stmichaeladelphi.org

By REX NUTTING

Quoted: “I don’t believe that raising revenues is the right answer to balancing our budget. I will not support any proposal based upon increasing taxes or revenues.”

—Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, Nov. 19

“[President Barack Obama] hasn’t had any role. He’s done nothing. It’s another example of failed leadership.”

—Mitt Romney, Nov. 20

Reality: Did the president really do nothing to help bridge the chasm between Republicans and Democrats on the deficit “supercommittee?”

The president may not have helped the supercommittee to succeed, but former Gov. Romney actually encouraged it to fail.

Just one day before the supercommittee gave up and admitted defeat—just when the politicians needed some courage to make tough choices—Mr. Romney was urging Republicans to hold firm against any increases in taxes.

The facts show that both increased spending and reduced revenues contributed to today’s debt problem. Poll after poll shows that the American people want a solution that would include both spending cuts and more revenues.

The Democrats proposed a balanced plan, but Republicans—cheered on by Mr. Romney—insisted that tax revenues would make no substantive contribution to deficit reduction.

The supercommittee failed.

Usually a tool that’s wielded by technical analysts, charting has come to fundamental analysis in a big way at Websites like YCharts and GuruFocus.

A picture’s worth a mountain of numbers—and YCharts’ images are excellent for isolating and highlighting a security’s key leverage points, liberating them from the rows and columns of numbers and ratios in which they are often buried.

A few of YCharts’ (www.ycharts.com) plots, like 200-day moving average, are price/volume metrics commonly used in technical analysis. But most illustrate one or more of the 85 fundamental valuation measures that YCharts tracks for more than 5,000 U.S.-listed securities.

Price charts are always the jumping-off point. But a click or two changes them to plots of valuation signposts such as book value per share, or return on invested capital.

YCharts boasts that subscribers can focus on individual metrics, or combine those data points in tens of millions of ways, which speaks to the breadth and flexibility of its platform.

But it also demonstrates how challenging it can be to get your arms around even a subset of the market.

Charting helps those without day jobs on Wall Street to sort important trends from those not so relevant, says YCharts co-founder and CEO Shawn Carpenter: “We spend a lot of time thinking about how to communicate this overwhelming amount of complicated information, and finding better ways to do it.”

Many of the 400,000 visitors who come to YCharts monthly are, similarly, looking for a way to communicate their insights around the tweet-o-sphere. YCharts subscribers can easily turn their favorite data points into detachable plots that are often sent via Twitter—or the ecosystem’s market-oriented offshoots, like StockTwits (http://stocktwits.com/ycharts). Limited to 140 characters, tweeted messages are quick to get to the point, and offer tiny URL links to chart or tables.

Having recently landed a $3.25 million second round of financing led by Chicago Loop neighbor Morningstar (www.morningstar.com), YCharts plans to expand its features and coverage areas, says Carpenter, and is looking for ways to collaborate with its benefactor.

The pair have a lot in common: both practice classic valuation analysis, but with different areas of emphasis.

Thirty-year-old Morningstar is best known for its coverage of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds; however, it has branched out into researching individual stocks and bonds, too.

Two-year-old YCharts wants to focus on equities, not funds, says Carpenter.

A product of the Web 2.0 technology revolution, Carpenter makes full use of the latest database and presentation technologies to create a light, bright and inviting Website.

Pages are thoroughly and intelligently linked—as in, what would the typical investor want to look at next? A feedback mechanism tracks the crowd’s interests, and puts the most popular data forward—within the site’s logical format.

Typing a ticker into YCharts’ search engine yields a profile page whose stats are arranged under tabs like Performance, Valuation, Financials, and Historical Data—categories commonly used across the ‘Net. These are a necessary first cut at rationalizing the many data points available for any security.

Although exhaustive, YCharts profiles are clean and on-topic. Clicking on just about any linked data point pops up a chart whose configuration choices are tucked under handy drop-down dialogue boxes. It’s easy to change securities, change metrics or merge the two.

Anyone who completes a free registration can tap a subset of YCharts’ 85 valuation measures for 10 years of historical data. But, for $40 monthly, YCharts Pro subscribers can access 30 years worth of metrics and ratios, and a few dozen advanced calculations, like tangible book value per share. A Pro membership is required to export charts or tables, or access stock ratings and popular portfolio strategies, including those of famous value investors like Benjamin Graham and Peter Lynch.

AFTER CITING SUCH LUMINARIES, it’s probably a good time to move to GuruFocus, another deep valuation-research site that just added charting. A subtle difference: YCharts starts with securities data and looks for matches with successful portfolio models, moving from the general to the particular; GuruFocus (www.gurufocus.com) starts with the particular, the portfolios of modern valuation innovators ranging from Kenneth Fisher to John Paulson and on to Warren Buffett. It then dissects their portfolios to find insight, and tracks their every trade.

Following a 22% plunge in the the share price of British retailer Tesco (TSCO.England) in two weeks, Buffett began adding to his position. Some might worry about catching a falling knife, but Buffett has earned a reputation for finding value at a discount over several decades. Tesco shares have been selling at an earnings multiple of 9.7 times; 1.6 times book value; and a multiple of 4.8 times cash flow—all 30% to 50% below their five-year averages.

Many of the charting features on GuruFocus are free to visitors. But, in general, the most recent and actionable data are saved for those who sign up for its $249-a-year premium subscription. All data points on a company’s income and cash flow statements and balance sheet for the last 10 years are charted, as are ratios like price/tangible book value, which are particularly relevant to the methods and models of Graham and his disciple Buffett.

Selecting multiple metrics to chart requires just a click or two. And besides line charts, GuruFocus offers the popular candlestick format that packs more daily-pricing information into each zig or zag. Data being charted are easily exportable to a spreadsheet, and charts can be clipped and kept in several graphical formats.

Many of these data can be harvested for free in bits and pieces around the Net—just not as elegantly, conveniently or reliably. Many Websites have a lot of holes in their fundamental data—a lot of “N/A”s. Most subscribers to YCharts and GuruFocus are fundamental investors, but even technical traders could well find that the information on these sites about the condition and history of companies is helpful. 

E-mail:
mike@mikhogan.com

I have an idea for what I think could be a cool, maybe best-selling novel. I have never written a book before but my high-school and college teachers used to tell me I was a good writer. Do you have any advice for how to get started?

—C.T., New York City

Of the billions of words of advice that writers have given writers over the centuries, my favorite is that of the French short-story virtuoso Guy de Maupassant, who needed only four: “Get black on white.”

A short stroll through the massive library of advice books for writers proves that if there’s anything writers like more than writing, it’s telling other people how to do it. But not surprisingly, no two writers ply their craft the same way. Some writers outline their books, some don’t. Some start with a character, some start with a scene, some (like Charles Dickens) know what the title is going to be before they write a word. Some insist that you should write in longhand; others swear by their laptops. It’s a reminder of W. Somerset Maugham’s statement that “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

If you’re looking for practical advice on, say, how to spin a plot, there’s “Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots,” with templates for 1,462 possible story lines (“A, with the help of B, overcomes an ignoble weakness. A’s gratitude to B blossoms into love, and, when A is sure he has rehabilitated his character, he proposes marriage to B and is accepted”). If you need help developing characters, there’s “Bullies, Bastards and Bitches: How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction” or “What Would Your Character Do?”: “Your character is trapped in an especially boring day. How does he react? First of all, does he even notice?” I suppose these could be helpful tools for the novice though it’s hard to imagine Tolstoy putting Vronsky through a series of personality tests.

My favorite book of writing advice is the “Modern Library Writer’s Workshop” by Stephen Koch. Mr. Koch presents the basics of the craft for the novice writer including plot, characterization and style; he also recommends some other books on writing, including Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird”; Stephen King’s “On Writing”; and Ray Bradbury’s “Zen in the Art of Writing.”

A quirkier compendium of advice from writers to writers is “Rules of Thumb: 73 Writers Reveal Their Fiction Writing Fixations” edited by Michael Martone and Susan Neville. There are nuggets of practical advice—”No characters named Brooke or Amber” (Frederick Barthelme); “Your fingernails do not have to be clipped until after the day’s production of words is done” (Robert Olen Butler)—but there is also sage advice about advice. “Thumb-rule number one for aspiring writers, it goes without saying, is: Be wary of writers’ rules of thumb,” wrote John Barth.

In 2010, the Guardian asked a few dozen writers to list their rules for writing fiction. They are fascinatingly diverse in tone and content. Elmore Leonard: “Try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip.” Margaret Atwood: “Nobody is making you do this, so don’t whine.” Anne Enright: “Only bad writers think that their work is really good.” Jonathan Franzen: “It’s doubtful that anyone with an Internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.”

I have two pieces of advice. The first is, don’t trust your mother/spouse/lover/best friend’s opinion of your work: They’re lying! They love you and don’t want to hurt your feelings. Find someone who doesn’t care if you ever speak to them again and beg them for the truth. Better yet, pay them to tell you the truth.

Finally, write because it’s fun or entertaining or interesting to write and not because you have visions of royalty checks and literary prizes dancing in your head. The chance of an established publisher buying your first novel is probably about the same as your chance of falling down a well. (Though, like an increasing number of writers, you could try the self-publishing route.) As the prolific and prosperous writer Irwin Shaw once said, “Writing is finally play, and there’s no reason why you should get paid for playing. If you’re a real writer, you write no matter what. No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys the writing, even if he doesn’t get paid for it.”

Now get to work.

—Send your questions about books and reading to Cynthia Crossen at booklover@wsj.com.

By KAREN WILKIN

First, the bad news: At the Museum of Modern Art, “Abstract Expressionist New York” prefigured the approach that institution would take in presenting its permanent collection: an idiosyncratic installation of stellar works showing how good the New York School could be at its best, along with second-rate examples, wrong-headed inclusions and inexplicable omissions that distorted history, all in the name of “expanding the canon.”

The good news is that MoMA’s problematic effort was overshadowed by several superb shows elsewhere. It was worth waiting eight years for the reopening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s reconceived, expanded and refurbished galleries devoted to the “Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia,” formerly known as the Islamic Wing. Cumbersome as this title may be, the new galleries are splendid, elegantly installed, lucidly organized and full of spectacular objects from the eighth-century dawn of Islam to the 19th century—manuscript pages, pottery, carpets, armor, tile, metal work—that make vivid not just a religion, but an entire culture. The effect is both opulent and intimate, since almost everything is patterned, lushly hued and/or intricate, but modest in size. Much new material is included, along with old friends, such as the gorgeous, action-packed paintings from the 16th-century Persian Shahnama (“Book of Kings”) of Firdausi made for Shah Tahmasp and the seductively appointed 18th-century reception room from Damascus. Repeat visits required.

The Willem de Kooning retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (through Jan. 9) gives us this seminal artist whole, tracing his lifelong quest for an ambiguous, abstract language of paint and gesture that honored the spatial and allusive conventions of traditional art. Brushy, urgent, mature de Koonings, including mutable abstractions, raunchy women and light-filled “landscapes,” are bracketed by a still life drawn by a 12-year-old student in Rotterdam and controversial, late abstractions made by a sadly diminished, ailing artist a decade before his death in 1997. This demanding, intelligent show affirms both the centrality of de Kooning’s art to our conception of Abstract Expressionism and his stubborn individuality.

Musée d’Orsay/Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Edgar Degas, ‘Dancer Looking at the Sole of her Right Foot’

The Museum of Fine Arts Boston’s “Degas and the Nude” (through Feb. 5) presents the first museum show dedicated to the theme. This brilliant survey examines this inexhaustible master’s long, evolving fascination with the female body, beginning with meticulous academic studies from a youthful sojourn in Italy and ending with vigorous, radically cropped pastels from the end of his life. Comparative works underscore Degas’s responses to the art of both precursors and contemporaries, as well as his influence. His shifting aspirations are made plain, from a desire to evoke the past—an early vision of Spartan youths exercising—to a wholehearted embrace of the present: contemporary women bathing or, in the brothel scenes, tending to clients. We watch Degas return habitually to certain poses, changing their meaning from explicit narratives to near-abstract distillations of the body in motion. “Degas and the Nude” at once enriches our understanding and delights our eyes.

At the Indianapolis Museum of Art, “Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial” honored an American original. The self-taught Mr. Dial, born in 1928 in rural Alabama, invented a personal, vernacular approach to collage: aggressively articulated, expressively—and beautifully—colored constructions incorporating a startling assortment of scavenged materials. Two decades of relief paintings, free-standing sculptures and drawings attested to Mr. Dial’s power. Their titles asserted deep convictions about ecology, civil rights, the role of women, and politics; their quirky materiality declared their affinity with the oddball objects in Southern “yard shows,” but no special pleading was required for the art or its author. Whatever the works’ lineage or motivations, whatever Mr. Dial’s history, “Hard Truths” was an impressive survey of first-rate works by a major artist. Period.

Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ The Museum of Modern Art / SCALA/Art Resource, NY

Detail of Pablo Picasso’s ‘Head of a Sleeping Woman’

“The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde,” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art—jointly organized by SFMOMA, the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum—paid homage to a remarkable expat family’s discernment and prescience in supporting vanguard French modernism at the start of the 20th century. Everyone gets his due, not just the notorious Gertrude of “pigeons on the grass, alas,” but also her brothers Leo (the really knowledgeable sibling, with the informed eye) and Michael, and Michael’s wife, Sarah (Henri Matisse’s friend and student). The show reveals the varied and influential roles, as collectors, proselytizers, friends of revolutionary artists, and taste-makers, played by all four Steins during their years together in Paris and after. (Leo lost faith with modernism and moved to Italy; Sarah and Michael commissioned a house by Le Corbusier outside of Paris, then later returned to San Francisco; Gertrude remained at the rue de Fleurus with Alice B. Toklas.) The story is told by the daring works the family acquired, including Matisse’s intense 1905 portrait of his wife, “Woman With a Hat”—the first Matisse bought by Leo and Gertrude—Pablo Picasso’s portrait of Gertrude, and Sarah and Michael’s last Matisse, “Tea,” an inventive, sun-dappled 1919 garden scene. The Steins come alive and our sense of the development of a taste for modernism among a dedicated few, early on, is greatly expanded.

National Gallery of Art, Washington/Paul Mellon Fund and Greg and Candy Fazakerley Fund

Detail of Hendrick ter Brugghen’s ‘Bagpipe Player,’ shown at the National Gallery of Art.

A pair of small, fascinating shows, each concentrating on a few carefully chosen paintings, proved that scholarship, thoughtful presentation and, of course, excellence of the exhibited works can trump the blockbuster. “Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence: Painting With White Border,” at the Phillips Collection, Washington, and later at the Guggenheim, New York, showcased two versions of a pivotal 1913 canvas by the Russian pioneer of abstraction, each owned by one of the collaborating museums, supported by a handful of related works. The comparisons illuminated Wassily Kandinsky’s thinking, as he allowed even tenuous references to be overwhelmed by invented colors and shapes. At the National Gallery of Art in Washington, “Larger Than Life” united two superb works by the 17th-century Dutch interpreter of Caravaggism, Hendrick Ter Brugghen: Oberlin College’s “St. Sebastian Tended by Irene,” a large-figure composition that is unquestionably the Utrecht painter’s masterpiece, and the National Gallery’s recently acquired “Bagpipe Player,” as exemplary of Ter Brugghen’s secular side as “St. Sebastian” is of his devotional aspect. Together, they offered a crash course in Dutch Golden Age responses to Italian painting.

And, of course, for sheer visual and art-historical intelligence, it was hard to beat MoMA’s “Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914.”

—Ms. Wilkin writes about art for the Journal.