Month: June 2012

Reading the Tea Leaves on Health Care Decision

By Jan Crawford – CBS News WASHINGTON, June 28, 2012 – After oral arguments over President Obama’s health care reform law at the Supreme Court three months ago, it appeared five justices were prepared to overturn the law’s key provision — the requirement that all Americans have health insurance from birth until death or pay a penalty — the so-called “individual mandate.” But even if the justices were divided 5-4 to uphold the law at the end of March, much can change between an initial vote and the decision. Justices can and have changed their minds in cases before....

Read More

Supreme Court Decision Will Drive Health Care ETFs Today

by Ron Rowland Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 7:30am In a few short hours we should have some big news: A Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of health care reform. Investors have a lot at stake. Whatever the court decides will be good for some Health Care stocks … and not-so-good for others. Back in January, I said Health Care ETFs were poised for another great year. Sure enough, this sector outperformed the broad market by a big margin since the end of February. What does this tell us? I think the stock market is a lot smarter...

Read More

Book Review: 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior

Authors:  Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio and Barry L. Beyerstein Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell – 332 pages Book Review by:  Paiso Jamakar From people and in feature articles, people are fed myths about human thinking and behavior that they simply accept as truths (and even pass on to others) without critically examining if they are true or not. It is surprising that they do not bother to verify this statement because it is very easy to do so, with hundreds of knowledge sources available on the Internet. One of the most widespread ideas that have been propagated is...

Read More

Don’t Let Europe Distract You From the Bargains in the Emerging Markets

By Tom Essaye – Money and Markets In headline-driven markets like the one we’re in now, it’s very easy to focus only what’s at the center of everyone’s attention: Europe. But contrarian investors constantly strive to look beyond the market’s focus, to spot the next major trend on the horizon. And they use short-term market dislocations to properly position themselves to ride the coming trend. True to form, markets are totally focused on whether or not the world’s major western central banks (the Fed, ECB and BOE) will be making monetary policy more accommodative and introducing more quantitative easing...

Read More

Analysis: If Budget is Approved, NJ Faces Fiscal Crisis Next Spring

One-shot revenues, tax cuts, pension debt, and borrowing blow $2.5 billion hole in FY2014 budget By Mark J. Magyar – NJ Spotlight June 25, 2012 – If the Legislature approves the proposed $31.7 billion FY13 budget and the tax cut that Gov. Chris Christie is demanding, New Jersey will face a built-in $2.5 billion hole in the following year’s FY14 budget – a gap almost twice as large as the combined increase in income, sales, and corporate taxes that Christie is projecting for the year ahead, a NJ Spotlight analysis shows. Even if the Democratic-controlled Legislature decides next year...

Read More