Sooner or later, we face a fiscal reckoning
Three weeks before the election, I am in a state of inner turmoil and foreboding. Me, the optimist for whom the glass is always mostly full. (But I have heard that an optimist is a person who just does not understand the situation!) If ever I have bobbed in a [...]
Consider selling your house on your own
Selling a house right now is as about as easy as it will ever be. As one of our clients who is selling off a few of their long-held rentals recently said, “you could prop a tent and get a good selling price right now.” If you are considering putting [...]
In baseball and in the market, there are no sure things.
One of my favorite movies of all time is Moneyball. In the film Brad Pitt portrays legendary general manager Billy Beane who is credited with changing the paradigm of how baseball players are analyzed and assessed for value. In a classic scene, he gets into an argument with his lead [...]
Thanks to the Fed, savers are taking it on the chin.
As a financial advisor, you can count on human nature to indicate where you are in the investing cycle. As the summer progressed and the stock indexes marched steadily higher, people began asking why we had not revved up the engines to full speed. We read about new young investors [...]
Are we in another housing bubble?
It’s amazing how quickly things can change. A little more than 5 years ago my wife and I were struggling to sell our home in a housing market that was in dire straits. At one point during the year long process, more than half of the homes in our cul-de-sac [...]
The current state of investments
What in the world is going on out there, and what should I do with my money? This topic is always on my mind, but I imagine lately it’s been heavy on yours too. The world looks upside down, and the stock market is no exception. Many can’t believe it’s [...]
Risk of dollar inflation higher than it was before.
In what can only be described as a major shift in US monetary policy, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced late last week that the Fed will no longer attempt to keep inflation consistently at 2%. Instead they will attempt to hold inflation rates to an average of 2% over [...]
The Cost of a Cashless Society
If you have been to any retail store in the past few months you have probably noticed a sign on the cash register that says something like “due to coin shortage exact change required” or “cash not accepted due to coin shortage” When I first saw one of these signs [...]
Old Business Ideas Have Come Around Again
Amazon recently announced its plan to acquire many vacant Sears and J.C. Penney department stores in malls across America to use as distribution centers to assist in speeding up product deliveries to suburban customers. While not publicly announcing this, it would not surprise me if part of this strategy will [...]
Is Socialism a Good Investment?
One of the skills required to beating the stock market is having the vision to see what will likely happen next and not to focus on what already has. Generally, current market performance reflects what investors believe market conditions will look like six months from now. One of my favorite [...]