Blog Posts by Matt Nesto

When Alan Greenspan famously referenced the possibility of "irrational exuberance" boosting the market in December of 1996, stocks had risen roughly 70% in the prior two years and were sitting at unforeseen levels. But perhaps more importantly was the fact that this infamous phrase of woe from a Federal Reserve chairman was largely ignored, as stocks continued to rally for another four years, tacking on an additional 100%.

Fast forward the clock 17 years and once again we have a Fed chairman discussing record high stock prices, only in this instance, Ben Bernanke not only refused to take credit for the rally, but went one step further, saying "At this point, we don't see anything out of line with historical patterns."

As my co-host Jeff Macke and I discuss in the attached video, while many investors are nervous about lofty stocks right now, Bernanke does not appear to be one of them. I like to call this his anti-irrational exuberance moment, as his remarks aimed to defuse investor

From the campaign trail to Super Bowl ads to the latest sales data that came out earlier this month, the auto comeback story has gotten plenty of attention lately. And why not, given the critical contribution that cars play in our economy and our everyday lives. In fact, Nick Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group, says, "It's one of the few areas where the economic cycle has worked exactly as it should."

While strong auto sales have been a bright spot amidst an otherwise lackluster comeback story, there's fear on the street that things may have peaked now that the annual sales are running north of 15 million units again. But before you sell your stocks, or trade in your clunker, Colas says automakers are about to ramp up their leasing efforts in a bid to keep the good times rolling.

"As leasing expands, the population of new car buyers expands," Colas says in the attached video. "It allows a whole branch of customer, who typically can't afford it, to come into a dealership and buy a new car."

By way of comparison, this former auto analyst and self-confessed subscriber to Automotive News says even though sales have jumped from 9 million in the trough to 15 million today, leasing has yet to experience a comparable rebound. According to Colas, for the last couple years leasing has been "roughly 20%" of demand in the U.S., but that's "down from 40% to 45%" in the '90s.

There comes a point in life when all of us must face a certain reality that we're not getting any younger. In some cases, this time to grow up realization results in the desire to have nicer clothes and a bigger place to live, maybe to find a spouse or have a kid or two, or to find a better job. It's the quintessential moment of settling down that haunts both those who have gone through it, as well as those who are about to. It's the epiphany that come with turning 35, but it's also the backdrop for the next mega-trend in stocks.

"The Generation-Y or Millenial generation is 19 to -35 years old and makes up 27% of the U.S. population," says Don Hays, founder and chairman of Hays Advisory Group, in the attached video. "And right now, they're entering the most productive part of their life cycle."

As he sees it, the typical millenial hasn't had a "really good job in the last 15 years," which is one big reason why he feels things are about to change for this tech-savvy, underemployed, racially diverse group.

"You're going to see that they are going to be much better at producing productivity," Hays predicts, then points to a better-known predecessor group as an example.

"We all remember Woodstock in 1969," he states. "Well, by 1980 the baby boomers had just entered the most productive part of their life cycle," a demographic tidal wave that shocked and changed the face of the nation. While the 20-year growth spurt from 1980 - 2000 is not entirely attributable to the Baby Boomers, Hays says it is worth paying attention to these types of cycles.

It has been a long and interesting month, to say the least, since we last allowed ourselves to freak out about the Fed. The release of the meeting minutes in February briefly stoked fears that chairman Ben Bernanke might actually start entertaining the possibility of gently applying the brakes on the board's stimulative bond purchases.

In the past month the economy has showed continued signs of improvement on key fronts, such as hiring and housing; attempts to quell the cold war brewing in global currency markets have fallen short; political failure at home has triggered across-the-board budget cuts; and European leaders have just established a new benchmark for unpredictability in crisis mismanagement. All of this happened amidst a backdrop that has seen stock prices blithely surging to record highs.

Other than that, Mr. Chairman, nothing much has changed.

Of course, Fed meetings are always important events, but Hugh Johnson, founder of Hugh Johnson Advisors, says this time around we just might get the answer to the question that everybody is asking: When is the Fed going to curtail its $85 billion a month bond-buying habit?

"They've teed the issue up," Johnson says in the attached video, "and I think we will get the answer that, yes, over time they're going to taper [bond purchases]."

As the March Madness college basketball tournament approaches, we're sure to see scores of those giant, foam "we're #1" fingers waving around in the weeks to come. As much as hoop fans will boast about the most modest accomplishments, the good old USA will be doing none of it, having just found itself outclassed by nearly two dozen countries in a competition designed to single out the best places in the world invest.

According to new research released today from the Milken Institute, when it comes to attracting new money, the world's largest economy came in 22nd place on the list of 98 countries ranked by their Global Opportunity Index.

"The most important reason why the U.S. has dropped is the build up of public debt at the Federal level and at the state level," says Ross DeVol, chief research officer at the Milken Institute, in the attached video. "We're beginning to look a lot like Europe."

Add in ongoing economic problems as well as what DeVol refers to as "opaqueness or lack of transparency" in how we regulate our financial markets, pointing to Dodd-Frank and laws that are continuously being written and revised. "That leaves a lot of ambiguity as to what the rules will be."

On the positive side of things, Milken conducted the analysis to drive sensible investment and development but also to foster conversation and reflection as to how countries can reduce barriers that disrupt the flow of capital across borders. To do so, Milken studied five criteria including; economic fundamentals, regulatory barriers, the ease and cost of doing business, the burden of regulation and corruption, and finally the rule of law and the protection of property and investor rights.

Here are the top five countries:

For anyone who has held shares of Intel (INTC) for more than a decade, chances are the stock has not only been a loser, but also a disappointment. While the world's largest maker of semiconductors has offered traders at least a dozen chances in as many years to try to make money on its price swings between $15 and $25 a share, its long-term story is still a daunting one, including the $75 high-water mark from September of 2000 that still stands today.

And yet, analyst Kim Forrest, at Fort Pitt Capital says this time it's going to be different.

"At this point in time, I couldn't be happier owning this stock because I really think 2013 is going to be the year in which they begin to show some traction," Forrest says in the attached video. "I think people have really underestimated what this company can produce."

Forrest believes Intel can overcome its power efficiency problem sooner than its rivals at ARM (ARMH) can overcome its computing power disadvantage. "My bet is that the engineers at Intel will win this" she says.

To gauge how that fight is going, Forrest recommends that investors keep an eye out for any signs of Intel pushing into the lower end smartphone business.

When the first headlines started crossing over the weekend, it seemed almost surreal. Cyprus agreed to impose a 10% tax on bank deposits to shore up that tiny island nation's ailing banks.

As incredulous, and ill-conceived as this super aggressive action is and will surely prove to be over time, by Monday markets around the world were already casting their votes and unanimously running for cover. For as much as this ''least painful solution" to the latest crisis engulfing the Eurozone was being levied against the savings accounts of citizens in a laid back Mediterranean hideout, its architects 2,000 miles away in Brussels and Berlin appear to have miscalculated once again.

As my co-host Jeff Macke and I discuss in the attached video, there are three key reasons why this move, and the subsequent global flight to safety, is going to matter more than the little-known place that appears to have triggered it.

First and foremost, are the ripple effects. Nothing happens in a vacuum, especially when it happens within a bloc of 17 nations that share one currency, but otherwise to pretty much hate each other. Despite treaties and agreements and high-minded "single-market rules," the Eurozone is still in the experimental stage, and I suspect a good percentage of its 320-million citizens, who now do their daily business in Euros, will be visiting an ATM today. And who can blame them? If the EU Finance Ministers can inflict this upon Cyprus over a holiday weekend, what's to stop them from doing the same thing somewhere else the next time a nation's banks need a little boost?

The maxim too good to be true can be applied to all sorts of situations that seem to defy logic. Whether it's a super low-priced used car, an unbelievably sweet vacation deal or, in Wall Street circles, a stock with a 15% dividend yield.

In the latter case, it has always been construed that if a particular stock carried such an abnormally high yield, then something had to be seriously wrong with the underlying company, and therefore, you'd be well advised to stay clear of it.

But new research conducted by the Global X Funds shows that those double-digit payout rates might actually be a call to action, rather than a warning to rush for the exits.

"We found, surprisingly, as the dividend yield goes up, the total return tends to go up too," says Bruno del Ama, the CEO of Global X in the attached video. He says while the long-term out-performance of dividend paying stocks versus non-dividend payers is well established, little has been done to stratify yields (0-2%, 2-6%, 6-10%, etc.) and assess the returns that way.

"The sweet spot is actually for dividend payers that are not even considered in most indices, which are the 10-17% dividend payers," he says.