I hope everyone came back from Thanksgiving feeling fresh and ready to rock and roll. While it’s always good to take a break and catch up with family and friends, I usually find myself ready to get cracking after a few days. The market certainly seemed to feel that way, too. After a couple of volatile days, conflicting reports on a potential trade deal between the U.S. and China, and the ongoing impeachment battle in Washington, the market capped off the week with a blowout jobs number. According to the Labor Department, 266,000 jobs were added to nonfarm payrolls in… Read More

I hope everyone came back from Thanksgiving feeling fresh and ready to rock and roll. While it’s always good to take a break and catch up with family and friends, I usually find myself ready to get cracking after a few days. The market certainly seemed to feel that way, too. After a couple of volatile days, conflicting reports on a potential trade deal between the U.S. and China, and the ongoing impeachment battle in Washington, the market capped off the week with a blowout jobs number. According to the Labor Department, 266,000 jobs were added to nonfarm payrolls in November, smashing the estimate of 187,000. This brought the unemployment rate down to 3.5%, from 3.6%. Speaking of catching up, I recently found myself shooting the breeze with StreetAuthority’s expert analyst Jimmy Butts. When Jimmy lived close to StreetAuthority HQ a couple of years ago, he and I made a regular practice of going to the local watering hole around the corner after work to talk about life, the market, and everything in between. And while it’s always good to have beer and wings with a friend, it’s even better to have a level-headed sounding board. That’s especially true… Read More

The big story last week was the Federal Reserve. The Fed meets every six weeks, and, for the third consecutive meeting, they cut rates. That’s the story. As investors, we need to dig behind the story and look at why the Fed cut rates. Interest rates are one of the Fed’s most important policy tools. They use interest rates to fine tune economic growth. This is based on the theory that excessive growth causes inflation while slow growth creates unemployment. In theory, the Fed tries to ensure interest rates are just right so that we see growth without high inflation… Read More

The big story last week was the Federal Reserve. The Fed meets every six weeks, and, for the third consecutive meeting, they cut rates. That’s the story. As investors, we need to dig behind the story and look at why the Fed cut rates. Interest rates are one of the Fed’s most important policy tools. They use interest rates to fine tune economic growth. This is based on the theory that excessive growth causes inflation while slow growth creates unemployment. In theory, the Fed tries to ensure interest rates are just right so that we see growth without high inflation or unemployment. Cutting rates generally means inflation is low and unemployment is rising. It’s the kind of situation we see before a recession. But this time is different. —Recommended Link— The safest stocks in America Like any other investor, I try to buy low and sell high… but the BIG difference with me is that I buy just one kind of stock. They sell a product that 152 million customers are virtually addicted to. And the kicker is: they are the only type of stocks mandated by law to make a profit. Read More

Warren Buffett’s favorite indicator is pointing to an overvalued market… Should you be concerned? Well, it’s certainly true that Buffett said in a 2001 interview that he believed that his indicator “is probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment.” And generally speaking, when Buffett says something, we should listen.  —Recommended Link— Want more income? How does $565 per week sound? A former military intelligence analyst has revealed the secret to effortless income generation. Imagine $565.00 per week… every week… for the rest of your life. And your… Read More

Warren Buffett’s favorite indicator is pointing to an overvalued market… Should you be concerned? Well, it’s certainly true that Buffett said in a 2001 interview that he believed that his indicator “is probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment.” And generally speaking, when Buffett says something, we should listen.  —Recommended Link— Want more income? How does $565 per week sound? A former military intelligence analyst has revealed the secret to effortless income generation. Imagine $565.00 per week… every week… for the rest of your life. And your payouts can start as early as Wednesday. Find out how to claim yours now. The indicator in question is more of a ratio, really. To be more specific, it’s the ratio of the value of the stock market to GDP. It’s also true that this indicator shows the market is overvalued by quite a bit. The chart below shows that the only time this indicator has been higher was in 2000, before the stock market crashed. Source: Advisor Perspectives But there are some problems with this analysis. First of all,… Read More

“Don’t get too accustomed to those big commission checks.” That’s what my old manager at regional brokerage house Morgan Keegan used to tell me. I was less of a cold-calling stockbroker and more of a financial advisor. Still, every now and then I’d field a random call for 100 shares of something or other. That could mean a quick $100 commission just for answering the phone. It was good money — but it wasn’t meant to last. Even then (this was the early 2000s), online trading was becoming a real threat to full-service brokers. It was difficult to justify charging… Read More

“Don’t get too accustomed to those big commission checks.” That’s what my old manager at regional brokerage house Morgan Keegan used to tell me. I was less of a cold-calling stockbroker and more of a financial advisor. Still, every now and then I’d field a random call for 100 shares of something or other. That could mean a quick $100 commission just for answering the phone. It was good money — but it wasn’t meant to last. Even then (this was the early 2000s), online trading was becoming a real threat to full-service brokers. It was difficult to justify charging $100 to buy or sell a stock when an internet site could process the same order for $10. Many investors (particularly the do-it-yourself set) were willing to forgo personalized advice in exchange for thousands of dollars in cost savings each year. Nobody wanted to admit it, but the discount online brokers were poaching customers left and right. The writing was on the wall — adapt or become obsolete. That’s the way of all business. Seeing a downhill slide in commission rates, we began steering clients away from transaction-based accounts toward fee-based platforms that charged fixed annual fees (maybe 1% to… Read More

Have you ever stopped to consider all of the potential risks you could run into during your day? I don’t recommend it; it’s not a pretty picture. Every day, we face an almost infinite number of risks — yet we rarely think about them. It makes sense — if we constantly ran through a list of all the risks we face during our day-to-day activities, many of us would never do anything. For instance, think about letting your kids sign up for a soccer league. There are potential risks associated with driving to and from the field, unknown risks from… Read More

Have you ever stopped to consider all of the potential risks you could run into during your day? I don’t recommend it; it’s not a pretty picture. Every day, we face an almost infinite number of risks — yet we rarely think about them. It makes sense — if we constantly ran through a list of all the risks we face during our day-to-day activities, many of us would never do anything. For instance, think about letting your kids sign up for a soccer league. There are potential risks associated with driving to and from the field, unknown risks from other parents whom you know nothing about, general risks associated with being in public, risks of being exposed to someone who is sick… and we haven’t even gotten to the risks associated with actually playing soccer! Instead of being crippled by fear of risk, we buy auto, home, health and life insurance to protect ourselves from significant risks that are difficult to quantify. But when it comes to investing, few take a similar approach. Rather than thinking about specific risks and setting up safeguards accordingly, many investors are content to just sit on their hands and tell themselves, “I’m focused… Read More

This might be the most unpopular thing I tell people about investing. It doesn’t win me a lot of friends by saying it, but it’s true. A good stock pick really isn’t that hard to find. In fact, sometimes it’s stupidly simple. You heard me right… —Recommended Link— What to Do Before Stocks Sink 57% With the stock market hitting record highs, most people think we must be in pretty good shape. But hold on a minute. According to Yale professor Robert Shiller, stocks are 57% too high. That’s 14,000+ points on the… Read More

This might be the most unpopular thing I tell people about investing. It doesn’t win me a lot of friends by saying it, but it’s true. A good stock pick really isn’t that hard to find. In fact, sometimes it’s stupidly simple. You heard me right… —Recommended Link— What to Do Before Stocks Sink 57% With the stock market hitting record highs, most people think we must be in pretty good shape. But hold on a minute. According to Yale professor Robert Shiller, stocks are 57% too high. That’s 14,000+ points on the Dow. Shiller won a Nobel Prize for his work on stock prices. And if he’s right, millions of investors could be about to see their investment accounts crushed. Don’t let that happen to you. Click here to see how you can avoid the same fate. The fact of the matter is we just tend to make investing too damn complicated. We overthink. We overanalyze. We worry too much over what we can’t control. We try to time everything just perfectly. Therein lies the rub. We’re our own worst enemy. If we can just manage to… Read More

The oft-quoted law of unintended consequences is an intriguing concept. Let’s say you join a gym to lose weight — and you meet the love of your life there. That’s an unintended consequence. #-ad_banner-#It works the other way, too. Let’s say you join a gym to lose weight — and you slip in the shower and break a leg. Both outcomes were unintended consequences. In pursuing your goal to get in shape, you didn’t necessarily go to the gym to meet a potential spouse, and you certainly didn’t join to end up in a cast. Most of the time, though,… Read More

The oft-quoted law of unintended consequences is an intriguing concept. Let’s say you join a gym to lose weight — and you meet the love of your life there. That’s an unintended consequence. #-ad_banner-#It works the other way, too. Let’s say you join a gym to lose weight — and you slip in the shower and break a leg. Both outcomes were unintended consequences. In pursuing your goal to get in shape, you didn’t necessarily go to the gym to meet a potential spouse, and you certainly didn’t join to end up in a cast. Most of the time, though, we refer to the law of unintended consequences in terms of macro-economic policies and events. Because of the complexities of any large social system, a policy — be it of a monetary nature or a fiscal one — can sometimes lead to an unintended result. In a 1936 article, sociologist Robert K. Merton identified five reasons a well-intended policy could go wrong — with ignorance and error being the most common ones. In line with his original approach, the law of unintended consequences has come to symbolize almost anything that goes wrong with any policy. There are too many examples… Read More

Yes, it’s a race to the bottom. I’m not talking about the market. I’m referring to interest rates. After a couple of wild weeks, stocks — as measured by the S&P 500 – are trading by only about 3% below their recent highs and are up 16.7% for the year. Interest rates, meanwhile, have continued to rush lower. #-ad_banner-#Just a week after the U.S. Federal Reserve executed its first interest rate cut since the Great Recession, three Asia-Pacific central banks surprised the market with an aggressive rate-cut move of their own. On Wednesday, August 7, Thailand, New Zealand and India… Read More

Yes, it’s a race to the bottom. I’m not talking about the market. I’m referring to interest rates. After a couple of wild weeks, stocks — as measured by the S&P 500 – are trading by only about 3% below their recent highs and are up 16.7% for the year. Interest rates, meanwhile, have continued to rush lower. #-ad_banner-#Just a week after the U.S. Federal Reserve executed its first interest rate cut since the Great Recession, three Asia-Pacific central banks surprised the market with an aggressive rate-cut move of their own. On Wednesday, August 7, Thailand, New Zealand and India all acted to lower their countries’ respective rates. On the very next day, the Philippines joined them. The developing countries now join the developed world in the rate-cutting process. Central banks in developed countries have already largely lowered rates to record levels, resulting in negative-rate policies in Europe. The ECB first ventured into the negative-rate territory five years ago, and the deposit rate now sits at a negative 0.4%.  Just a year ago, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield was approaching 3% (2.92% on August 8, 2018) and investors were talking about selling bonds due to the inevitability of rates rising… Read More

Today, I want to start by looking at some basic facts:  1. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates.  2. The Fed’s mandate is to “promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.”  Given those two simple facts, logic tells us that the Fed must have cut rates because unemployment is rising, prices are rising too rapidly, or long-term rates are deterring investment and capital purchases.  But that’s not why the Fed cut…  —Recommended Link— Professional Investor Reveals Shocking New Pot Opportunity If you’ve ever thought about investing in… Read More

Today, I want to start by looking at some basic facts:  1. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates.  2. The Fed’s mandate is to “promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.”  Given those two simple facts, logic tells us that the Fed must have cut rates because unemployment is rising, prices are rising too rapidly, or long-term rates are deterring investment and capital purchases.  But that’s not why the Fed cut…  —Recommended Link— Professional Investor Reveals Shocking New Pot Opportunity If you’ve ever thought about investing in a penny pot stock. don’t! I’ve discovered a unique marijuana profit-sharing plan backed by a U.S. Federal Law. And it’s paying a small group of regular people up to $55,563 a year. The next check run is just days away. ​​I’ll show you how to sign up here. According to Chairman Jerome Powell, the Fed cut to insure against downside risks from weak global growth; offset risks of trade policy uncertainty; and to promote a faster return of inflation to a symmetric 2% objective.  Weak global growth and policy uncertainty are related. That refers to the… Read More

It’s a small sampling, but backyard barbecues can give you a pretty good idea of the sentiment surrounding the stock market and economy. At these sorts of functions, I’m frequently asked what stock people should buy, or what I think of the latest hot IPO, or cryptocurrencies. However, the attitudes (and questions) these days have been centered around the economy and more specifically if we are entering a recession, or when the next recession will hit. I, of course, have no idea when the next recession will start. But the sense is that folks are nervously waiting for the balloon… Read More

It’s a small sampling, but backyard barbecues can give you a pretty good idea of the sentiment surrounding the stock market and economy. At these sorts of functions, I’m frequently asked what stock people should buy, or what I think of the latest hot IPO, or cryptocurrencies. However, the attitudes (and questions) these days have been centered around the economy and more specifically if we are entering a recession, or when the next recession will hit. I, of course, have no idea when the next recession will start. But the sense is that folks are nervously waiting for the balloon to pop and the hot air to quickly evaporate from this decade-long bull market. Despite the recent volatility, the S&P 500 still near all-time highs, the economy is chugging along at a good clip (3.1% GDP growth in the first quarter) and unemployment is at historic lows. We did see homes sales decline 1.7% in June, marking the 16th straight year-on-year decline in homes sales, which only further exacerbates people’s uneasiness about the economy. We also had one of the most notorious (and reliable) indicators alert us that we could see a recession in the next year… Why The Yield… Read More