Investing isn’t one of those tasks that you should learn by doing. That’s not to say that you won’t learn a lesson or two about investing if you dive right in, you will, but the lessons may end up costing you more money than you bargained for. The Best Way to Learn About Investing The best way to learn about investing is to do so with books. But which books? You don’t want to just read anything on investing. Ninety percent of what has been published on investing and the stock market isn’t worth your time, effort, or money. You can do more damage than good if you don’t make a diligent effort … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2017
Sell in May and Go Away? Not Vanguard GNMA
Work hard and play hard. My dad used to tell me that a lot. He still does. One year he and I drove down south to look at colleges and we stopped in Myrtle Beach to play golf. As we were eating breakfast I noticed his hair looked a little too shiny. One of the shampoo bottles in his travel kit had the sunscreen. Work and play in investing terms is called counterbalancing. Looking at the average annual return for the last ten-years it’s easy to overlook the years that can decimate a portfolio. Vanguard GNMA was up 4.36% and the S&P 500 was up 7.51% per year. But, did you know … [Read more...]
UPS Promises Shareholders a Delayed Response on Spending
UPS has told shareholders that the money it's spending now to bolster its abilities to service e-commerce demand will pay off toward the end of the year. Patience is critical to any investment approach, and getting caught up in the ups and downs of quarterly earnings hits and misses is a fool's game. Paul Ziobro and Joshua Jamerson write that UPS investors are in wait-and-see mode today. United Parcel Service Inc. UPS 1.12% insists that money spent today to accommodate U.S. e-commerce growth will eventually pay off with better margins later this year. For now, investors are waiting to see … [Read more...]
The Bubble You Should Worry About Most
Politico has a must-read story up on how the Media Bubble is Worse than You Think. Politico looked at where journalists work and how fast it is changing. The executive summary is that the ascendancy of digital publishing and the decline of print journalism has created a concentration of journalists in the North East Corridor and on the West Coast. Newspaper jobs were more evenly distributed across the country, but newspapers have been shedding jobs fast. There are now fewer newspaper publishing jobs in America than internet publishing and broadcasting jobs. The Politico article is focused … [Read more...]
Massive New Wind Power Capacity to Come Online by 2021
The Global Wind Energy Council says by 2021 the world will have 815 gigawatts of wind power generation capacity. Tsvetomira Tsanova reports for Renewables Now that the biggest gains will come in Asisa. Asia is seen to install 153.5 GW in 2017-2021. Deployment in Europe and North America is seen at 73.5 GW and 61.5 GW, respectively, according to the Global Wind Report: Annual Market Update. GWEC’s rolling five year forecast sees 59.4 GW of new wind additions this year and the annual market is expected to rise to some 75.3 GW by 2021. “We are well into a period of disruptive change, … [Read more...]
How to Buy Vanguard GNMA
Yesterday I wrote “Why Vanguard Works for You in 2017” and a reader asked: "E.J. I’m thinking about consolidating at Fidelity. Can I buy Vanguard GNMA?" Yes. You can buy any Vanguard fund at Fidelity. Your access to funds today at Fidelity or any custodian is incredible. Gone are the days where you can only buy the custodians' family of funds. … [Read more...]
Calculating Shareholder Yield
To calculate the shareholder yield, pick up the annual report for a company you are interested in (preferably a non-financial company), and turn to the Statement of Cash Flows. In the Statement of Cash Flows, move down to the section labeled - Cash Flows from Financing Activities. For most companies, this is the last section of the Cash Flow Statement. To calculate shareholder yield, you have to determine the total amount of dividends that were paid to shareholders, the net amount of stock that was repurchased, and the net amount of debt that was repaid. Before you get started, remember you … [Read more...]
Amazon Plans to Shake Up the Entire Supply Chain as We Know It
So says Dave Sullivan of AutoPacific Inc. Amazon held a "Radical Transportation Salon" this week to study the future of transportation. Amazon doesn't manufacture cars, but transportation is critical to its business. Most of what it sells must be moved via truck, plane, boat, drone, or some combination thereof. There are drawbacks to all of these forms of transport, and oftentimes those drawbacks are the humans piloting them. Truck drivers must rest, making a cross country trip last over four days. But a self-driving truck loaded with Amazon cargo could potentially cross the country in a day … [Read more...]
Why Vanguard GNMA Works for You in 2017
It’s time to get your lazy money off the couch and back to work. You know the lazy money I’m talking about. The rainy day fund that’s turned into a big-screen TV, the matured CDs that took a cruise to the islands, and the emergency cash that’s betting on Apple. Let’s not forget where your safe money should safely be employed: At Vanguard GNMA. Did you know that over the last three-years, a time when investors worried about interest rates going up, up, up, GNMA had an average annual return of 2.6%? Today, just like three-years ago, that lazy money is sitting there, worried about the … [Read more...]
Houses Built By Robots are the Next Big Thing in Construction
Hotels, mansions, and affordable homes are being built by robots today. You may not be able to tell as you drive by your neighbor's house, but a shortage of skilled labor in the construction market has left home builders relying on machines to produce more and more of each house. Inside the factories where the robots, with help from both skilled and unskilled humans, make the homes, conditions are controlled. There's no down time caused by foul weather, and every nail driven by a robot ends up right where it's meant to go. And perhaps most essential to the growth of the prefabricated … [Read more...]
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