How to Make Money and Not Lose Your Savings
Anyone who has a little extra cash should be routinely putting something away for a rainy day, college for the kids, retirement or simply a better life. Traditional advice is that you can accept more risk and invest entirely in stocks when you are young and you should convert to less risk as in buying bonds as you age. But what are people really doing to make money and not lose their savings? CNBC writes about the way to invest in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.
Needs change over time, and the investment mix that worked in your 20s […]
When Do Terror Attacks Demolish Your Investment Portfolio?
Terrorists hit London just weeks after an attack in Manchester and investors look to see which way the markets will go. At the beginning of this year we asked, “Does extraordinary uncertainty lead to extraordinary market risk.” At the time we were writing about Trump’s plans for economic stimulus and the associated voodoo economics of his proposals. Today we are looking at frequent terror attacks and their effects on markets. In short, when do terror attacks demolish your investment portfolio and when are your investments secure in the face of random acts of violence motivated by politics and religion? Market […]
Risk of Higher Interest Rates
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With another strong labor report (unemployment down to 5%) the Fed is probably going to raise interest rates next month. CNBC reports that US bonds fall in expectation of a rate hike.
U.S. […]
Will Politics Kill Wind Farms?
We just wrote about the bleak future for coal usage for electric power production. This is primarily because natural gas is cheaper and cleaner. The Trump administration has promised to bring back coal production and appears to be intent to achieving that goal by any means possible. But natural gas is not going away as an energy source. That leaves nuclear and renewable energy sources as the remaining opponents of coal. From the U.S. Energy Information Administration here is the breakdown of U.S. electricity generation by energy source.
In 2016, about 4.08 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity were generated at utility-scale […]
Bleak Future for Coal
A strong message from Donald Trump during the presidential campaign was that he was going to reduce environmental regulations and bring back jobs in the coal sector. That is probably not going to happen. In the USA coal mining companies like Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, Cloud Peak Energy and Alpha Natural Resources produce about 491 million tons of coal a year. This may be the peak of their production and not the trough because power companies are relying more on natural gas and renewable energy sources. They are even closing coal burning power plants. And that includes are areas where […]
Moody’s Debt Downgrade Will Only Make China’s Problem Worse
For the first time in thirty years Moody’s has downgraded China’s debt. Bloomberg discusses the ramifications of China’s downgrade from A1 to Aa3.
The downgrade of China’s debt by Moody’s Investors Service may push Chinese companies to borrow even more money from domestic banks as overseas debt becomes more expensive, increasing risks for the nation’s finance industry.
With growing indebtedness at home, compounded by a slowing economy, there’s a risk of a “negative feedback loop,” said Khoon Goh, head of Asia research for Australia & New Zealand Banking Group who sees state-owned enterprises and property developers feeling the biggest impact. The downgrade […]
What Would a Pence Presidency Mean for the Economy?
As troubles mount in the Trump White House the talking heads on TV have started to utter the “I” word, impeachment. As the independent prosecutor investigation proceeds into the question of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian hackers this issue will linger. No one is really predicting a Trump exit and a Pence presidency just yet but a year ago no one was predicting a Trump presidency! On the outside chance that things go from bad to worse for the 45th president what would a Pence presidency mean for the economy and for the stock market?
Different Economic Messages
The stock […]
Is the Economy Strong or Weak?
The stock market is a forward looking institution. That is to say investors and traders buy and sell based on their beliefs about what tomorrow will bring. However, the eventual price of any given stock always moves toward its intrinsic value, its value based on forward looking earnings. Looking forward the market has moved up with the election of Donald Trump because investors have expected to see tax cuts, infrastructure spending, repatriation of offshore corporate cash and a lot of deregulation. But not all sectors of the economy are doing well so the stock market advance is not spread out […]
Are Cyber Security Tools Worth the Price?
The current ransomware attacks spanning the globe have taking down computer systems in schools, offices, hospitals and factories. According to Reuters cybersecurity stocks are up.
A global “ransomware” attack disrupting factories, hospitals, shops and schools spurred investors on Monday to buy up stocks expected to benefit from a pick-up in cybersecurity spending by firms and government agencies.
The cyber attack began spreading across the globe on Friday and by Monday had locked up computers in more than 150 countries, with experts warning of an even wider impact as more employees logged on and checked e-mails.
European Union police agency Europol said on Monday […]
Has Over-Regulation Been Killing the US Stock Market?
In the last forty years the market capitalization of all stocks listed on US exchanges has risen from $704 billion to $27 Trillion. Forty years ago there were nearly 5,000 stocks listed on US exchanges and that rose to about 7,000 by twenty years ago. Today there are 3,600 listed companies in US markets. How is it that while market cap has gone up forty-fold the number of listed stocks has fallen by a third? Business Insider discusses the case of the missing US stocks.
The U.S. seems to be the only developed country that lost so many stocks. Most other […]