Take a close look at the market action during the month of January and you’ll notice the counterbalancing principles of gold: It’s up and stocks are down. … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2014
Bitcoin Rich
The Bitcoin frenzy has captured the imaginations of the get rich quick crowd—those who expect the markets to do something for them. Most of the rich I work with have made their money slowly, over a long period of time. And that is the reason why they tend to hold onto it. Over the weekend a prominent bitcoin advocate was arrested. The WSJ reports here: Prominent bitcoin advocate Charlie Shrem was arrested and charged in connection with a money-laundering conspiracy that allegedly funneled more than $1 million of the digital currency to users of the online black-market site Silk Road. Mr. … [Read more...]
Maxing out Your 401k
To improve your retirement situation always try and meet or exceed the full employer match. It’s free money. Also, run through a few scenarios online to see how much money, at your current pace, you’ll have saved by age 65 (I like this one from Vanguard). Participants in Vanguard administered 401(k)s can use the “boost your savings” dial discussed in the Wall Street Journal, here. Meanwhile, Vanguard Group, the asset manager based in Malvern, Pa., added a speedometer-like "boost your savings" dial to its website for 401(k) account holders in 2012. The dial shows an investor's current savings … [Read more...]
Starting Over
You can bet investors will be phoning their brokers in a week or two when they get their January statements. The phone never rings when the market’s up. And it never ceases to amaze me how quickly investors forget—2008 wasn’t that long ago. It’s never a good idea to expect the markets to do something for you. Go back to 1965 and the top Billboard single was “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was trading at 969. Woolly Bully Fast forward sixteen years, a good chunk of a retirement for many, to 1981 and “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes … [Read more...]
Bitcoin: Understanding the Cryto-Currency
Find out what you need to know about Bitcoin right here. This primer will get you started on understanding the digital crypto-currency. Who: Bitcoin was started by a cryptographer/developer calling himself Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi never revealed much about himself, and after getting the project off the ground, left in 2010. Since then a large group of developers has taken on the task of building the currency's infrastructure. What: Bitcoin is a digital currency, protected by cryptographic tools used to prevent rapid money expansion and counterfeiting. Bitcoin isn’t the first … [Read more...]
Dislocation in Emerging Market Currencies
What has happened so far this month with the Turkish Lira is what currency dislocation looks like. The Fed’s taper chit-chat is like a butterfly flapping it’s wings in Argentina. In complex systems the butterfly effect matters. The Wall Street Journal's Peker, Candemir and Karakaya report here: ISTANBUL—Turkey's central bank resorted Thursday to direct currency sales for the first time in two years to prop up the lira, but the currency kept on spiraling to record lows amid a broad-based investor exodus from emerging markets. Policy makers in Ankara started selling dollars in the European … [Read more...]
Live Where You Can Have Your Cake and Eat it Too
If you live here, as it turns out, you can have your cake and eat it too. Where is this diamond in the rough, the Beverly Hills of the Midwest? It is Des Moines, Iowa. Surprised? A client of mine isn’t. He clued me in on the following Today Show piece. Enjoy! I know he is. Beverly Hills may be rich and chic and the Upper East Side of Manhattan may be rich and exclusive. But if you're looking for the city where regular folk can live a rich life, try Des Moines, Iowa. The locals may not be millionaires, but the city's cost of living is almost 10 percent below the average for the country. … [Read more...]
VIDEO: Potential for another stock market collapse: Nobel winner
CNBC: Robert Shiller, professor of economics at Yale and 2013 Economics Nobel Prize Laureate, says there is a potential for another stock market crash similar to the 1930s. … [Read more...]
Meet the Bakkens
I was pleasantly surprised to see my favored state of New Hampshire ranked 9th in the annual rankings of millionaire households per capita. The biggest mover was North Dakota jumping 14 places to 29th. Good luck picking them out of a crowd. “The only way you know a Bakken millionaire is he’ll be driving a new truck and might have taken his wife on vacation,” according to Kelvin Hullet, president of the chamber of commerce in Bismarck. Check out where your state ranks below: State Households Millionaires 2013 Ratio Ratio change from … [Read more...]
World’s Largest Bank to Default!
On January 31, the world’s largest bank will default on its obligations. The somewhat tragically named 2010 China Credit-Credit Equals Gold #1 Collective Trust Product bonds issued by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s largest bank by deposits, will not be repaid in full. Without a bailout, this will turn into China’s first major default according to Reuters: ICBC, which marketed the product without providing any formal guarantee against default, said on Thursday that it would not bear the "main responsibility" for repaying investors. China has not suffered a large-scale … [Read more...]