"Instead of complaining that the rosebush is full of thorns, be happy that the thorn bush has roses"
Anonymous

Enough whining for now, with my vacation now over and stomach virus gone it's time to do a little "facts check" before plunging back into the regular "skeptical" mode...

Rereading back my articles from the last two months it seems as I most definitely gotten some/most things right overall and thus while my "orphaned" MSN Strat Lab portfolio has not done well while I was gone out of country, the actual analytical part seem to have done much better...

1. Russian equity market fiasco unraveled even faster than I expected, and certainly proved that my skepticism was justified despite the "cheap valuation" objection from several readers ...Russia's market is cliff-diving and it's not Olympics...

2. Emerging markets got crushed much worse than US, and I still expect that to continue in the weeks to come...Emerging weakness of emerging markets...

3. Oil and other commodities have corrected drastically and even the former seemingly indestructible momentum "darlings" like Potash have proved that nothing goes up forever...However, most recent bailout proposal could lead to the reversal of "strong dollar" trend and thus some of the commodities could actually do quite well in the short term.
Energy "Crisis"? in Graphs

4. Value has most definitely kicked momentum's b.t during the last 5-6 weeks and that's only the beginning in my opinion. The new market direction's motto should be something like "boring is good!" I think cash rich, diversified, boring businesses (like MSFT, GE, ITW, BRKA, INTC etc ) will do better than their high tech/high multiple counterparts (AAPL, VMW etc). Momentum vs. Value- Where Next?

5. Goldman Sachs's (investment banks )decline has once again matched/exceeded my expectations and as the results from their most recent quarter showed there could be more pain to come. The era of Wall Street is now officially over and super leverage days of the past are not coming back! Neither Goldman nor Morgan Stanley, in my opinion, should/would be allowed fail, but they also can't survive in a "pure" investment bank form as today- deposits rule the world! Will Goldman Sachs get burned by O&G?; Why Investment Banks are not Cheap...

6. BLS's initial estimate of job losses did prove too conservative and thus TrimTabs has been once again proved right :) Is BLS understating the "true" job losses?

7. AAPL's share price has certainly turned into the right direction and while the precise cause for this decline might not be specifically "missing" iPhones, my overall thesis/conclusion still seems sound and on target. Unbiased opinion on AAPL or case of the "missing iPhones"...

8. Small cap stocks have continued to outperform their large cap counterparts until recently but now seem to be reverting back to the negative trend... I am still sticking with my argument that this phenomenon has been driven predominately by short covering and thus large cap stocks will do better in the next few quarters. Time to think small... Or is it really? Plus some retail ideas

So all-in-all, I am now fired up, satisfied and ready to go back to blogging :)
Vad at skepticalcapitalist@gmail.com