I’m entering a contest to see how I do in terms of beating the market over the coming months and years (more details coming soon), and as a part of it, I had to write down my strategy.  This is easier said than done and is something I had never done before.  Articulating and writing down on paper your actual strategy is probably a good exercise for anyone who does their own trading/investing.  Here’s what I came up with:
To invest based on long-term macro economic perspectives, maintaining a portfolio …

Great article at ZH on known-bear David Rosenberg – he lists ten things that would make him bullish on the economy.  This is a good article since it shows Rosenberg isn’t a “perma-bear” but just a bear based on the current fundamentals.  Check out the list of ten things:
I was recently asked to provide a list of developments that would make me more bullish on the macro and market outlook. Here are a few:
1. Initial jobless claims below 400k on a sustained basis. This would lead …

Everyone loves to talk about the Bush tax cuts.  Democrats hate ‘em.  Republicans swear by ‘em.  So, what’s the deal?  Should they expire?  Should they be extended?  If so, partially or completely?  There’s essentially two main sides to the decision, but unfortunately, way more political rhetoric than reason.  Let’s try and break it down…
The Case To Let Them Expire
The deficit.  The government needs revenue.  The tax cuts would bring in some nice revenue to help fund the government programs and reduce the money that is borrowed to do so.  This …

The best paying jobs right out of college these days are almost anything in the field of engineering. There is a huge demand for science based jobs at the moment and going into the science or engineering field is guaranteed to pay off on the back end.

The following article was written by Monty Pelerin from economicnoise.com
Friedrich Hayek
The “Pretence of Knowledge” was the title of economist Friedrich Hayek’s 1974 Nobel speech. In his first few sentences, he described the then-prevailing economic condition in words appropriate to today:
… [this economic condition] has been brought about by policies which the majority of economists recommended and even urged governments to pursue. We have indeed at the moment little cause for pride: as a profession we have made a mess of things.
Hayek’s words in 1974 were not meant to describe today’s …

When it comes to the relationship between America & China, it can be summarized as follows:  We buy cheap goods from China with money we borrow from China.  Essentially, we consume more than we should be able to because we fund our consumption with borrowed money – much of which comes from China.  China accepts this arrangement because it employs a gazillion Chinese people who produce goods to export.  China underconsumes and exports more than they should be able to because they’re loaning us money as stated above.  Make no …

As we approach the elections, under 100 days I believe, we can expect the frequency of the negative advertisements of one candidate bashing the other to continue.  Where I live, it’s already begun to a high level of intensity.  It honestly makes me sick.  When I look at the multiple full color printed items that arrive in my mailbox on a daily basis (of which I throw away without looking at them), I think of all the wasted resources that go into these ridiculous elections.  What a joke.  Talk about …

The American economy is fascinating.  Despite the fact that we no longer build as much as we used to, it’s still considered a big economy.  If you consider that jobs that manufacture goods that the rest of the world wants as productive jobs (not an official definition), it’s insane to think of how many people are employed with unproductive jobs – including me.  The American economy is full of service-based jobs, while some assist productive jobs, many others are parasites on them.
Parasites
Consider the millions of Americans who are lawyers.  While …