As Apple slides towards $500 dollar a share, Apple investors are confused. "How can my beloved Apple not rise EVERY month!", some wonder. Well, it may be perplexing for some, but this has happened before.

Apple, like all stocks, is a longer term proposition from our perspective.

But that's not really the point of this article. The point is about one's perspective about stock ownership and misguided affection for one's investments.

First a disclosure that may seem a bit confusing given the headline of this article; we own Apple for our clients and believe that it is a stock with appreciation potential. We base our views on expanding emerging market presence as well as a product cycle that likely will lead to massive upgrades in computer and tablet devices.

But given our perspective on this company, we do our best to avoid falling in love with this or any stock.

Read More: Apple Cuts Orders for iPhone 5 Parts: Reports

Aggressive monetary and fiscal policies have forced so much money into the economy; it has become impossible to determine how much of our modest economic growth is organic and how much may be the result of the trillions of dollars of government injections.

During periods of inflation, stock prices appear cheap because investors become less willing to pay great premiums for earnings. The idea is that if earnings are increasing because the company is selling more goods and services and generating greater profits, investors will pay more.

But, if the bottom line is increasing just because inventories can be priced higher (due to inflation) and no real gains have occurred, investors will pay less. This is why price-to-earnings multiples are lower during periods of higher inflation. In other words, investors of all stripes require some degree of confidence with regard to the outlook for future levels of inflation. (Read More: Mad Dash for Inflation-Linked Bonds.)

The final quarter of 2012 saw a welcome improvement to the HSBC Emerging Markets Index as it recorded an incremental acceleration in economic growth.

Climbing to 52.9 from 52.2 in the third quarter, while hardly a sign of buoyant economic growth, this slight upward movement signals an encouraging shift away from the downwards trends which characterized last year.

Improvement for the quarter was driven by a turn-around in manufacturing conditions as activity picked up following a modest contraction in the third.

Pointing to an encouraging start for 2013 new order levels also picked up, growing at their second-fastest rate since the second quarter of 2011.

A record crowd of healthcare investors and companies gather this week in San Francisco for the Annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference.

The largest of its kind, it is dubbed the "Woodstock" of Healthcare, and its timing at the start of the new year sets the tone for the sector's outlook. The key themes this year will no doubt be new products, regulation (including the implementation of Obamacare), global expansion, productivity, pricing and utilization.

Friday, the Commerce Department is expected to report the annual deficit on international trade in goods and services remained about $500 billion a year. Along with higher taxes and other anti growth policies, this deficit slows recovery and threatens to thrust the economy into a second recession and push unemployment to truly painful levels.

Consumer spending continues to expand, though haltingly,and the annual federal deficit has increased from $161 billion before the financial crisis to more than $1 trillion, injecting enormous additional demand nto the system. However, too many of those dollars go abroad for Middle East toil and Chinese goods that do not return to buy U.S. exports, and higher oil prices will up the trade gap in 2013

Businesses, consequently, are pessimistic about future demand for U.S.-made goods and services, and bearing higher corporate and other business taxes than foreign competitors, rising employee benefit costs mandated by Obamacare and more cumbersome business regulations are reluctant to hire in the United States. (Read more: Morgan Stanley Plans Layoffs)

For the GOP to win elections, it must offer voters what they want, and pathways to a more prosperous and livable America.

The country is more than just more multiracial, it has shifted fundamentally in its practice of tolerance.

Our elected representatives have proven themselves to be a group of remarkable jerks. They have transformed the "fiscal cliff" into the "fiscal farce."

They scored a political triumph by increasing taxes on the rich while postponing any spending cuts for another 60 days. The message to the American people is, "We are willing to raise your taxes and thereby curtail your spending while leaving 8 percent of you unemployed. At the same time we refuse to cut out so much as our daily lattes."

Friday, forecasters expect the Labor Department to report the economy added 155,000 jobs in December—substantially less than is needed to pull unemployment down to acceptable levels.

The tax and spending package passed by the Senate and House provides little prospects of improvement, as the U.S. economy continues to suffer from insufficient demand and will continue growing at a subpar 2 percent a year.

With the clock ticking, it is anyone's guess whether Democrats and Republicans come up with a bipartisan resolution to the looming fiscal crisis, or instead take the country over the cliff into catastrophic free fall.

In a recent New York Times article, Mr. Bipartisan himself, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who is retiring from the Senate in January 2013, faulted both parties for the current "cancer" of congressional paralysis and finger-pointing.

Take, for instance, House Speaker John Boehner cancelling a vote on his "Plan B" fallback legislation because he could not muster the necessary votes among his own Republican membership to pass the measure.

(Read More: With Time Slipping, GOP House to Reconvene Sunday)

Meanwhile, Karl Rove has turned the fiscal crisis into a survival test for the Republican party, accusing President Barack Obama of exploiting the situation with the Machiavellian goal of promoting "intraparty civil war," and loss of the House to Democrats in 2016.

Nowhere was the traffic void this weekend more evident than the Saks flagship store in New York City, with sales down 20 percent.

Just Wednesday I warned on CNBC's "Street Signs," business at Saks seemed particularly slow going into holiday. The level of markdown inventory the week before Super Saturday told the story, as did the ability to hear a pin drop during a 60 percent off sale. Sales associates are simply at a loss to explain why the customer has not shown up. Some are telling me this is the worst they have seen during their career with the company.

Everyone is looking for an explanation. First, it was super storm Sandy, then it was the "fiscal cliff," and now the nation mourns for Newtown, Conn. Maybe it is all just too much.

By the way, I am not picking on Saks — the luxury retailer has plenty of company.