Skip to main content

Barron's interview: Kevin Duffy & Bill Laggner

Barron's recently ran an interview with hedge fund managers Kevin Duffy & Bill Laggner of Bearing Asset Management called, "Shorting the Economic Recovery". Here's a lead-in to their discussion:

"
PERHAPS ONE OF THE greatest failings in the run-up to the financial meltdown was a lack of perspective -- an inability by many market participants to see the big picture. Not so with Kevin Duffy and Bill Laggner, principals of the Dallas-based hedge fund Bearing Asset Management.

With the help of their proprietary credit-bubble index, developed in 2004, the managers sounded early warnings on housing and credit excesses, and capitalized handsomely on their forecasts by shorting Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, money-center banks and brokers, builders, mortgage insurers and the like.

Students of the Austrian school of economics, which espouses a free-market philosophy that ascribes business-cycle booms and busts to government meddling with interest rates, the pair is solidly in the contrarian camp, believing that the worst for the markets may be yet to come."

Thanks to Bear Mountain Bull, The Big Picture, & Controlled Greed for drawing attention to this article on their blogs.

If you find Duffy & Laggner's analysis insightful, or if you'd like to gauge the accuracy of some of their earlier calls, you may also want to take a look at some of the resources provided in our related articles section below. Enjoy the interviews.

Related articles and posts:

1. This Time It's Value Traps - John Rubino at Safehaven.

2. Interview w/ Kevin Duffy & Bill Laggner - VoiceAmerica.

Popular posts from this blog

Nasdaq credit rating junked.

S&P cut Nasdaq's credit rating to junk status citing debt burdens and its questionable strategy to buy a controlling interest in the London Stock Exchange. Financial Times reported that the exchange's counterparty credit & bank loan rating were lowered fromm BBB- (lowest investment grade rating) to BB+. The change will increase Nasdaq's borrowing costs should it wish to pursue aquisition targets. For an earlier look at the exchange consolidation trend that brought about Nasdaq's push for a stake in the LSE, please see "Exchange fever" .

Jesse Livermore: How to Trade in Stocks (1940 Ed. E-book)

If you've been around markets for any length of time, you've probably heard of 20th century supertrader, Jesse Livermore . Today we're highlighting his rare 1940 work, How to Trade in Stocks (ebook, pdf). But first, a brief overview of Livermore's life and trading career (bio from Jesse Livermore's Wikipedia entry). "During his lifetime, Livermore gained and lost several multi-million dollar fortunes. Most notably, he was worth $3 million and $100 million after the 1907 and 1929 market crashes, respectively. He subsequently lost both fortunes. Apart from his success as a securities speculator, Livermore left traders a working philosophy for trading securities that emphasizes increasing the size of one's position as it goes in the right direction and cutting losses quickly. Ironically, Livermore sometimes did not follow his rules strictly. He claimed that lack of adherence to his own rules was the main reason for his losses after making his 1907 and...

Finance Trends 2019 Mid-Year Markets Review

Email subscribers of the Finance Trends Newsletter receive the first look at new articles and market updates, such as the following piece, sent out to our email list on Sunday (6/14).   Hello and welcome, everyone! If you received our last email notice over the July 4th holiday, you'll know that this weekend's newsletter will serve as a mid-year market update and a follow-up to issue #29, " How to Reinvest in a Rising Market ".   Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let's start the show...  Finance Trends Newsletter: Our Mid-Year Market Review When we last spoke, back in February, the U.S. stock market was rallying off its December-January lows. As the S&P 500 and Nasdaq reclaimed their 200 day moving averages in February and March, it became increasingly apparent that a lot of retail investors (and perhaps some institutional investors) were left under-invested while watching this recovery move from the sidelines.  The U.S. stock ...