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Corrections are part of Normal Markets

James Tharin, CFA

Apr 8, 2018
3 min

Corrections are part of Normal Markets

“The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance, or the get - rich - quick adventurer. They will die poor.” - Jesse Livermore The first quarter of 2018 started out much like most of 2017. That is until January turned into February. With the turn of the calendar, it seemed as though stocks fell off the side of a mountain. But did they? The total

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Trying to Reason with a Hurricane Season

James Tharin, CFA

Sep 5, 2017
1 min

Trying to Reason with a Hurricane Season

www.emeraldam.com The updated map shows the latest foretasted track of Hurricane Irma and all active tropical tracks and models pertaining to the event. With the recent devastation in Texas and other southern states, we think extra attention to emerging storms is warranted this hurricane season, especially involving a category 5 like Irma. In addition to the obvious tragedy of the loss of life and property, significant storms can have implications for investors. Major storm

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Do You Really Want to Sell This Market?

James Tharin, CFA

May 19, 2017
2 min

Do You Really Want to Sell This Market?

Even after the recent political news, stocks appear to be very close to all-time highs and trading in an established long term channel. According to Bespoke Investment Group, the NASDAQ dropped over 2% for the first time in 100 trading days on Wednesday (5/17/17). This comes on the heels of exceptionally low volatility since April 24th as measured by the VIX (a volatility indicator often used to judge sentiment in stock prices) dropped into a new low trading range. Consider

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Is the Stock Market Really Overvalued?

James Tharin, CFA

Feb 24, 2017
4 min

Is the Stock Market Really Overvalued?

With the strong bull run in stock prices since November, we have been reading more from the perma-bear community about how overvalued the stock market is. With optimism running high among investors we think that a discussion of stock market valuations is timely. But before we get into the meat of the discussion, please understand that valuations are at best a blunt instrument for timing the market. Undervalued assets can become even more undervalued and overvalued assets c

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Building a Better Bond Portfolio

James Tharin, CFA

Oct 18, 2016
3 min

Building a Better Bond Portfolio

A well constructed bond portfolio can stand-alone as a total portfolio or as part of a broader asset allocation strategy. There are many reasons that an investor might choose to allocate some or all of their investment capital to fixed income securities. Investors usually invest in bonds to either provide a predictable stream of income, fund a known liability at a known future time or as part of an overall asset allocation strategy that is designed take the volatility out of

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What You Don't Know about Investing

James Tharin, CFA

Jun 22, 2016
2 min

What You Don't Know about Investing

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. -Mark Twain I recently got around to watching The Big Short. I thought the movie was so good that I immediately downloaded the book to my Kindle. For anyone who hasn’t seen the movie or read the book I would certainly put both at the top of your summer list. The Mark Twain quote above was on the screen at the beginning of the movie. The Big Short chronicles the events

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First Under Statement of 2016 - January was Rough!

James Tharin, CFA

Feb 4, 2016
2 min

First Under Statement of 2016 - January was Rough!

Current Outlook If 2015 was flat and boring for investors, then 2016 has ushered in an unwelcome change to volatility and losses. We thought it might be helpful if our friends and clients could see the stock market through our eyes. While predicting the future is impossible, it is possible to calculate the preponderance of the evidence in order to stack the odds of success in our favor. Our primary interest is in the dominant trend of the stock market with a secondary inte

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What to do if you see a Bear

James Tharin, CFA

Feb 4, 2016
3 min

What to do if you see a Bear

It’s been well publicized that the month of January 2016 was not the worst January in history for US equities - it was the second worst. The interesting thing though, is how vocal the perma bear community has become - after the fact. There are many bloggers out there who have been ‘telling us so’ since 2009 and they seem to be getting louder after the recent markdown. Some of the prognostications that we have read lately call for a bear market that will dwarf the 2007 to 2

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Buy Low Sell High

James Tharin, CFA

Jan 4, 2016
1 min

Buy Low Sell High

At Emerald Asset Management we believe that most investors would avoid many investing pitfalls if they would follow three primary rules. To paraphrase Ned Davis Research: Don’t fight the trend, Don’t fight the Fed, and Beware the Crowd at Extremes While the Trend and the Fed appear to be questionable, our favorite sentiment indicator shows that the crowd might be getting overly pessimistic which could set the markets up for the next leg up of the secular bull market that sta

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It Wasn't Raining When Noah Built His Ark

James Tharin, CFA

Nov 18, 2015
3 min

It Wasn't Raining When Noah Built His Ark

I can’t remember when I first heard the phrase that is the title of this article. But I’m fairly certain it’s been around for a while and was first used as an analogy relating investor behavior to the stock market. Whether or not the analogy was originally intended to be used as an investing lesson or not is immaterial because it works just fine as one. Essentially, the phrase means that the intelligent investor should be prepared ahead of time for suboptimal conditions.

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Lessons from the 10th Hole

James Tharin, CFA

Oct 28, 2015
2 min

Lessons from the 10th Hole

I started my career on The Street of Dreams in October of 1991 as a stock broker with one of those many great regional brokerage firms that used to exist. There are still a few of them left but most of the old investment companies that used to be household names are gone. In 2004 I earned my CFA Charter. Now I own my own firm and I get to call myself a money manager. Change is inevitable. However, there are some constants in the investing world. As I start my 25th year i

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A Primer on Fixed Income Investing

James Tharin, CFA

Jul 16, 2015
1 min

A Primer on Fixed Income Investing

Since a bond is by definition a loan to an entity such as a government (U.S., agency or foreign), a corporation or a municipality, investors should want to know the risk of being paid back their principal investment and their interest payments in a timely manner before investing. The risk of not being paid back is known as credit risk. There are many factors that should be analyzed to determine credit risk like leverage and cash flow metrics as well whether the specific bon

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The Art of Risk Management

James B. Tharin, CFA

Jul 1, 2015
2 min

The Art of Risk Management

Every good stock investor that I have ever met has some methodical, well thought out system for risk management that he or she can clearly articulate. Risk management is essential to successful portfolio management because nobody can predict the future. That’s right, for all of the noise and opinions on TV or the internet, for all of the newsletters being sold and all of the stock tips from your best friend’s brother-in-law who used to be a stock broker, nobody can predict

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How to Invest if You Think Stocks are Expensive & Interest Rates are Low

James B. Tharin, CFA

Jun 16, 2015
4 min

How to Invest if You Think Stocks are Expensive & Interest Rates are Low

It’s taken me awhile to get here but I do believe that the Great Recession caused by the housing crisis of 2007 - 2009 is behind us and a new Secular Bull Market in U.S. and Global Equities is well under way. However, not everybody shares this point of view. After all, the S&P 500 has increased in price by over 200% since the March 2009 lows with only one correction that came close to the 20% drop that most people use to define a bear market. And that event was way back in

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Rising Dividends – A Strategy for Income or Growth

James B. Tharin, CFA

Jun 9, 2015
3 min

Rising Dividends – A Strategy for Income or Growth

If you think dividends are boring, think again. According to Stocks for the Long Run, by Jeremy Siegel, about two thirds of the real (inflation-adjusted) returns from U.S. Stocks from 1871 to 1996 were attributable to dividends, and about one third of the (real) gains were attributable to capital appreciation. Please reread that last sentence. Dividends have historically provided more profit to investors than capital gains. Now don’t get me wrong, I want my stocks to go u

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Playing the Odds

James Tharin, CFA

Apr 2, 2015
2 min

Playing the Odds

by James B. Tharin, CFA Over the years we’ve learned that there is no silver bullet to investing. If you are in this business long enough and have any courage at all, you absolutely will make market calls that turn out to be incorrect. It’s okay to be wrong, but it’s not okay to stay wrong. That’s why we have stringent risk management procedures in place. The general idea in investing, in our opinion, is to identify the long term market trends and stay with them while igno

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