Central banks around the globe have created a "dreamland" according to "Bond King," Bill Gross. Robin Wigglesworth details Gross's views on the current state of the market in an interview at Financial Times. He writes: Investors are living in a “dreamland” brought on by global central banks’ decision to continue pumping up the world economy even as it has rebounded sharply from the pandemic, Bill Gross has said. Historically low interest rates and mammoth bond-buying programmes, which are only now being cautiously scaled back, have nurtured a widespread bout of financial euphoria in … [Read more...]
Archives for November 2021
How to Find Your Retirement Life Forever Home
The best advice you can get when it comes to finding Your Retirement Life forever home, is to spend time in the area you think you’ll like. Take our cabin in New Hampshire, for example. I knew the area like the back of my hand having spent a season as a ski instructor after Babson and then going up on weekends after my parents bought a house there. Over time it became obvious to me that we, as a family, were going to be spending a lot more time in New Hampshire and it felt right. That wouldn’t have happened over a weekend. It took years. From Beth DeCarbo in the WSJ: To Rick Brown and … [Read more...]
Cost of Retirement Income Soars
The cost of retirement income, also known as the amount of money you need to retire, is soaring. According to Morningstar, people who are retiring today and want "a high degree of certainty their money will last" should take no more than a 3.3% draw on their portfolio. Compared to the 4% draw that is commonly used as a benchmark to gauge retirement readiness, a 3.3% draw means that in order to generate $80,000 in retirement income, you must have $2.42 million instead of the $2 million required under the 4% rule. That's a 21% increase. A decade of misguided zero percent interest rate policy … [Read more...]
ROBINHOOD HACK: Millions of “Users'” Data Compromised
Why would you expose yourself to this? The Hood has a lot of heart saying the matter’s resolved after a million accounts are compromised. Peter Rudegeair and Robert McMillan report for The Wall Street Journal on the recent hack of Robinhood Markets, to the tune of five million users' data breached, writing: Robinhood Markets Inc. HOOD +0.26% said Monday that an intruder gained access to its systems last week and made off with the personal information of millions of its users. The trading app said in a blog post that the incident took place on Wednesday evening and that the breach has since … [Read more...]
BIGGER THAN FORD? Rivian’s IPO Valuation of Over $100B
Should Rivian, a company with almost no revenue, and barely any product sold, be valued at $100 billion (fully diluted)? The company claims to produce electric vehicles but hasn't produced that many. Should it be valued more than Ford, and about the same as GM? Ben Foldy reports in The Wall Street Journal: Rivian Automotive Inc. RIVN +20.21% made its debut on the public markets Wednesday, scoring a valuation that instantly made it a rival of traditional car makers and the latest beneficiary of investors’ fervor for greener auto technologies. The California-based startup, founded in 2009 by … [Read more...]
AMERICAN DEBT CRISIS: Don’t Hold Back Your Life With Debt
Your survival depends on you doing the right things at the right time. Getting out of debt is one of my most important recommendations as US household debt climbs to a new record. Americans are in more debt now than they've ever been. Anneken Tappe reports for CNN Business: American households are carrying record amounts of debt as home and auto prices surge, Covid infections continue to fall and people get out their credit cards again. Between July and September, US household debt climbed to a new record of $15.24 trillion, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Tuesday. It was an … [Read more...]
Hedge Fund Calls Out Oil and Gas Companies’ Green Efforts
New York based hedge fund, Third Point Management, has called out oil and gas companies for their strategies on "going green." Brooke Masters reports on Third Point's criticisms in the Financial Times, writing: Shell, TotalEnergies and BP have all been touting more or less aggressive versions of this strategy for a while. Similar lines have also started to appear at ExxonMobil and Chevron amid pressure from climate activists. Now Third Point is calling them out. Last week, the activist hedge fund run by Dan Loeb took aim at Shell, arguing that it should break itself up into a legacy oil … [Read more...]
GAME ON! Lessons from Street Hockey on Baker Lane
When I was a kid, I grew up on a dead-end lane, Baker Lane, but it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. The street hockey games were epic. I remember playing with the bigger kids when they’d have games at one end of the Lane or with my friends at the other end in front of my house. It’d get heated at times, especially when the bigger kids would get into wrestling fights after a play rolling around in a neighbor’s front yard. A little scary to see when you’re little. Why am I writing this to you? Well, I read an article yesterday about how millennials are taking the task of investing into their own … [Read more...]
30-YEAR HIGH: Inflation Hammers American Family Budgets
American families need no reminder that prices are going up, fast. They can see it every time they go to the grocery store, pump gas, pay the rent, or see the doctor. The latest measure of consumer price inflation has just been released, and it came in at a three-decade high of 6.2%. The speed of price increases being felt by Americans under the Biden administration is hurting families. The Wall Street Journal reports: Federal Reserve officials are closely watching inflation measures to gauge whether the recent jump in prices will be temporary or lasting. One such factor is consumer … [Read more...]
IT’S REAL: No One Is Calling Inflation Transitory Anymore
Consumer prices are rising faster than they have for 30 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics measure of CPI increased by 6.2% in October. All the descriptions of inflation as "transitory" seem to have disappeared in financial media. Colby Smith reports at Financial Times: US consumer prices jumped in October at the fastest pace in three decades, as bottlenecks and other supply chain disruptions intensified and inflationary pressures spread further throughout the economy. The consumer price index published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday rose 6.2 per cent in October from a … [Read more...]