General Electric Shares Face Cyclical Risk

By Markos Kaminis (Wall St. Greek): For fundamental reasons, the broader stock market has benefited substantially from increasing investor confidence in the riskier equity asset class or stocks. Furthermore, capital flows into equity funds have been, and should continue to be, a critical driver of stocks.

By Markos Kaminis (Wall St. Greek): The week that just passed produced 10 economic data points that offer warning about the U.S. economy. The economy clearly appears to be slowing, as data point after data point has directed our attention to that likelihood over the last several months.

By Markos Kaminis (Wall St. Greek): The week ahead offers several key economic reports focused on the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing and housing have been linchpins for the economy until now. However, this week's reports could make a mess of the economic perspective and set manufacturing stocks lower as well.

IT IS amazing how quickly prevailing views of the challenge of economic development have changed. As recently as the 1990s, catch-up economic growth was widely seen as really difficult to achieve, at least on any sustained basis. Postwar Europe managed it, as did Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and a couple of Asian city-states. But for most of last century, and despite the concerted efforts of developing-economy governments, rich economies grew faster than emerging economies, widening the broad gap in incomes.

By Markos Kaminis (Wall St. Greek): This week's economic data flow for the industrial sector offered a conflicting message. What I've learned as a fisherman is that where there are choppy seas there is change. Either the wind is blowing in the opposite direction of the tide or one current is bashing up against another.

By Markos Kaminis (Wall St. Greek): Many in the media are attributing nascent softness in European and also American shares to whatever happens to be in the news that day or this week.

By Markos Kaminis (Wall St. Greek): In my recent article entitled Buy Gold on the Fed Fuddle, I referenced the ongoing weights against the economy.

Clemens Kownatzki submits: ETFs have been all the rage. Ongoing investor interest has prompted an amazing growth of this type of investment vehicle. For most individual investors the traditional ETFs do provide an easy, certainly more cost effective way of diversification and therefore spreading risk among possibly several hundred companies.