You might think that after the blunders of the recent past, public borrowers would have learned the lessons of 2008, but that would be wrong. Rather than increasing the information available, municipalities are providing less transparency to lenders. Gunjan Banerji and Heather Gillers write in The Wall Street Journal: U.S. cities and counties are using fewer ratings to assess the risks of the bonds they sell, providing investors with just one opinion on an increasing amount of new debt. Roughly 25% of the dollar value of all municipal debt issued this year carried a single grade from one … [Read more...]
Archives for December 2018
A New Amazon Model for India
Amazon has been working to tackle one of the most difficult logistics challenges in the world, rural India. The company is building a logistics network from the ground up, and trying to turn India, a place with little experience with online shopping, into its next success story. Eric Bellman reports in The Wall Street Journal: Last year India’s rural shoppers accounted for more than $400 billion of retail sales. Investment bank Barclays PLC estimates Amazon in India recorded more than $7 billion in gross merchandise volume, an e-commerce measure of the amount of business transacted, in the … [Read more...]
Equities Still Expensive by Historical Standards
Aaron Brown sends investors a note of caution from the opinion page of Bloomberg, writing: The S&P 500 Index reached a record high in September, extending the longest bull market in history and generating an inflation-adjusted return of 300 percent since March 2009. The rally drove price-to-earnings ratios above 33, to levels only matched at the height of the dot-com bubble. The S&P 500 is now down 15 percent from its September high, reducing the P/E ratio to 28. So what does history suggest might happen in 2019? On average, the outlook is not good when stocks are falling, but … [Read more...]
In 2019, Give Me Cash
That’s my investment creed. I don’t mind when markets are down as long as I’m still getting paid. Regular dividends and interest are succor to any investor when capital appreciation is wiped out at the whim of the markets. In January of 2012, I explained my investment creed, writing: So the investment environment today is cloudy and laced with sinkholes and other entrapments. Your mandate is armadillo-like self-protection both on the portfolio front and the personal security front. I invest a substantial portion of my personal wealth in liquid portfolio assets I can jockey around at a … [Read more...]
In Retirement Stop Working, Start Earning. Here’s How
Despite the recent market turbulence, there is one group of investors who have so far been insulated by good decisions they made long ago. Dividend investors have collected their payments regularly, as those who invested looking to sell to the "greater fool," in the future have been tossed on a sea of volatility. If you are serious about a retirement portfolio you can count on, making dividends and income a central focus in your investment plan would be a great start. You shouldn't have to work throughout your retirement, and you should have a portfolio of investments that earns year … [Read more...]
Junk Bonds Get Trashed
Investors are running from junk bonds, with spreads widening to the highest levels since 2016, and junk bond funds losing suffering withdrawals of $11 billion over just the last six weeks alone. At Bloomberg, Kelsey Butler reports on the rout: Pummeled by expectations of slower growth, outflows and dropping oil prices, junk bonds are poised for their worst returns in more than seven years. High-yield bonds are returning -2.64 percent in December, on track for the worst month since September 2011. The asset class has lost 2.59 percent so far this year, set for the biggest loss since returns … [Read more...]
My Concerns with the Vanguard Precious Metals and Mining Fund
This post I wrote on September 25 was one of readers' favorites this year. My concerns with the Vanguard Precious Metals and Mining Fund should be taken seriously. I'm concerned about Vanguard more broadly as well, and have written a series on that here. Barron’s had a solid write-up on gold over the weekend. “Gold has been a traditional hedge against financial and economic crises, playing that role during the 2008-09 meltdown. Gold rallied 17% from the collapse of Lehman Brothers on Sept. 15, 2008, until the stock market bottomed on March 9, 2009—a period during which the S&P 500 fell … [Read more...]
The Dangers of Being Unemployed and Older
It's harder for older workers who have lost their jobs to get back to work. According to Ruth Simon in The Wall Street Journal "Nearly eight million older Americans are out of work or stuck in low-quality jobs." The problem with unemployment at an older age is the lack of time to make up for any mistakes. With retirement age right around the corner, you should be packing away as much savings as possible. Those years should be your peak earning years as well, but unfortunately, some older workers who have lost their jobs are still struggling to find new ones. The sad reality is that when … [Read more...]
Buybacks Can’t Save the Market
Buybacks can't save the market from falling. The buyback boom has been symptomatic of the Fed funded liquidity bubble, and therefore can't be an anti-cyclical counterweight when the liquidity is removed. Lu Wang reports in Bloomberg: In a quarter where U.S. firms have announced plans to spend more money buying back shares than almost any other period in history, the S&P 500 is down 15 percent, the biggest drop since the 2008 financial crisis. At its worst point this week, the index was within two points of entering a bear market. The futility can be framed in various ways. Critics of … [Read more...]
Can New and Old Tobacco Succeed Together?
With a 35% holding in e-cigarette maker Juul, Altria is betting it can turn its older consumers into fans of vaping. Altria's expertise in dealing with the FDA is a major asset that Juul lacks, and its access to a cohort of longtime tobacco using customers is exactly what the start-up needs to avoid more scrutiny from regulators worried about kids vaping. Jennifer Maloney reports on the business tie-up in The Wall Street Journal: The tobacco giant has agreed to provide Juul with a range of services expected to include help to smooth over the e-cigarette maker’s rocky relationship with the … [Read more...]
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