Perhaps longer than there has been recorded history, gold and silver have been valued by man. Sometimes people ask me, What do you think about gold? Or What about silver? In this one point, at least, I have something in common with Warren Buffett. According to Investopedia, he would never [...]
This year will probably go down in history as having decent returns in terms of the usual stock market indexes. In my prior market history lessons, you may have learned (and undoubtedly forgotten—no fault of your own) that the presidential pre-election year is most often a great year, the best [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
If you are a DIY kind of person in investing, you need to determine what criteria to use in evaluating choices. This is somewhat easier for individual stocks, but there are also yardsticks of various kinds for mutual funds. The Price to Earnings ratio (PE) is one of the most [...]
