It’s the End of The World….Again
"If you mix politics with your investment decisions, you're making a big mistake." -Warren Buffett The last week in October was a terrible week for the market. The S&P 500 index was down -5.6%, the worst week since March. The ValueAligned Model Portfolio ("VAP")...
Billionaires Naturally Used the Pandemic to Get Richer
ChartTalk: Our 650 billionaires have increased their fortunes by 34% during the pandemic. Billionaire wealth is now twice the amount of wealth held by the bottom 50% of all American households combined, approximately 160 million people.Statista reports: American...
Value Investing: Back to the Garden
In the beginning there was the idea of investment – straightforward, unconstrained investment – whose goal was to maximize long-term after-tax returns...PERIOD It was a simpler, happier time, when the essence of investment was to seek out value; to buy what was cheap...
Investment Management
“The investor’s chief problem—even his worst enemy—is likely to be himself.” - Benjamin Graham, father of investment management, Benjamin Graham would have shaken his head in shame were he alive today. Known as the “Founding Father of Security Analysis” and Warren...
Hong Kong Retail Sales Takes a Nose Dive
What happens when your stores are blocked with protestors every weekend. Hong Kong retail sales have tanked since protests began. In the months leading up, retail sales had been contracting year-over-year for four consecutive months. The reading for May came in at...
Dumb Money Back to Confident and Fear Missing Out
Be careful out there. Risk is rising as the DUMB money is on the loose. Jason Goepfert's blog, Sentimentrader.com, keeps you up to date on how confident DUMB and SMART money are at a given moment. When DUMB money is relatively confident, measured as the red line below...
Lemmings Take the Plunge Even as Stocks Make New Highs
Investors escape from stock funds in favor of bond funds this past spring. “More than $38 billion of investor assets flowed out of equity long-term funds and ETFs in the five weeks between April 18 and May 22 [per the ICI], while nearly $33 billion flowed into...
Real Yields versus Yield Curve Slope
The investment world is fixated on China trade wars a.k.a. tariffs, rapidly declining interest rates, sky-high stock prices, inverted yield curves, negative interest rates and looming recessions around the world. No one can predict the future and investment climate...
EATING OUT EXCEEDS EATING IN FOR THE THIRD MONTH IN A ROW
EATING OUT EXCEEDS EATING IN FOR THE THIRD MONTH IN A ROW Based on today's Census Bureau report on April retail sales, consumer spending at "Food Services and Drinking Places" (restaurants and bars, see red line) was greater than grocery store sales (blue line) in...
The Latest Giant Sucking Sound – US Stops Subsidizing Global Growth
The US stock market outperforms the rest of the world as the US begins removing subsidies. Forever, it seems, our macroeconomists and high-level policy experts have explained that the "free trade" deals they and their acolytes negotiated would promote economic...