Wed, May 23, 2012, 12:45 AM EDT - U.S. Markets open in 8 hrs 45 mins

  • Whether or not you caught the "Sell in May/Rotate to Defensives" trade this month, the good news is, you're not too late. With stocks paring losses these past three days, the long-awaited correction is looking a little thin now that we're down less than 3 percent for the month. And that's just fine with Paul Simon, chief investment officer of the Tactical Allocation Group, because he thinks there's more to come.

    "It's time to take some money off the table," he says. "You'd be wise to look for a better entry point."

    His concerns are not unique, but he says the cumulative weight of weaker economic data, sluggish housing, tepid auto sales and the overhang of QE2 ending creates "heightened uncertainty" and that justifies sticking with a now-crowded move towards defensive sectors such as health care/biotech (BBH), consumer staples (XLP), utilities (XLU), and food, beverage & tobacco (PBJ).

    "All of the structural problems are still in place," Simon warns. "Can the economy really stand on

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  • While most of us are packed up and pumped up about the three-day Memorial Day weekend, former U.S Comptroller General David Walker is fired up about the nation's debt.

    Walker, who founded the Comeback America Initiative and served 10 years as comptroller general (1998-2008), has been sounding the alarm on our out-of-control government debt since long before it became cool to care about fiscal health.

    He sat down with Matt and Aaron and blasted out of the gates, swinging at both parties in Congress and their failure to resolve the issue of raising the debt ceiling to avoid default. The current ceiling is $14.3 trillion, and at our spending rate we're scheduled to breach that limit on Aug. 2, sending the U.S into default.

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  • It's no secret that we've go big financial problems in this country. And while lawmakers try to hammer out solutions to address decades of overspending and promises, what many don't see is how our fiscal crisis threatens our very existence.

    "You can't spend trillions of dollars more than you take in without someday having a day of reckoning," says former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. "It's happened to every other great republic in the past who's been fiscally irresponsible, and, frankly, some of them no longer exist."

    Read More »

Pagination

(1,322 Stories)

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