Juggling Dynamite

Several worthwhile articles have come across my desk this week.  Here are a few:

• The 12 cognitive biases that prevent you from being rational
• 4th quarter earnings will be an unmitigated disaster
• Unlucky ’13 beckons for gold miners
• The top 10 reasons to be bullish in 2013 (yes sarcasm)
• Desperate for yield investors (and their advisers) are putting capital in harm’s way by over-paying for dividend-paying equities and many bonds.  Stocks have less principle security than junk bonds, and junk bonds–the riskiest credit paper available-now have an average yield of less than 6%, the lowest payment for the capital risk ever in market history.  This gives a sense of the madness of income-starved crowds today. See Corporate Bonds boom on search for yield
• Howard Marks memo to clients 2013 explaining the human behavior that drives market cycles: “The wise man invested aggressively in late 2008 and early 2009. I believe only the fool is doing  so now”.  See the whole memo here.

“Faber, living up to his “Dr. Doom” nickname, told CNBC that he doesn’t like any particular asset class, though he said he has a diversified portfolio. “I’m not liquidating everything, but I have a lot of cash.”  Here is a direct link.

“Small business owner confidence did not rebound in December, according to the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index. While owner optimism crept up 0.5 over November’s historically low report, the 88.0 point reading was still the second lowest since March 2010. December’s poor report resulted largely from a deterioration of labor market components, and the surprising percentage of owners who still expect business conditions to worsen in the next six months.” See more report details here.

Here is a direct link to video.