Finance Trends Letter

An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will. - Gustave Le Bon — David Shvartsman (@FinanceTrends) August 24, 2013 Related posts : 1. Good quotes about losers (and losing) . 2. "Know Thyself": Richard Russell on identity .

Goldman Sachs (GS) is up 64% over the past year, but it hasn't kept pace with General Motors (GM) since its post-bailout IPO.  From the November 19, 2010 weekly close to July 31, 2013, GM's (dubbed "Government Motors" in its initial rescue stage) stock performance has edged out that other government-allied firm, the infamous Goldman Sachs .  Over that 2 1/2 year timeframe, GM has returned about 6% to GS' -1.5% (approximate figures from marking the right scale of the relative performance chart below). GS managed to outperform Morgan Stanley (MS), the other remaining investment bank behemoth, since the current bull market began in March 2009. Over that 4 year period, GS has returned close to 80% compared to 40% for MS. MS did return a cool 100% in the past year, after a prolonged downtrend since late 2009.  More TBTF fun: Motif Investing's Too Big to Fail portfolio lists 1-year returns (and weightings) for its component banks (index is up ...

Year-to-date futures gainers (via Finviz), a quick update.   US indices near the top of the list include S&P 500 up 18.8%, DJIA up 18.9% and Russell 2000 up 23.6%. The Nikkei 225 tops all with a 32% gain YTD. Gold and silver continue to under perform this year (after a decade-long bull move), while corn takes second-to-last place with a -29.5% YTD performance.

Tiger Mgmt. founder, Julian Robertson chats with Bloomberg TV about the changing landscape of the hedge fund industry, the impact of the SEC's case against SAC Capital and Steve Cohen, and his thoughts on Apple and Google.  Last week, I tweeted a link back to our post, " Insights from Hedge Fund Legend, Julian Robertson " for his thoughts on the hedge fund industry and the changes that size and increased competition have brought. This latest Bloomberg interview is a worthwhile update to this discussion. Here are the clips (part one: JR on hedge funds , part two: Julian on Apple, Google ) and a few quotes below.  Julian Robertson on the Steve Cohen case and info flow to hedge funds: "I think hedge funds are generally extremely careful that they adhere to rules [concerning inside info]." Doesn't think it will impact the industry much. Tiger cub Nehal Chopra of Tiger Ratan Capital agrees. On Steve Jobs and Apple : "I read the book on Steve Jobs an...

After a recent consolidation along its 20 day moving average, Tesla (TSLA) closed at a new all-time high today.  As you can see from the daily and weekly charts, the runaway move started in April when TSLA broke out above the $40 level on large volume (over 7 times its daily avg. volume). TSLA soon consolidated that move and continued higher, amidst a stream of exciting announcements and a growing wave of "Elon mania" (see recent interviews, videos below ), to its most recent prior peak in late May.  As of today, TSLA is up over 165% from its April 1 closing price. After noting some weakness in several leading stocks (including TSLA) on StockTwits + Twitter late last month, I soon realized that I was wrong on TSLA . What I mistook for topping action was actually just a pause before this latest, new high. The uptrend continues... Elon Musk discusses creativity, entrepreneurship and a new mode of travel (hyperloop) at Pando Monthly.   TED chats with ...

S&P 500 (SPX) versus gold stocks (HUI), June 2010 - June 2013.  This relative performance chart shows SPX decoupling from the HUI Gold Index (aka the NYSE Arca Gold BUGS index) in 2011 and greatly outperforming the gold stocks up to mid-2013. Since June 2010, SPX is up around 51 percent while the HUI is down 41 percent for the same period.  Whether you're a "gold bug" or not, it pays to take note of the price action in gold stocks , which may run in tandem with the gold price or take their own separate course at times.  Although we did see a nice bounce in the gold mining shares (see HUI, XAU indices and the leading ETF, GDX) recently, it remains to be seen if the longer-term trend is changing. It may simply be an oversold bounce within a downtrend that started in the fall of 2011. Over the past 3 years, the major US stock indices have shown continued strength (helped along by QE) and various leading stocks and industry groups have emerged, and rotated...

Have you ever wanted to spend a month hitchhiking your way across country, or see the American landscape pass by from the inside of a freight train boxcar?  In the Vice documentary series, How to Hitchhike Across America: Thumbs Up , artist David Choe and his friend/nephew Harry Kim show us how to do just that.    Note : You can watch the full series by clicking through to the next episode link at the end of each clip. I started watching this series on YouTube without any real expectations and was sucked in. The two start off hopping a freight train out of Los Angeles. As they make their way, slowly, to Las Vegas, we hear a bit of back story on David's life and their immediate plans for the trip.  While I won't give away all the details of their trip, I will say this: only in America can you hop out of a freight train boxcar and walk right over to your comped room at the Venetian. Now, what I didn't know until after I started watching is that David Choe ...