Editor, The two-mile Laguna boardwalk: imagine the boardwalk on Main Beach that would stretch all the way to Anita Street. All the hotels would have a romantic, safe and quiet pedestrian friendly connection to the main part of town. Laguna would have one more attraction, an amazing promenade for pedestrians, rollerbladers, bicycles, joggers. My [...]
Weeding And Seeding Stocks appear to be firming up as if they were going to the gym for workouts instead of to their creditors for financial workouts. Some of their support is coming from an absence of any more dramatically bad news from Europe. Those troubled economies are prompting companies with global sales to temper [...]
A Long, Warm Summer Midsummer arrived on schedule as did the first wave of quarterly earnings reports. The summer is hot, the reports lukewarm. First returns show decent results in sales and earnings despite a sluggish economic recovery but the forecasts are guarded. Europe’s uncertainties and its slumping economies are beginning to impact the sales [...]
On The Bargain Counter The stock market managed to work itself back into an uptrend with volume rising on consecutive up days. No sooner had it achieved this short-term reversal of May’s “correction” than a 200-point down day put its new uptrend under pressure. As economic developments here and in Europe have not produced any [...]
Home On The Range Stocks continue to oscillate in what Wall Street likes to call a “trading range.” With all the nerve- wracking news from Europe and unsettled political quarrelling here, it is no wonder that investors do not feel at home on this range. As usual, the public mood exaggerates stock market conditions. Things [...]
Market Rallies Are Not Sell Signals Some investors remind me of animals that have been abused and now resist offers of kindness. A majority of investors surveyed in a recent CNBC poll reported that they mistrust stocks to some degree, as if they had been mistreated. This distrust continues despite stocks being up 65% in [...]
Quick Start for 2012 Stocks came out swinging at the opening bell of 2012. For a brief period, the market was not burdened with bad news from the bankers of Europe or the political candidates of America. As the holiday glow fades, we can expect the battering to resume as the bankers and politicians return [...]
Living With Uncertainty Stock columns at this time traditionally try to forecast the year ahead. Currently, the only certainty is that there will be continued uncertainty and accompanying volatility. That is more of a useful forecast than it might sound. Investors will do better if they accept that stocks will be buffeted by winds from [...]
A World of Uncertainties Unemployment finally moved down a notch from 9% to 8.6%, mixed progress is taking place with Europe’s financial problems and stocks continue to bounce up and down. They always have but this year seems to have been particularly hard on investor nerves, probably because much of the fluctuating took place within [...]
Winds of change A couple of puffs of good news were enough to prompt a gale of buying that sent stocks up 800 points on the Dow in three days. Gales tend to blow out but the market’s ability to make a lot out of a little shows how depressed stock prices had become despite [...]
Stocks And Thanksgiving The stock market continues to be as irrational as an unhappy teenager. Corporate profits are at an all time high at levels that would support a Dow Jones Industrial Average three thousand points higher, were investors not so spooked by debt levels here and in Europe. Meanwhile, unemployment remains painfully high, as [...]
The Signal From Europe The latest attempts by European leaders to rescue their continent from its debt crisis are encouraging but not conclusive. This is a complex problem that continues to enhance the relative merits of stocks in companies focused outside the Euro Zone. Solidly financed global companies like Spain’s Telefonica (TEF-$22), Denmark-based Novo-Nordisk (NVO-$110) [...]
Wipe away the stereotype of biker guys and gals hitting the highways on their Harleys, roaring up to a roadside burger joint for a cold one. Picture instead stylishly clad men and women astride powerful and sleek motorbikes touring the countryside, meeting up at a small town café for a latte or glass of wine. [...]
The Gain From Spain Goes Mainly To The Sane The price swings of the last few years produced emotional swings. They also have created some remarkable valuations, both in bargain prices and wild overpayments. Three years ago, with the financial crisis in full outcry, Bank of America paid $50 billion for Merrill Lynch. Its then [...]
Reverting to the Mean Buying excitement inspired by the news of the successful raid on Osama bin Laden faded in a few hours on the stock market, leaving investors stalemated by absence of any similarly encouraging economic news. The market swings to and fro in response to investor moods of greed versus fear and eliminating [...]
Police Use Taser to Subdue Assault Suspect
An assault involving three men escalated into a struggle with Laguna Beach police, who ultimately deployed a taser twice to subdue the younger combative suspect in the 300 block of Cozumel around 1:15 a.m. Friday, May 10, police said. Police ultimately arrested Laguna Beach resident Sergio Gabriel Borgognone, 51, for allegedly resisting arrest and his [...]
