When investment managers get too cute with your money, guess who pays the price? The answer is you, obviously. Andy Kessler has written an epic takedown of the "Socially Responsible Investing" movement over at The Wall Street Journal. Here's a bit of it: Profits are the best measure of a business’s value to consumers—and to society. No one holds a gun to the customer’s head. If the buyer weren’t glad to pay the free-market price, he would make the product or perform the service himself. Yet this idea is questioned all the time. A case in point is Amazon, currently worth $625 billion based … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2018
Can Hospitals Lower Drug Prices by Making Their Own?
Four nonprofit hospital systems are applying to the FDA for approval to produce and market their own line of generic drugs. The hospitals are looking to produce generics for which there currently isn't much competition. Melanie Evans writes in The Wall Street Journal: The hospitals said they would prioritize production of generic drugs for which the market lacks competition, though they declined to specify which drugs they would produce first. “We have no designs on being a major pharmaceutical power,” Intermountain President and Chief Executive Marc Harrison said. “This is a very specific … [Read more...]
Companies Make “The War on Plastic” Part of Their Marketing Plan
With a growing anti-plastic sentiment among consumers, companies are trying to reduce the amount of plastic they use and increase the amount of recycled materials they use. A big announcement by Coca-Cola last week that the company would "collect and recycle the equivalent of all its packaging by 2030," is just the latest sign that this is a trend companies are going to be promoting as part of their marketing. The FT reports: Makers of everything from crisps and drinks to shampoo and laundry detergent are responding to growing public alarm about pollution as a younger generation, deemed to be … [Read more...]
IMF: Tax Cuts to Drive Global Growth
According to the IMF, the world's GDP will grow faster than earlier projections. Half of the additional growth will be attributable to the tax cut signed by the Trump administration. The IMF wrote: Global economic activity continues to firm up. Global output is estimated to have grown by 3.7 percent in 2017, which is 0.1 percentage point faster than projected in the fall and ½ percentage point higher than in 2016. The pickup in growth has been broad based, with notable upside surprises in Europe and Asia. Global growth forecasts for 2018 and 2019 have been revised upward by … [Read more...]
Even Nolan Ryan Had a Hard Time Transitioning to Retirement
He had been planning his retirement for years. Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan wanted to be a cowboy after hanging up his baseball uniform. But he found the transition to retirement a lot harder than he thought it would be. It wasn't the long rides or the tough work of being a rancher that were hard on Ryan, it was the loss of his past life that gave him trouble. He missed going into the ball club and being part of a team every day. In my experience with clients transitioning from work to retirement, Ryan is not unique. Many people entering retirement are greeted by mixed emotions, even … [Read more...]
Is Your City on Amazon’s List of 20 Possibilities for its HQ2?
Of the 238 cities that applied to host Amazon's second headquarters, the company has narrowed its choices down to 20. If your city is on this list, you may soon be sharing the streets with up to 50,000 employees from Amazon. Atlanta Austin, Texas Boston Chicago Columbus, Ohio Dallas Denver Indianapolis Los Angeles Miami Montgomery County, Md. Nashville Newark, N.J. New York City Northern Virginia Philadelphia Pittsburgh Raleigh, N.C. Toronto Washington, D.C. Amazon's choice will most likely depend on the types of incentives … [Read more...]
How Much Bitcoin Has Been Stolen?
Apparently hacking crypto currencies is a $200 million annual revenue industry. That's according to Lex Sokolin, who was asked by Bloomberg's Olga Kharif. Kharif writes that in less than a decade, $1.2 billion worth of bitcoin and ether have been stolen from their legitimate owners. She continues: All told, hacks involving cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have cost companies and governments $11.3 billion through lost potential tax revenue from coin sales and illegitimate transactions, according to Susan Eustis, chief executive officer of WinterGreen Research. The blockchain ecosystem -- … [Read more...]
You’ve Read the Last Issue of Intelligence Report Now What? Part III
In his first issue of Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report, Dick wrote, “Hugh Johnson is known worldwide as an expert and writer on gardening and wine. In Connoisseur’s June/85 issue Michael and Ariane Batterberry wrote about Johnson’s ability to communicate to his readers saying he ‘never pontificates,’ and that Johnson feels ‘once inflamed by a subject, the wise outsider will write a book about it before he learns too much and becomes an insider, so entangled in arcana that he can no longer strike through the nub of things.” “I hope my Intelligence Report will achieve Johnson’s worthy … [Read more...]
The Truth Behind the S&P 500: Part VI
I have grave concerns with the S&P 500 (See parts one, two, three, four and five of my series dedicated to those concerns). You can see in my chart below the index would need to fall by 38% based on yesterday’s closing value to trade at a normalized valuation. Doing as well as the S&P 500, or the market, is a double-edged sword. Receiving market performance guarantees you’ll never beat it. Believe me you’ll want to beat it when it crashes, because the grief from losses far outweighs the jubilation from gains. Originally posted on Yoursurvivalguy.com. … [Read more...]
Expect Very Modest Returns from Equities
In an interview with Bloomberg, Vanguard’s former CEO and current chairman F. William McNabb cautioned that investors should expect very modest returns from stocks over the next decade. Vanguard doesn’t have an axe to grind here so it wouldn’t hurt to listen what Mr. McNabb has to say. The meat of his comments are below. You can read the full story here. F. William McNabb, Vanguard Group’s chairman, cautioned investors to consider reducing their stock exposure before the nearly 9-year-old rally ends. “We would expect the next decade to actually be very modest on the equities side in the … [Read more...]
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