Promoting Useful Knowledge

  I hope all my US readers had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was quite different for me not seeing any family other than my wife. She took the opportunity to get me to put up extra Christmas decorations. So, I took a queue from the US markets and will have a shorter than normal post. It’s not super short, but I left out a few things that I didn’t have time to write up. I included a few in the 'Just Links' section at the end. With an off day on Thursday and an abbreviated session on Friday, volumes were obviously lower than normal this week, but the American holiday also has an impact on the Canadian markets. They tend to trade less than half their normal volume on Thursday and about three quarters on Friday. Before the holiday, the Dow Jones closed above 30,000 for the first time. It took less than four years to get there from 20k versus the 18 years it took to get from 10k to 20k. Granted it’s a lot less in percentage terms. We also saw President Elect Biden announce that...

  For those of you that did not smile when you read the title, it's a reference to the cult classic Plans, Trains, and Automobiles. The 1980's movie is a journey of two men just trying to get home for Thanksgiving . If you've never seen it, please watch it. I feel like that movie is similar to the major indices just trying to get to the year end in positive territory.  There is still a lot to be thankful for. For one, we're not traveling for business as much this year having to deal with the Del Griffiths of the world. I'm happy not having to commute nearly 3 hours per day. I get to spend more time at home, granted much of it is still in front of the PC, but that's my choice. I'm thankful for a great group of colleagues that I get to work with everyday and a company to work for that has been so supportive this year. I'm thankful for the amazing content that people choose to share, much of it free. I've learned so much since starting this blog. In the...

  Before I start the normal post, I wanted to pass along a belated thank you to all our Veterans. I completely forgot to add it to the post last week. I read /listened to the book Unbroken over the weekend, and it reminded me the sacrifices some have made to make this country so great. Many of the readers here have served and I just want to say one more thank you.  With the Pfizer vaccine announcement on Monday, more on that below, we had a rapid and violent turn of value and momentum. The only thing that jumped into my head was the Eminem song, Without Me , the lyrics and video are a little on the risque side, but the chorus and bridge just screamed to use them. Value attempting to make a late comeback is playing the part of Em in the video as the troublemaker for Growth. The bulk of this week’s post focuses around last week’s unusually hard rebound for value, but there is some other great content too. I highly recommend the Matt Peterson and Josh Younger interviews. ...

  Last week was an active earnings week, but most were drowned out by the US election. Like many others I think I clicked refresh on the election results more than a thousand times. The thing that was most surprising to me was that many seemed flabbergasted that President Trump took an early lead. There was so much talk around this coming into the election that Republicans would come out and vote in person on Election Day, but Democrats would do much more voting by mail-in or early voting. I highlighted this in ‘ Battle of Red Mirage ’ with the ‘Best of’ from Macrovoices. Even with the vote counting continuing today, the pollsters were still very wrong again. Although, the likelihood of a Biden win is very high, look for President Trump to continue to make 2020, well 2020. The Macrovoices team is at it again, covering the extreme possibilities in their last episode. I also have a few post election topics, but after the ‘Best of’ and the Election post game, I recommend listening to ...