Edward J. Strafaci ~ Academic Blog

A great deal of volatility is driven by uncertainty, whenever investors are tentative they will have a greater propensity to sell and buy stocks indiscriminately without consideration to fundamental value approaches. Following on this line of thought , secondary investors , driven by technical factors, will react to that initial trading and compound the increase in volatility. The advent of high frequency, algorithmic and day trading serves to exacerbate this increase in volatility. One could argue that the domestic stock market was already overvalued . Price earnings ratios were inflated by low interest rates and central bank influence. Valuation was more driven by these factors as opposed to sustainable earnings growth. A catalyst such as the Corona Pandemic can serve as a tipping point in this case, causing markets to adjust to traditional value metrics. Finally, many retirees were supplementing their Government payments with stock market speculation. Traditio...

Great Leaders Are Killjoys, Nags or Neurotics—Until There’s a Pandemic One lesson from Covid-19 is that we need leaders who prevent crises more than we need managers who scramble to handle them. On some glorious day in the future, when the Covid-19 pandemic has been controlled and contained, it will be time to hand out trophies. The recipients may include scores of medical professionals, business executives, school administrators, shopkeepers and yoga instructors all over the world who acted decisively to prevent the virus from spreading; often at considerable personal cost and well before the people they protected thought it was necessary. I look forward to that. Dark stories need heroes, too. But if the worst disease outbreak in modern history only teaches us one lesson, let it be this: The global response to this pandemic will never be anything more than a case study in crisis management. It has already failed the fundamental tests of leadership. Leadership is what prevents...

FANG Stocks -24.76% off of its 52 week high 3/12/20 4PM

I just computed the FANG Index off of its 52 week high Simple approximate return = -17.94%   52wkHigh Close 3/11 Loss Pct.Loss FB 224.2 170.24 53.96 24.07% AMZN 2185 1820 365 16.70% NFLX 393 350 43 10.94% Goog 1532 1215 317 20.69%   4334.2 3555.24 778.96 17.97%