Here you get a glimpse of the real estate market in Boston as reported by the Boston Globe. The price of living in the heart of Boston is fast approaching an average of $1 million, as condominium sales sizzle and values surge. Condominium sales in downtown Boston and surrounding sections — including Beacon Hill, the Back Bay, and the South End — jumped more than 17 percent in the first three months of the year, compared with the same time last year, according to LINK, a company that tracks sales in a dozen central city neighborhoods. The average sale price climbed to just under … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2014
A Surprising Inflation Forecast
In a speech at the New York Economics club on Wednesday, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen gave a speech on monetary policy that signaled her easy money bias is alive and well. After six years of zero percent interest rates and with trillions sloshing around the financial system, Mrs. Yellen handicaps the chances of too high inflation as significantly below the chances of persistently low inflation. Mrs. Yellen’s comments echoed the comments of another economist that is ostensibly in the know, Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). At the IMF’s spring … [Read more...]
Show Me the Money
Banks are picking up the pace in lending to those who need it: small businesses and entrepreneurs. The Fed’s mis-guided policies have fattened the coffers of Wall Street and the well connected for far too long. With the end in sight for QE bank lending is beginning to go where it belongs, into the hands of main street. … [Read more...]
How $50K is Worth Millions in Retirement Income
Don’t hate the messenger, but one of the best ways to guarantee income in this low yield environment is to continue working. Your salary may never be more valuable than it is at this moment in history. I want you to consider your job as a bond investment. When you retire you must have bonds in your portfolio, plain and simple. Bonds can help protect your assets when markets crash. In 2008, treasury bonds made money. Today, the 10-year treasury yields 2.6%. Imagine how much money you’d need to have in 10-year treasuries to replace a salary of $50,000. The answer is $1,923,079. So before … [Read more...]
“Money Makes Money,” Ben Franklin
An important message from Vanguard’s F. William McNabb III: The power of compounding can put time on your side The purpose of my annual letter to you is, of course, to report on how your fund fared over the past year. But while it’s important to be aware of how your fund is doing in the latest market environment, short-term performance isn’t what matters most. The focus on the preceding 12 months shouldn’t distract investors from the long-term commitment they need to help themselves be successful. To be sure, there are many aspects of investing success that you can’t influence, … [Read more...]
This Can’t End Well
Empty Chinese city. Bob Davis and Esther Fung report on the worrying glut of vacant property in China’s third and fourth tier cities. In big international cities like Beijing and Shanghai, prices continue to rise. But evidence is mounting that in dozens of third- and fourth-tier Chinese cities rarely visited by foreigners, overbuilding is out of control and a major property-market slowdown is now under way. The 200 or so Chinese cities with populations ranging from 500,000 to several million account for 70% of the country's residential-property sales. In many of these cities, developers … [Read more...]
How Investor’s Are Getting Strong Armed
You need to sit up and pay attention. As if managing money weren’t hard enough already, there’s some fine print I want you to understand. The issue is whether your investment advisor/broker works under a fiduciary or suitability standard. There’s a big difference between the two. When you work with a broker, he is guided by the weaker suitability standard. It basically means putting you into the best product suitable to you that’s he’s selling. Think of it like going to McDonald's. You’re getting something your way, but it’s still basically a burger, chicken, or piece of fish. But what … [Read more...]
Stock Market Alert: Fewer and Fewer Stocks Are Propping Up the Bubble Market
Fidelity Leading the Way
After reading Michael Lewis' new book Flash Boys, it's easy to see why this makes sense for Fidelity. Reuters reports: Fidelity Investments said on Thursday it is exploring the creation of a new trading venue with other asset managers, as U.S. regulators investigate the controversial practice of high-frequency trading. Fidelity, the No. 2 U.S. mutual fund company, and other so-called buy-side firms have been using alternative trading systems (ATS) to reduce predatory behavior that undermine getting the best price when trading stocks. In 2012, for example, Fidelity introduced an extension … [Read more...]
A Rare and Precious Commodity on Wall Street
The good guys in Michael Lewis' book Flash Boys come from RBC bank, and are led by Brad Katsuyama. It turns out that being trustworthy never goes out of style. Bloomberg reports: The culture of “RBC nice” is paying dividends for Canada’s second-biggest bank. Royal Bank of Canada has become the standard-bearer for a revolt among investors against so-called predatory high-frequency trading practices on both Wall Street and Canada’s Bay Street. The technology, ideas and personnel behind the upstart IEX Group Inc. alternative stock market in the U.S. and the proposed Aequitas Innovations … [Read more...]