Jerome Bitun

2011 Tax Deadline Just a reminder, you have to file your taxes by April 30, 2011. U.S. Outlook The rating agency S&P 500 issued a warning Monday, April 18, 2011 on US government debt. It said that there is a 33% chance it would lower the United States credit rating from AAA in the next two years if Washington failed to manage the country's debt. This sent the Dow Jones, S&P500 and the TSX lower. S&P said it has little confidence that the White House and Congress will agree on a deficit-reduction plan before the fall 2012 elections. By that time, the measures won't go into effect until the fiscal year 2014. This does not look good for the U.S. The ratings done by the three major ratings agency is very important and the AAA rating is one most sought after rating by both investors and debt issuers. The reason this is important is because most big pension funds, hedge funds and mutual funds have in their mandate to only buy "AAA" rated bonds. If the U.S. lose...

Pirate Capital LLC, an activist hedge fund manager said Thursday that its investment staff will be cut in half and its fund will be closed to new investors. Another hedge fund manager, Amaranth Advisors LLC loss a whopping US$6 Billion betting on the wrong side of the market. Add to this several other hedge funds which has either closed down or stopped accepting new investors due to poor returns. The bull market in commodities created a slew of hedge funds banking on investors wanting to get into the game. A lot of Income Trust and REITs were also established to capitalize on the real estate boom as well as the oil boom. Most of these funds have a track record of less than 5 years. Yet investors are willing to invest in these funds just because they are the darling of the fund rating companies or they achieved spectacular returns in their first few years, some making over 105% in one year. It seems to me that people never learn. Don't they remember the recent crash of the stock mar...