Featured Articles

We are noting that crude oil is off $1.25 this morning taking it down to the $79.75 area.  A fall much further will set off a bloodbath in the MLP's.  Like interest rates little moves don't matter too much, but a $2 or $3 move could start a real waterfall of moves lower in crude and crude oil related issues.…

The 2014 model portfolio stands at +10.1% YTD with a few tenths of a percent of dividends yet to be earned this month.The Short/Medium Duration Income Portfolioperforms exactly as designed.  It has been in range of  +.4% to -.2%.  Current Yield of 6.67%.Crude oil remains just 92 cents/barrel above the critical $80 support level tonight--we think a slow drift won't be a disaster to…

Earnings, which have been pretty good, have driven the equity markets higher, while dragging interest rates higher.  Last weeks panic fall in interest rates to 1.85% (10 year treasury) is in the rear view mirror as the rate now stands around 2.24%.  There has been no real reaction in income issue prices to these moves---no reaction when rates fell equals…

Ok--so we have a confirmed ebola case in NYC tonight and unfortunately the futures markets are taking a modest dump on the news. We say--just COOL IT!!!Each year the flu kills between 3,000 and 50,000 people per year in the United States. So far we have lost exactly 1 person to ebola--let's not run the market up and down by…

As we noted earlier today when we wrote we would have a clue as to a move in crude oil prices when the EIA inventory report was released--and boy did the markets get a surprise with a build of over 7 million barrels in inventory--twice the expected rise.  Crude prices ended up with large losses for the day.While the E&P MLP's didn't…