have embraced it by opening their networks to these devices.

Continue reading Wireless expert takes a look at the megatrends for 2008

Wireless expert takes a look at the megatrends for 2008 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

CEO crack: Sumner Redstone's secret to long life? MonaVie originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Wall Street is replete with cliches about the importance of going against the common thinking: Sheep getting slaughtered, lemmings running, J.P. Morgan's shoe-shine boy, contrarian investing, etc. Then there are the cliches urging investors to do just opposite: Don't fight the trend, the trend is your friend, etc.

There are entire books advocating these two schools of thought. There's David Dreman'sContrarian Investment Strategies and Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds that discuss examples of herd behavior, mass hysteria and, in some cases, the effectiveness of simply betting against mass sentiment. Then there's James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds that talks about how the crowds are so often right.

FinancialNext.com is putting this question to the test: Is it better to follow the crowd or fight it? There, you can vote on questions such as "Will there be more new homes sales in February than January?" and "Will there be a recession in 2007?" Then, the results will be tabulated, and we will see who was right -- the minority or the majority. This is an interesting idea, but will work best if lots of people vote. So go over there and let us know what you think!

Website of the day: FinancialNext.com originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 14 Mar 2007 14:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Barron's roundtable is having trouble discerning a strong trend in 2007's economy and securities markets. The Goldman Sachs Group's (NYSE:GS) market analyst Abby Joseph Cohen, who accurately guessed that the S&P 500 would end 2006 at 1,400 -- it actually closed at 1,418 -- expects a 9% rise to 1,550 by the end of 2007. This precision masks significant confusion about the factors driving 2007's prospects.

I always enjoy reading Barron's annual roundtable, which pits savvy money managers against each other to predict what will happen to the economy and the market before they pick stocks for the coming year. This year's debate pits Fred Hickey, a New Hampshire newsletter writer, who thinks that a housing collapse and sluggish tech sales will lead to a big correction, against Cohen and others money managers -- who believe that global liquidity will bail us out.

Alan Abelson, Barron's editor, spent much of 2006 supporting the housing collapse school of thought. As I've posted here, here, and here, the housing collapse theory seemed persuasive. But I am now questioning the housing collapse argument because, although the economy has slowed down, it hasn't collapsed. There are at least three possible explanations:

1. The housing collapse is too small a part of the overall economy to sink it;
2. The collapse is taking longer than expected and it will play out in the future; or
3. Global liquidity is offsetting the impact of the housing collapse.

At this point, I am leaning towards explanation three, with a dash of one and two thrown in for good measure.

Continue reading Barron's murky crystal ball

Barron's murky crystal ball originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 15 Jan 2007 09:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I participated in a panel discussion at a conference on Saturday with a couple of young, smart, geeky teenagers -- i.e., the absolute center of most marketers' universe. These girls, Iris and Sheena, were the very definition of "early adopter" and "Generation Y" all rolled into one, a tiny yet brilliant focus group on the future of technology, social networking, and the internet.

Someone asked if Iris had a blog, and she said, "I hate to say this, but [pause] MySpace." She and Sheena both related how they checked out their MySpace accounts daily to see if friends had tried to contact them. For the two of them, both from lower-income families and members of under-represented minority groups, their technology lives consisted of homework, their podcasts, and MySpace.

If I were less of an analytical sort, I'd immediately say that MySpace is clearly winning the social networking arena. The site has the teenagers! What's more, it has hours each day of attention from these girls, from my youngest sister, my babysitter -- all of the 13- to 25-year-old demographic, really. But then I thought for an instant more, and I realized that Iris and Sheena were both the perfect example of MySpace's market domination and the reason why Microsoft, AOL, and Google will always win the race for ad dollars.

There's no money in these teenagers' MySpace behavior.

Continue reading MySpace: still cool, but Microsoft, AOL, Google monetize better

MySpace: still cool, but Microsoft, AOL, Google monetize better originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.