Under cover of darkness, at least figuratively, last week Congress passed a budget bill that actually reduces bleeding from the imaginary Social Security trust fund. President Obama signed it Monday. Some Americans will not like it, especially those who have had higher incomes during their career. The two provisions are [...]
I am not a huge fan or expert on basketball. However, I think the second most important factor next to scoring is rebounding after a failed shot. Not every shot is good, but the rebound allows an opportunity to keep the ball, shoot again, and deny the other team [...]
On this, the last day of an awful quarter for the equity markets, let’s put the present circumstances into context of a longer term perspective in case some of you are thinking of jumping out of the basement window or any floor higher. The older I get, the more important [...]
Hopefully by now, you are not tempted to jump out of your window, even a basement window, because of the financial markets. This looks to be a pretty normal correction, pullback or whatever else a temporarily falling stock market might be called. The most pronounced one of 2014 was seasonally [...]
(From 8/25/2015) About last week’s column, one of my friends said he agreed with me. Which parts thereof, I am not sure. I stressed the improving American household financial health and in particular, housing growth and debt reduction for everyone but the federal government. I also said I thought the [...]
As I have described before, this calendar is destined to be unusual in one way or another. The January indicator, looking at the first few days plus the month as a whole, gave us a prediction of being a lousy year for the stock market. On the other hand, the [...]
I have a few friends in my age group who absolutely love to ride roller coasters. Some travel the country to ride a new one when it opens. But when it comes to investments, people who like volatility are scarcer than hen’s teeth. (I am using that comparison since I [...]
The Greeks have thumbed their collective nose at the EU leaders. They are tired of being kicked around and by golly, they aren’t going to take it anymore! The word tantrum comes to mind, but since they are mostly adults—why would any young people stay in Greece?—and they have the [...]
I personally like studying history because, as written in Ecclesiastes 1:9, What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. This week we have learned the Greeks would rather not pay their debt owed mostly to European banks. [...]
There are two primary schools of thought about investing in modern markets. The first and dominant is what I call Live Long and Prosper with deference to the late Leonard Nimoy, Dr. Spock of Star Trek. It prescribes being fully invested at all times no matter what is occurring. If [...]
