Profiting in Bull or Bear Markets George Dagnino

Chapter 1 Using Risk to Manage Your Money Successfully 7

Games and Strategies 7

Assessing Risk and Using It to Manage Money 8

The Dynamics of Risk Management 14

What’s Wrong with Buy and Hold and Averaging Down? 18

Chapter 2 Economic Indicators 21

Economic Indicators 21

Broad Measures of Economic Activity 22

Consumer Indicators 23

Manufacturing and Investment Indicators 27

Construction Indicators 33

Inflation Indicators 34

Productivity and Profit Indicators 41

Where to Get the Data 43

Conclusion 44

Chapter 3 Relationships between Economic Indicators 47

The Consumer Cycle 47

Manufacturing and the Investment Cycle 50

The Real Estate Cycle 52

The Inflation Cycle 54

Productivity and Profit Cycles 58

Conclusion 61

Chapter 4 The Composite Indexes of Leading, Coincident,

and Lagging Indicators 63

Leading Indicators 65

Coincident Indicators 68

Lagging Indicators 69

Other Experimental and Coincident and

Leading Indicators 74

Conclusion 76

Chapter 5 The Business Cycle: A Practical Use of

Economic Indicators 77

The Phases of the Business Cycle 81

What Happens in the Phases of the Business Cycle? 84

Investment Implications 90

Chapter 6 Long-Term Economic and Investment Trends 97

Learning from History 98

Real Short-Term Interest Rates 100

Assessing Changes in Long-Term Investment Trends 105

Using Interest Rates to Assess the Risk of Foreign

Investments 111

Investment Implications 114

Chapter 7 The Central Bank and Your Investments 117

The Federal Reserve System 119

What Guides Monetary Policy? 122

Tools of Monetary Policy 126

Financial Cycles 128

Assessing Monetary Policy 131

Investment Implications 133

Chapter 8 Inflation and Your Investments 141

Inflation and the Business Cycle 143

Commodities and the Business Cycle 148

Wages and Inflation 149

Currencies, Inflation, and Foreign Investments 152

Investment Implications 154

Chapter 9 Bonds and Business Cycles 157

Bond Features 158

Bond Yields and the Business Cycle 161

Factors Influencing Bond Price Fluctuations 164

The Yield Curve 166

The Credit Cycle 169

Forecasting Bond Yields 171

Investment Implications 175

Chapter 10 The Stock Market and Business Cycles 177

Long-Term Stock Returns and Strategies 179

Stock Prices and Business Cycles 181

Assessing Stock Market Risk 183

The Technology Dimension 193

Investment Implications 195

Chapter 11 Technical Analysis of Stock Market Trends 199

What Do We Mean by “the Market”? 200

Moving Averages 201

Moving Averages Crossovers 203

Momentum Indicators Using Moving Averages 204

Market Breadth Indicators 205

Rate of Change as Momentum Indicators 207

Chart Patterns 207

Trading Volume 209

Sentiment Indicators 211

Moving Averages Envelopes and Bollinger Bands 213

Seasonality 214

Dow Theory 215

Investment Implications 216

Chapter 12 Managing Your Stock Portfolio Risk 217

Frame of Mind, Investment Style, and

Risk Management 218

Stock Selection: What Portfolio Would You Like to have

When to Start Selling 223

Portfolio Management Strategies and Stock

Market Cycles 224

Issues 227

Chapter 13 Improving Shareholder Value 229

The Setting for Decision Making 232

Timing Management Strategies to Improve

Shareholder Value 233

The Role of the Chief Economist 239

Conclusions 240

Chapter 14 Conclusions 243

Thoughts about Investing 244

Developing Reliable Investment Scenarios 245

Investing in Stocks 251

Investing in Assets Other Than Stocks 253

Managing Risk 253

Chapter 15 What to Do Now 255

Collecting Data 255

How to Analyze the Data 260

Preparing the Forecasts 264

Developing an Investment Strategy 267

Taking Action 269

Measuring Portfolio Performance 270