The year was 1974 and Teledyne (TDY/$77.56/Outperform), on a split-adjusted basis, was trading at about $0.05 per share. By 1986 it was changing hands around $75 per share. Unfortunately, back in 1974 I didnt have enough money to buy more than 10 shares, having lived through the devastating bear market of 1973 1974 where the D-J Industrial Average (INDU/15118.49) lost 47% of its value.

Informally the TV show, That Was The Week That Was, is referred to as TW3and was a satirical comedy program first aired in the early 1960s. The program was considered a lampooning of the establishment. At the time it was considered a radical departure from legitimate television, but it set the stage for many more such radical departures. I revisit TW3 this morning because I have had so many requests for a formal repartee of a number of last weeks Morning Tacks woven into a more formal strategy letter.

The economic data reports were decidedly mixed last week. However, the April Employment Report exceeded expectations, which provided a good excuse for share prices to move higher. Bonds were whipsawed, encouraged by the view that the Fed was less likely to taper its asset purchases, but then hit hard by the better-than-expected payroll figures.

The initial estimate of real GDP growth for the first quarter was lower than expected. Details were mixed, and surprising relative to what was anticipated at the start of the quarter. Government remained a drag on overall GDP growth, which is a major difference between the current recovery and rebounds from previous recessions. The first quarter figures dont tell us much about the pace of growth in the current quarter and beyond, but most economist have lowered their GDP forecasts for 2Q13.

We saw many outside zebras gorging themselves on stocks in late 2007 as the D-J Industrial Average (DJIA) made a new all-time high and then registered a Dow Theory sell signal in November 2007. Subsequently, those outside zebras ended up as lion lunch when the senior index shed an eye-popping 53% over the ensuing 17 months.

A few years ago, an economic paper by Harvard professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff helped fuel the push for austerity. It was met with some criticism from economists, but was widely embraced by the press and by politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. The study has now been demonstrated to have had serious flaws, but will those in power fold? Or will they double down on bad economic policy?

Last month I was reminded of Surfs Up! while rereading said report from my departed friend Stan Salvigsen of Comstock Partners fame. While that is the organization Stan, Michael Aronstein, and Charles Minter formed in the late 1980s, Stans investment career actually began in 1964 as an analyst with the Value Line Investment Survey. Subsequently, he was an equity strategist at a succession of firms, including Dreyfus, Oppenheimer, C. J. Lawrence, and Merrill Lynch.

The Federal Reserve began its first asset purchase program in the fall of 2008, during the depth of the financial panic. Some observers feared that the Feds actions would fuel higher inflation. However, the Fed is now well along in its third asset purchase program and inflation (as measured by the PCE Price Index) has remained low. In fact, Fed officials expect that inflation will trend at or below the 2% target for the next couple of years. That hasnt stopped the inflation worrywarts from predicting that inflation is still just around the corner.

I reflected on mathematics, probabilities, and odds over the weekend after again reading the book Fortunes Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street, by William Poundstone. The book centers on Claude Shannon, who in the late 1940s had the idea computers should compute using the now familiar binary digits 0s and 1s such that 1 means on and 0 means off.

When I was a young boy, I remember my father coming home looking very ashen from a visit with a dear friend dying in the hospital. His name was Dell Zink and he was one of my fathers closest friends. Mr. Z, as we kids affectionately called him, was a very religious man; a man who was regarded by his friends as intelligent and philosophical.

The economic added 759,000 jobs in March before seasonal adjustment, that is. That translated into a disappointing 88,000 gain in the seasonally-adjusted number. Figures for January and February were revised higher. The slower March figure could reflect a lagged impact from the payroll tax hike or February may have simply borrowed some strength from March.

Last Thursday the S&P 500 (SPX/1569.19) notched a new all-time causing Ms. Scaggs to pen the aforementioned story in Fridays Wall Street Journal. I was particularly interested in a sentence further down in the article that read, The rally in stocks comes as investors warm up to stocks for the first time in years. That prose sparked memories of an era gone by.

The 3rd estimate of 4Q12 GDP growth showed a downward revision to consumer spending growth. Less momentum heading into 1Q13, right? Guess again. Revisions to the monthly data actually showed better growth heading into the new year. Moreover, figures for January and February suggest a much stronger rate of growth in spending (and hence GDP) than was anticipated just a short time ago.

According to Wikipedia, the Voyager 1 spacecraft is a 1,590 pound space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977 to study our solar system and interstellar space. Operating for more than 35 years, the spacecraft receives commands and transmits data back to the Deep Space Network. At a distance of more than 11 billion miles it is the farthest human-made object from Earth and is traveling in a previously unknown region of space. Similarly, the D-J Industrial Average is traveling in a previously unknown region of space as it boldly goes where no man has been before.

The Federal Open Market Committees latest policy meeting generated few surprises. The FOMC maintained its forward guidance on the federal funds rate target, which is still not expected to start rising until 2015, and did not alter its asset purchases plans ($40 billion per month in agency mortgage-backed securities and $45 billion in longer-term Treasuries). However, in his press briefing, Bernanke indicated that the pace of asset purchases could be varied as progress is made toward the Feds goals or if the assessment of the benefits and potential costs of the program were to cha

My luck has gotta change is a famous lament that has buried many a player on the crap tables. But as shown in the aforementioned coin toss quote, The outcomes in different tosses are statistically independent and the probability of any outcome is still 50%. While thats true in gambling, it is not so true in the stock market. The fact is, there are certain historic precedents in the stock market that can tilt the odds of success decidedly in your favor.

The recent economic reports have been mixed. The stock market seems to have embraced the strength and ignored the weakness. The bond market typically approaches the information in a more balanced way. How might the differences between the two markets be resolved?

Investing is a lot like whaling. Investors are constantly searching for that whale of a stock with the "ambergris factor." And, that is what investors were doing last week at the Raymond James 34th Annual Institutional Investors Conference in Orlando, Florida. In attendance were nearly 800 professional investors that were listening to presentations from CEOs and CFOs of more than 300 companies. As stated, just like the portfolio managers were there looking for stocks with the right stuff, so was I.

With headwinds fading, the U.S. economic recovery appeared poised to pick up more substantially in 2013. Unfortunately, fiscal policy is going in the wrong direction.

When compound interest works in your favor, it is a blessing. When it works against you, it's a curse! That is a "Jeffreism" I learned the hard way back in the bear market of the early 1970s when I was working for a $100 per week in this business and consequently had my credit cards levered to the "max." The interest rate at the time was 18%.

With headwinds fading, the U.S. economic recovery appeared poised to pick up more substantially in 2013. Unfortunately, fiscal policy is going in the wrong direction.

The Buying Power, and Selling Pressure, indicators continue to suggest no major top is in the works. Ditto the Advance/Decline line traded to a new high before the mid-week pullback, also confirming the upside. The major averages continue to reside above their respect 50-DMAs and 200-DMAs; and, those moving averages are rising, another bullish sign. Then there is Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A/$152,009/Not Covered), which is somewhat of a proxy for the stock market, as it traded to a new all-time last Friday.

Minutes of the January 29-30 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee showed a growing discomfort with the Feds Large-Scale Asset Purchase program (QE3). Thats not all that surprising. Even those who strongly favor the program arent exactly happy with it. However, thats a far cry from wanting to end the program anytime soon. We should learn more this week as Fed Chairman Bernanke delivers his semiannual monetary policy testimony (Tuesday and Wednesday).

"There were times when my plans went wrong and my stocks did not run true to form, but did the opposite of what they should have done if they had kept regard for precedent." So said Jesse Livermore, as chronicled in the brilliant book Reminiscence of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefever; and, stock market historians will recall that Jesse Livermore is still considered one of the most colorful market speculators of all time.

Aggressive monetary policy moves in recent years have been accompanied by a growing fear of a currency war. In a currency war, or competitive devaluation, countries attempt to weaken their currencies to boost exports, but each devaluation leads to counter devaluations. That's not what's going on now. However, whether a country is purposely devaluing its currency or is merely pursuing accommodative monetary policy is irrelevant, the consequences are the same. The recent meeting of G-20 finance ministers and central bankers highlights the lack of coherent policies to boost growth.

President Obama will deliver his fifth State of the Union Address on Tuesday evening. These speeches tend not to be of much significance for the financial markets, although the topics discussed may be important for certain industries (healthcare, energy, defense). Obama is expected to repeat his request that the sequester, due March 1, be postponed to next year. Doing so would not result in less deficit reduction. Such a move would have to be "paid for" through an increase in tax revenues and cuts in other forms of spending. However, it would limit the economic damage that would follow.

"Don't Just Do Something, Sit There" is the title of a book written by Sylvia Boorstein. I was reminded of the title when I received the following email from a financial advisor at another firm last week...

It's that time of year again when the media is abuzz with that old stock market saying, "so goes the first week of the new year, so goes the month and so goes the year." With the S&P 500 (SPX/1513.17) better by 2.17% over the first five trading sessions of this year, and up 6.10% for the month of January, it is worth revisiting the January Barometer. Devised by Yale Hirsch in 1972, the January Barometer states that as the S&P 500 goes in January, so goes the year.

Nonfarm payrolls fell by 2.8 million in January before seasonal adjustment, that is. Adjusted, payrolls advanced 157,000, about as expected. However, annual benchmark revisions showed a more rapid pace of job growth over the last two years a pace at odds with the Household Survey data. How might the Fed view the range of job market data?

The ink of my weekly piece was not even dry last Friday, when the House announced that it would vote on a three-month delay in the debt ceiling showdown. Congress now has until May 19 to raise the debt ceiling. So, the most dangerous hurdle has been moved down the track. Other hurdles remain in place.

"For all the sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: It might have been." ... John Whittier; an influential American Quaker poet. Certainly, American poet John Greenleaf Whittier's apothegm has stood the test of time, serving as a universal lament for what "might have been." I was reminded of this maxim last week as Wall Street heard increasing laments from investors on the Street of Dreams.

While President Obama is now beginning his second term, the new Congress isn't expected to "get down to business" until next month. There are three hurdles for Washington, which are likely to have significant implications for the financial markets.

January is the time of year when strategists, economists, gurus, etc. all join in on the annual nonsense of predicting "What's going to happen in the markets for 2013?" For many, this ritual is an ego trip, yet as Benjamin Graham inferred forecasting where the markets will be a year from now is nothing more than rank speculation. Or as I have noted, "You might as well flip a lucky penny."

Clearly, the stock market "thinks" something good can happen given the action so far this year. To wit, we ushered in the New Year with a 90% Upside Volume Day on December 31st followed by another 90% Upside Volume Day on January 2nd (90% of total volume traded came in on the upside). Such back-to-back Upside Days are pretty rare, especially at the beginning of the year.

A few years ago, amid exceptionally large federal budget deficit and extraordinarily accommodative Fed policy, a number of pundits warned of impending hyperinflation. Instead, inflation has stayed low. That hasn't stopped the inflation worrywarts. It's just a matter of time, they say. Inflation "has to show up at some point." That's not an argument. There are a number of reasons to expect inflation to stay low.

The budget deal removes a major uncertainty for the financial markets. We now know what tax rates will be. However, the American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA) has a number of drawbacks. The December 11-12 FOMC policy meeting minutes showed a split among Fed officials, but that doesn't necessarily mean that asset purchases will end any sooner. The economic data reports have been mixed but generally indicate that the recovery is in reasonable shape.

"Investing in the financial markets necessarily involves one's ability to change perspectives over time... And there's more of the white noise than ever before."... The Contrary Investor.com. So said the Contrary Investor; and I could not agree more given my sense that the media remains "long" volatility. Indeed, every time volatility increases, so do my phone calls from the financial media as they feel "compelled to come up with rationales for daily movements in asset prices;" last week was no exception.

Beginning of the year letters are always hard to write because there is a tendency to talk about the year gone by, or worse, attempt to predict the year ahead. Therefore, we are titling this year's letter in an attempt to share some of the lessons that should have been learned over the past few years.

So we wait for the alleged Armageddon for the second time in as many weeks. And as one smart money manager writes, "We should not forget that Congress has a magic eraser. No matter what they do, with a few strokes of a pen everything goes back to effectively January 1, 2013 and the Fiscal Cliff will take its place on the great wall of media creations (remember Y2K?)." Whether you call it Armageddon, or "orchestrated drama," there is nothing in my bag of tricks that suggests this is the beginning of a massive decline for stocks.

Leaders in Washington failed to reach an agreement on the fiscal cliff. What does that mean for the 2013 outlook?

As expected, Federal Open Market Committee announced that purchases of Treasuries will be added to QE3 in 2013 (the Fed will continue to buy $40 billion per month in mortgage-backed securities and $45 billion per month in long-term Treasuries). Fed policymakers also announced threshold guidance on the overnight lending rate, which will make the Fed's policy intentions clearer, and that's a good thing.

While last week, and this week, often see distortions in individual stock prices due to tax loss selling, Santa Claus tends to arrive the following week. Indeed, the last week of the year, into the first two days of January, has a pretty good track record on the upside with a rally coming about 65% of the time. As stated in previous missives, I expect the same Santa rally this year driven by a "staged in" solution to the fiscal cliff. Most readers know that I have lived in the D.C. Beltway and have a good working knowledge of how our system works.

The recent economic data are consistent with a moderate pace of growth in the near term. The manufacturing sector is mixed, but generally weak, reflecting a global slowdown and an inventory correction. The consumer appears to be hanging in there. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said that Hurricane Sandy did not have a significant impact on the November employment data. However, other economic indicators did reflect weather-related disruptions, which appear to have been only temporary. Meanwhile, the economy heads toward the fiscal cliff.

I have loved New York since working on Whitehall Street in the early 1970s. Every year I return around this time of the year to attend Minyanville's Festivus event to raise money for the financial education of underprivileged children. Last week I spent time attending said event, seeing institutional accounts, doing media, and renewing friendships. I was surprised, however, to see pumps still sucking water out of the subway.

Revisions to the 3Q12 GDP data have altered the near-term consumer spending outlook, adding to the anxiety surrounding the fiscal cliff. However, even if much of the fiscal tightening is postponed, more will be needed in the years ahead. The estimate of 3Q12 GDP growth was revised to a 2.7% annual rate, vs. 2.0% in the advance estimate. Good news, right? Well, no, just the opposite. Much of the revision was due to an increase in the estimate of inventory accumulation.

Alas, if only it was that easy to paintball the rapidly approaching fiscal cliff. For those of you traveling the North Yungas Road in Bolivia and unaware of the approaching dangerous cliff, let me explain. Before beginning, however, let me preface by recalling Bill Buckleys famous lament that he would rather be governed by folks listed in the Boston phone book than Harvard professors. To be sure, there are some good politicians inside the D.C. Beltway, but not many!

In my opinion Richard Fisher said in plain English what Ben Bernanke is trying to say in a much more politically correct way hey Congress, get your act together because I have done just about all I can do on a monetary basis, so it is up to y'all to make the tough decisions on fiscal policy that need to be made to get this economy going again. Surprisingly, I think Congress, and the President, will rise to the occasion because if they don't, and the country falls off the "fiscal cliff" for an extended period of time, it most assuredly will put us back into a recession.

The fiscal cliff refers to a substantial tightening of fiscal policy in 2013. Monetary policy cannot offset the cliffs negative effect on the economy. However, it would be surprising if a deal were not reached, if not by the end of this year, then in early 2013. Due to concerns about the long-term budget picture, some of the cliff is almost certain to get through.

The call for this week: Obviously, I am back from Europe and y'all have done a pretty poor job of holding the markets together in my two-week absence. Indeed, since the election the SPX has lost 6.28% from its intraday high to last Friday's intraday low. The biggest losing sectors over that timeframe have been Energy (-6.2%), Financials (-5.9%), and Technology (-5.9%). Given the President's views on energy and banks the weakness in those two sectors should not come as a surprise. Still, I think the surprise is going to be a more cooperative environment from our leaders going forward.

The fiscal cliff refers to a substantial tightening of fiscal policy in 2013. Monetary policy cannot offset the cliff's negative effect on the economy. However, it would be surprising if a deal were not reached, if not by the end of this year, then in early 2013. Due to concerns about the long-term budget picture, some of the cliff is almost certain to get through.