After decades of urbanization, Americans are beginning to rebel against the "bigger is better" mentality of city-living. Seeking a smaller, more affordable, sustainable, and secure lifestyle, some are venturing out from the mega-cities in search of a different life. A number of techniques have become popular in an effort to save, especially scaling down the size of one's home. Living small and saving big is even better when it's coupled with living in a state that treats you more like a human than an ATM machine it can withdraw money from. Carey L. Biron explains this trend at Thompson … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2020
Did Amazon’s Value Really Increase $92 Billion in a Day?
If Amazon’s gains hold up through the close, the stock will have added $92 billion to its market capitalization in a single day. That’s the equivalent of adding a 3M, a UPS, or a Lowe’s. Or if you prefer, it's like adding GM, Ford, and Harley, the entire auto manufacturing industry in the S&P 500. Maybe Amazon and its investors have figured out a way to defy the law of large numbers. As for profitability in the core business, that still looks pretty elusive. Bloomberg's Brandon Kochkodin reports: The largest U.S. e-commerce company saw its shares jump by more than 10% after Thursday’s … [Read more...]
Right to Work at Risk as VA Democrats Target Employee Freedoms
After taking control of the legislature and the governor's mansion in Virginia for the first time in decades, the state's Democrats are eager to undo all that has been done by Republicans during that time. Democrats' first target is gun control, but soon they could be coming for the employee freedoms protected by Virginia's right to work law. According to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Virginia's right to work laws were enacted in 1947, with major updates in 1954, and 1970. Now Democrats want to repeal the law that, as The Wall Street Journal reports, "made Northern … [Read more...]
Microsoft Beat Wall Street: Here’s How
Microsoft's reported quarterly financial results beat Wall Street's expectations. A big part of the company's successful quarter was an impressive 62% increase in sales for its Azure cloud computing segment when compared to last year. Tae Kim reports at MarketWatch: On Thursday, Bernstein analyst Mark Moerdler reaffirmed his Outperform rating for Microsoft shares, citing the company’s stellar earnings report. He also raised his price target for the stock to $203 from $174. “This was again another strong quarter as Microsoft continues to deliver Commercial Cloud growth as well as growth in … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Life: Living Small and Saving Big
One of the first things you notice when moving from a high-tax coastal blue-state to a low-tax red-state is how much farther your money goes. You can buy a bigger house for example, but you don't need to. I’ve been following the small house movement for years and I enjoyed this piece written by Katherine Roth for the AP on finding one the “right” size. She writes: With the current trend toward de-cluttering and downsizing, there are plenty of books about how to winnow down possessions to the few that are truly necessary and loved. This book shows how you can live well once that’s … [Read more...]
Should You Buy an Electric Car?
The Wall Street Journal followed eight reporters in four countries to see if the world is ready to make the switch to electric cars. … [Read more...]
You Need to Be Vigilant About Protecting Your Money
Despite the many protections offered to investors by the FTC, the SEC, the FDIC, and other alphabet soup government organizations, people are still tricked every day into giving away their hard-earned money. Last Friday, Jeff and Paulette Carpoff, two hucksters out of California, pleaded guilty to charges related to a Ponzi scheme they had been running hawking imaginary solar equipment. You need to be vigilant about protecting your money. Jacqueline Sergeant reports for Financial Advisor: According to the complaint, between 2011 and 2018, the Carpoffs offered and sold investment … [Read more...]
Small, Local, Robotic: The Grocery Store of the Future
In The Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Smith outlines the characters of the grocery store of the future: small, local, and robotic. She writes: Grocers looking to fill online orders more quickly are testing micro-fulfillment systems that can spit out as many as 4,000 orders a week but can still be housed in the back of stores or in urban areas where space is at a premium. The store owners are evaluating whether automation can help tamp down costs while speeding up deliveries and they are turning to a new set of startups aiming to make e-commerce fulfillment more efficient in a small … [Read more...]
How I Overcame My Biggest Investment Failure
Back in 1991, I had already been through multiple business cycles in my investing career. I wanted to teach investors how to avoid my biggest failure in investing up to that point. Here’s what I wrote: Reduce Risk with Betas Not only do I want to help you achieve an “A” in total-return performance, I want you to achieve this return with as little risk as possible. In the stock market, the words risk and volatility are synonymous. I want you to concentrate most of your efforts on stocks that are less volatile than average. What you need to know is a stock’s beta, or the measure of its … [Read more...]
Alaskan Native Sees Right Through Goldman Sachs’ Righteous PR Stunt
In The Wall Street Journal, Mayor Harry Brower Jr., an Alaskan Native, calls out Goldman Sachs for the firm's recent PR announcement that it will no longer finance new oil projects in the Arctic. Brower pierces right through Goldman's argument that it is helping indigenous peoples with "stakeholder engagement." Brower is the mayor of the North Slope borough, a massive land area populated by many Alaskan natives, including Mr. Brower. Goldman, like BlackRock, is virtue signaling to its favored constituency, wealthy investors living in the elite enclaves of New York and San Francisco. Neither … [Read more...]
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