John T. Reed’s news blog

There is a wealth of info in the WSJ including in pages of numbers. Occasionally, I focus on one that I never scrutinized before. Today I noticed what is apparently a quarterly feature. . The first quarter ended yesterday. . It is titled “Track the Markets: Winers and Losers.” It is a list of selected stock indexes, bond ETFs, currencies, and commodities. That is a rather eclectic collection of assets. The are ranked by percentage gain in value during the quarter. Here are the top five and bottom five: . Orange juice 30.57% S&P 500 Information Tech 21.49% NASDAQ 100...

Trump got indicted by a grand jury. It appears, this is an action only a Trump hater could love. I need to see the polls, but I expect Trump will go up because the voters will think Dems are trying to deny them the right to choose him as their guy..We have long known Trump is a ham—which Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines as “someone who enjoys performing and who tends to behave in an exaggerated or playful way when people are watching” It is a word that is no longer used in that way. Bob Hope used it..So it cannot be...

Maybe I need to publish a decryption key so investors can find the truth in WSJ reporter Nicole Friedman's invariably misleading stories..Today's headline is 'Home Prices Log Seventh Straight Monthly Decline.' Actually, home prices went up You know want the story actually says? Home prices for the last 12 months rose 3.8% nationwide (Case-Shiller) and 5.3% (FHFA)..What intellectually dishonest debate tactic did Friedman use to create that "hones suck as an investment" headline? Note the word "monthly." MONTHLY home price changes!? Who looks at those? People in the real estate industry never looked at MONTHLY changes in home values. Why...

Big article in the WSJ today about the median home prices of east-of-Colorado homes going up while median home prices in and west of CO went down. Who says so? Black Knight, Inc. Who are they? I don't know. Never heard of them. But one of the names sports writers have used to describe the football team of my alma Mater West Point is the Black Knights of the Hudson. And indeed, the chairman emeritus of Black Knights is a West Point grad..Internet says they are a home ownership software and data analytics company. I still never heard of them....

The National Housing Council sent me a news release that I think is incorrect by incompleteness. https://nhc.org/the-pitfalls-of-cash-out-refinancing-in-a-rising-interest-rate-environment/.They are basically unhappy about the interest expense on a new first mortgage being much greater than the rate on their existing first mortgage. They prefer that you get a home equity second mortgage thereby preserving a likely lower interest rate of about 3% on your existing first mortgage..They acknowledge that the rate on home equity loans is higher than on new firsts. They also admit the term is shorter like ten years instead of 30. They did NOT mention that HELOCs often have...