“It’s deja vu all over again.” – Yogi Berra Emerging markets are in turmoil once again as the price of oil and a rising dollar are causing major issues for a number of developing countries. Emerging markets go through periods of booms and busts on a regular basis, but it seems that investors forget about…
A Lesson in Market Crashes
Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. So easy to say but much harder to pull off in real-time.
Is Technology Speeding Up Market Cycles?
“Short-termism is the tendency to make decisions that appear beneficial in the short term at the expense of decisions that have a higher payoff in the long term.” – Michael Mauboussin Tim Ferriss fielded some listener questions in his latest podcast one of them caught my attention: What is a trend you see developing that…
How to Save Money & Increase Your Happiness
Mandi Woodruff posted an interesting chart on Yahoo! Finance this week on the leading New Year’s financial resolutions: Save more money is consistently at the top of the list year in and year out, yet the savings statistics in this country are always terrible. This is because saving money is simple. Prioritizing is the…
Avoiding the Extremes
In a speech to USC Law School graduates, Charlie Munger shared his thoughts about the problem with extreme viewpoints: Another thing I think should be avoided is extremely intense ideology because it cabbages up one’s mind. When you’re young it’s easy to drift into loyalties and when you announce that you’re a loyal member and…
Diversifiable Risk in Sector ETFs
Energy stocks are the big loser this year as oil continues to get crushed. The SPDR Energy ETF (XLE) is down almost 14% while the S&P 500 is up over 11% in 2014. ETFs are widely considered to be the equivalent to an index fund, and in many ways they are, but it all depends…
The Cast of Characters on Finance Twitter
Twitter is one of those Internet services that’s extremely useful if you know what you’re doing and who to follow, but seems odd and ridiculous to non-users that don’t have any experience on the social networking site. For me, Twitter has turned into a one-stop-shop for news, instant reactions, interesting reading material, debates, the sharing…
Some People Will Never Learn
China’s economic growth has been unheard of over the past few decades, but it has yet to translate into stock market gains. Here’s a nice chart from Alliance Bernstein comparing the GDP growth and stock market gains between China and Mexico since the early 1990s:
What Happens to Stocks and Bonds When the Fed Raises Rates?
Now that the economic data is picking up, investors will turn their attention to the what the Fed will do with short-term interest rates. People have been contemplating when the Fed will raise rates for some time, but improving employment numbers and GDP growth have really ramped up the speculation on that first rate hike….
“I have a high tolerance for repetition.”
Esquire is the only print magazine I still subscribe to. They always seem to have a good cover story, usually an interview with a big movie star. I base my reaction about the movie star on one question: Would I want to have a beer with this person? In the most recent interview from the…