Isaac Newton posited 334 years ago in his third law of motion that mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies are equal.

I wonder what he’d think of the relationship between the US dollar and equities, where this small action produces that decidedly unequal reaction.

After the Federal Reserve acted to shore up bank balance sheets by buying long bonds and mortgage-backed securities last week, the dollar trampolined and markets dropped like Newton’s apple.

Pundits blamed dismal economic data. Yet we saw money market-wide shifting from equities September 16 with quad-witching. Before the Fed offered a dim economic portrait. If money was reacting, it sure had a funny, proactive, organized way of showing it.

Today and Monday, the dollar weakened and stocks zoomed skyward in a Newton-flummoxing frenzy to reclaim paradise lost. How many believe this is rational investment behavior? If you do, there’s a solar-panel plant in California that might interest you. Continue reading →

Headline at 2:34 p.m. Eastern Time today: “Fed Pledges Low Rates Through 2013.”

How many recognize this as a currency-devaluation? Markets jumped 4% here in the U.S. as the DXY, the dollar index, dropped.

Last Sunday, the European Central Bank pledged to monetize debts of Italy and Spain. Monday, markets plunged globally. That’s a currency-devaluation. The central bank is promising to increase the supply of currency without a corresponding increase in economic output.

Most blamed S&P’s downgrade of US debt. But the dollar strengthened, and Treasurys increased in value. Why would the diminished instruments be more valuable?

Because that’s not what caused markets to tank. Continue reading →

Would you rather ride your road bike in the sun or the rain?

What if riding in the sun means peddling across Death Valley in the summer, while the rain is a passing shower in the Italian Dolomites?

Context is essential. Let’s apply the same thinking to decisions about stock-repurchases and dividends. Conventional wisdom has long held that both actions appeal to the kinds of stock buyers who hold securities and count on fundamentals.

No argument there. But ponder the third dimension in the IR chair. The first dimension is your story – what defines and differentiates your investment thesis. The second is targeting the kind of money that likes your story. The third dimension is the state of your equity store.

Your equity is a product, competing with other products, with unique supply and demand constraints. If you suppose that your story is correct for a particular buyer without considering whether the buyer can act on interest in your story, you’re leaving money on the table. So to speak.

For instance, if I want four Keith Urban tickets at Pepsi Center in October for no more than $50 each, I’m already sold on the investment thesis – “Keith Urban puts on a good show.” What if there are only two tickets available at $50? Well, I’m not the right buyer for the investment thesis, then. Continue reading →

Stocks go up and down. Nothing new there.

The dollar dropped for a second straight day today. Stocks are again up, like they were yesterday. The dollar gained ground last Wed-Fri, and stocks fell.

This week marks the end of the month and quarter. We recommend in our IR Calendar that you consider some tactical timing as part of your overall IR strategy. Generally, the last few trading days of a quarter or month aren’t best for releasing good news. But they may be perfect for bad news.

Why? Institutions will be shoring up portfolio returns or managing exposure to market risk. They address risk by offsetting it with something that is inversely correlated. Notice that stocks and the dollar are inversely correlated. Notice that the dollar and other currencies, such as the Euro, are often inversely correlated. Continue reading →

Maybe we should leave more often. Out just one week, and both silver and Osama Bin Laden’s house go on the auction block.

Sunday night after flying back from Antigua by way of Newark, I reviewed a week’s worth of client stock alerts for perspective. Stepping through a side exit and closing the door on life’s cacophony for a week, time stops. The return, the jolt of the madding crowd, is revealing. It’s amazing what you see.

More in a moment, but I promised some of you I’d share what we saw beyond the Truman Show. Apparently you can’t get from Denver to the French West Indies in a day on one airline, Continue reading →