Market News

Since the first of the year, stock trading was in and the buy and hold strategy was out the window. It seems this trend may be reversing itself, with more investment managers giving their clients the old "dollar cost averaging" spiel and telling them to "invest for the long-term." Nothing wrong with any of this advice, but I think there will always be occasions when stock trading is more appropriate than a strict buy and hold strategy.

Speaking of buy and hold, the greatest buy and hold investor of all time, Warren Buffett, stands to gain a bundle off his investment in Goldman Sachs last September. Not only is Berkshire Hathaway benefiting from the special 10% dividend on their preferred shares, but they are also holding stock warrants from Goldman, currently worth a cool $3 billion. Not bad for a guy, who some were saying, had lost his touch.

There's been a lot of talk lately about weakness in the U. S. dollar. In the short term, this is not always a bad thing. Certain market sectors, such as technology, energy and materials, who get more than 50% of their revenues overseas, stand to benefit by the weakness in the dollar making their prices more attractive to foreign buyers. However, long term weakness in the dollar could lead to inflation woes here at home.

The market is static today, waiting for news from the Fed meeting and due to the drop in oil prices caused by a build up in inventories. I do think we'll see a move upward by the end of the week and September could prove to be better than expected for the year.