You already have a good idea of which states are open for business, and which states are driving entrepreneurs and small business owners away. But when it comes to the benefits of being a Right to Work state with a pro-business atmosphere, you have probably heard about one state more than any other from Your Survival Guy. That state is, of course, South Carolina. Just look at some of the headlines you've seen here about South Carolina in the past: BMW Breaks Records in Right to Work South Carolina Right to Work South Carolina is Flooded in Jobs You Can Find a Better America in … [Read more...]
Archives for July 2020
Silver Still has Room to Run
Silver has caught fire since hitting a low in mid-March. The iShares Silver ETF has soared 75% since March 18th. That may not beat the mega-cap tech stocks that look more and more like a bubble every day, but it's still a compelling move. And, silver may have a lot more room to run. If the ratio of gold to silver reverts to its long-term average versus gold, silver prices could rise another 65%, assuming no change in the price of gold. … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Survival Checklist: Move to an Island
In times like these, your safety tops the retirement survival checklist. If you can live on an island (Newport, Key West for example) do it. Islands can be easily defended, period. Your island doesn’t need to be surrounded by water. I like the idea of a cul de sac or some high elevation retreat. You get the point: Easily defendable and easy to shut down access. Making the thugs think twice is the point. They aren’t looking for “hard” targets. It’s why I love the work Lauren Boebert is doing in Rifle, CO (can you think of a better name for a town?) at her Shooters Grill restaurant. If … [Read more...]
A Zero-Rate World Might Imply more Currency Volatility
In The Economist, Buttonwood explains why "a zero-rate world might plausibly imply more currency volatility," writing: It is natural to think that if interest rates are glued to their effective lower bound, exchange rates will be similarly stuck. An axiom of foreign-exchange analysis is that shifts in policy rates, or in expectations of policy rates, drive currencies up and down. Yet a zero-rate world might plausibly imply more currency volatility. There is little scope for interest rates to adjust to economic trouble. So something else must. The exchange rate is the likeliest … [Read more...]
Your Country Home and Generational Wealth is up to You
If you own a waterfront home, or a mountain retreat, or some land with a barn not too from the city, then you know their values are going up. I’m seeing it here in coastal Newport at every turn with license plates from NY, NJ, MA, and CT filling the streets—the secret’s out. But most have been dreaming about the “lifestyle” for years. They just needed a push to get in the game. “If you’re on some kind of fence, Covid shoves you off of it,” explains Luke Siegel as he and his wife Johanna bought a home on 30 acres with a barn just north of NYC. (You can read about here). Sitting on the … [Read more...]
World’s Biggest Asset Bubble Just Keeps Getting Bigger
At The Wall Street Journal, Stella Yifan Xie and Mike Bird tell the story of the unabated expansion of the world's largest asset bubble. They write: Even the coronavirus hasn’t stopped the world’s biggest asset bubble from getting bigger. After a brief pause during coronavirus lockdowns in February, a Chinese property boom in some megacities that many thought was unsustainable has resumed its relentless upward climb, with prices rising higher and investors chasing deals despite millions of job losses and other economic problems. In March, 288 apartments in a new Shenzhen property … [Read more...]
Is the S&P 500 a Closet Technology Index?
Tech stock exuberance has pushed the weighting of technology shares (including interactive media and internet retail) to a nearly 40% share of the S&P 500. At the height of the dotcom bubble, tech shares were only 35% of the index. Without even knowing it, index-based investors are making a major industry bet that could backfire if tech falls out of favor. For perspective, the MSCI EAFE a global non-US index has about a 10% weighting in technology shares. … [Read more...]
Welcome Aboard: How to Put an End to the Virus
You know if you want to put an end to the virus, let Biden win. The silence will be deafening. This is why talk about vaccines and keeping kids (and teachers) safe by staying home is a joke. It’s all political. Vaccines are a crapshoot, especially if they’re rushed to market, because the first incentive for vaccine producers is to make money not to protect you. It reminds me of variable annuities—the toxic waste gumming up many retirement portfolios—they do more harm than good, and make a lot of money for the salesmen. How about the kids? If it’s about the kids, then open up the schools and … [Read more...]
I Would Love to Talk with You
If you’ve been with me during this crisis, then chances are your investments are in good shape. I can’t guarantee it, but I can guarantee you’re smiling inside when someone asks how your portfolio is doing. We all know the guy who tells you he sold at the top and waited out the bottom. That guy, however, still has to figure out when to get back in (if he was ever in, to begin with). As far as I’m concerned, he would have been better off collecting dividends and reinvesting them at lower prices and perhaps picking up some cheap, high-income bonds. It’s because of times like these that you’re … [Read more...]
NASDAQ Investors Enter the “Forest of Make Believe”
At MarketWatch, Barbara Kollmeyer, reports on Nordea senior macro strategist Sebastien Galy, who says tech investors have entered the "forest of make believe." She writes: Our call of the day, from Nordea’s senior macro strategist Sebastien Galy, says it is time to get more cautious on those highflying growth stocks. A drop for the Nasdaq COMP, 1.05% on Monday, followed by signs of some recovery in Nasdaq futures on Tuesday, “is a shot across the bow that we have crossed the Rubicon, past the valley of common sense into the river of hope to the forest of make believe. When optimists start … [Read more...]