Back in December of 1997, I explained Wall Street analysts' fixation with earnings, and more specifically, earnings guidance. I wrote: Forget Wall Street’s Myopic Attachment to Quarterly Earnings It’s important for you to grasp the primary control force of short-term market action. The control force is quarterly earnings reports versus Wall Street projections. Companies that fail to meet Street projections face utter carnage. However absurd this senseless, myopic concentration on quarterly earnings may be, it is reality. The gyrations brought on by earnings’ hits and misses confuse and … [Read more...]
Archives for February 2019
My March Rage Gauge: Take Inventory of Your Investment Life
My March Rage Gauge is in, and it feels like the calm before the storm. Does that mean the market will have a huge downward correction this year? Like I’ve written to you in the past, I’m not in the prediction business. Because for you to be a great investor, you need to put together multiple seasons of investing and then maybe you’ll be able to look back and say: “Well, I wouldn’t want to do that again, but we made it.” Let me explain. All of us have a pretty good feel for what’s going on today. Interest rates aren’t moving, the Trump economy is OK (It could be great again if the … [Read more...]
The Richest Town in the U.S.A.
The richest town in America had an average income of $450,696 in 2017. It's tree-lined streets and acre sized lots offer the wealthy employees of Google, Facebook and Stanford University peace and privacy. The richest town in America is Atherton, CA. At Money, Shelly Hagan and Wei Lu report that Atherton, home to Eric Schmidt and Sheryl Sandberg, has placed as the nation's wealthiest town for the third year in a row. They write: “We value a semi-rural environment,” said Widmer, who moved to Atherton in 1996. “There are few sidewalks and many places don’t have streetlights.” Scarsdale, New … [Read more...]
Europe Takes Aim at America’s Big Tech Companies with Copyright Demands
European Union countries have backed a new set of regulations to force Google, Facebook, and other big online companies to pay content creators like artists, new agencies, and broadcasters for their output. That would even include the snippets of stories posted online in services like Google News. Reuters' Foo Yun Chee reports from Bussels: The revamp would require Google and other online platforms to sign licensing agreements with rights holders such as musicians, performers, authors, news publishers and journalists to use their work online. Google’s YouTube and Facebook’s Instagram and … [Read more...]
Americans Want to Leave Their High Tax States
States with high taxes, despite taking more of their citizens' money, tend to have poorer infrastructure and services. So it's no surprise that citizens who live in those states also have a greater desire to leave. Steven Malanga explains this phenomenon in The Wall Street Journal, and suggests that labor laws have a lot to do with the dissonance between state revenues, and the output generated by state services. He writes: Seven of the eight states with the highest percentages of people who want to move elsewhere are solidly Democratic in party affiliation, according to Gallup polling. … [Read more...]
National Right to Work Could Help States That Can’t Help Themselves
Many states are hostage to the powerful public sector unions they employ. These unions are the largest, most organized group of voters in many forced-union states. They wield their massive power to lobby for higher wages. Paying those wages demands higher taxation, which can cripple private industry in the states. State governments that have been captured by union interests are powerless to fight back. Some states have seen the damage unionized public sector employees can cause, and have set into place Right to Work laws, protecting employees from forced unionism. The laws don't end unions, … [Read more...]
Surprise: Battery Powered Cars Don’t Work Well in Extreme Temperatures
Batteries have always had problems in extreme temperatures, that why it is interesting to see such surprise at revelations from a AAA study that suggest that electric vehicles perform worse in hot and cold temperatures than they do in milder weather. Lucas Laursen reports for Fortune: Not too hot and definitely not too cold–that’s when electric car batteries work best. “Batteries are like humans,” Anna Stefanopoulou, director of the University of Michigan’s Energy Institute told Wired: they do best at temperatures between 40°F and 115°F. In results that are unlikely to shock the many … [Read more...]
Tyson Tries to End the Cycle
The meat packing business is historically cyclical, and bad times can put unprepared companies into bankruptcy. That's why John Tyson, chairman of Tyson Foods, is trying to shift the company's business into branded prepackaged and prepared foods that perform better during market swings. Jacob Bunge reports for The Wall Street Journal: For 16 hours at a stretch, the stream of deep-brown strips and other products continues across Tyson’s 50 U.S. plants that together disassemble 37 million chickens each week, turning them into nuggets, wings and breasts. By now, another 10.5 pounds have filled … [Read more...]
Democrats Sign on for $1.5 Trillion Tax Hike
With the American economy firing on all cylinders after President Trump cut taxes two years ago, Democrats have come along with a plan to raise taxes. The plan is to raise the payroll tax from 12.4% to 14.8%. The plan would increase the share of GDP of Social Security taxes from 4.5% to 6.5%. Investor's Business Daily reports: Amid all the hoopla about Democrats wanting to raise taxes on the rich, they are quietly working on a bill that would increase taxes on every working family in America. Why? To fund expanded benefits for baby boomers hitting retirement. The Social Security 2100 Act … [Read more...]
What Do You Need to Do Before You Retire?
Are you ready to plan ahead and to avoid rookie mistakes in retirement? At Money, Alix Langone discusses some of the things retirees need to do before they retire. He writes: It’s the biggest worry for people approaching retirement, financial advisors say: “Will I have enough? Where’s my cash flow coming from?” But if you actually map out your spending ahead of time, you’ll know the answer (at least for the short term), and you’ll enjoy greater peace of mind when you stop working. At a minimum, it’s important to figure out your first three to five years of cash flow — the money you will … [Read more...]
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