Weekly Investment News -
Aurum Advisory Services

Aurum Weekly Access - 11/1/12

Last week, 80 CEOs from U.S. Corporations ranging from Aenta Inc. to Weyerhauser Co. published a statement in the Wall Street Journal calling for federal deficit action.  The CEOs who signed the manifesto feel tax increases are inevitable, regardless of which party wins the Presidential election.  They are banding together to push Congress to reduce the federal deficit with tax-revenue increases and spending cuts.

Read more: Does a Fiscal Cliff = Profits Cliff?

Aurum Weekly Access - 9/27/12

By now everyone is tired of the replacement referee storyline after it finally came down to a game-changing call on Monday Night Football.  Quick! Look at the picture, who caught the ball?

Read more: Football Refs & Investing

Aurum Weekly Access - 9/12/12

"Turbulence was a problem with pedigree.  The physicists all thought about it, formally or informally.  A smooth flow breaks up into whorls and eddies [like smoke from a cigarette].  Wild patterns disrupt the boundary between fluid and solid.  Energy drains rapidly from large-scale motions to small. Why?"

Read more: Chaos Theory & Markets

Aurum Weekly Access - 8/31/12

U.S. Gross Domestic Product is a lagging economic indicator, yet the media likes to make a large fuss about it.  This week it was revised higher for the second quarter from 1.5% to 1.7%.  This follows growth of 1.3%, 4.1%, and 2.0% the three prior quarters.   Let's review a few graphs to glean some insight on lead economic indicators.

Read more: Chart Round-Up

Aurum Weekly Access - 8/14/12

On August 1st, 2012 at 9:30 am, in a matter of only 45 minutes, Knight Capital Group lost $440 million due to a computerized trading system malfunction.  Five days later, a consortium of four firms rescued Knight and diluted shareholders, with the company's stock dropping from $10 to $3.  A victim of their own creation, the machines rule the trading world, and are getting even faster, leaving us wonder if humans still play a necessary role in trading.

Read more: Rage Against the Machine

Aurum Weekly Access - 7/27/12

The Opening Ceremony for the 2012 London Olympic Games commences this evening and a check on the United Kingdom is in order.  With the sovereign debt crisis surrounding Greece and Spain ongoing while Germany supposedly holds the cards, little mention is given to the country that shunned the Euro currency union at its inception in 1999 and kept the Great British Pound.

Read more: The U.K. & U.S.A. - Competitve Games

Aurum Weekly Access - 6/22/12 

Technology stocks can only go up, housing never goes down, and interest rates will definitely rise.  These are just a few of the mainstream investment commandments in the United States that were proven wrong over the last 15 years.  A general consensus among investors today is that the U.S. dollar will go down.  Will this eventually prove correct or just another crowded thought in the dustbowl of investment mistakes?

Aurum Weekly Access - 6/8/12 

In meeting with a prospective client this week, I said a phrase that frightened, offended, and resulted in confusion.  This was not the first time, either.  For some reason these two little words put up walls and turn people off.  This is never my intention.   But it is the result of misunderstandings and negative connotations from the media.  The phrase?   Hedge funds.

Read more: What is a hedge fund?