President Trump gave a speech at 3:30 today, declaring a National State of Emergency to speed the coronavirus response. Trump mobilized the private sector and slashed regulations and antiquated red tape designed for a different time to increase the amount of testing that can be done. There will be a website ready by Sunday that will help Americans decide if they need to be tested, and where they can go to get a test. Companies including Wal-mart, Walgreens, CVS, Target, Roche, Becton Dickinson, Thermo Fisher, SYNERGY HomeCare, and Quest Diagnostics have volunteered to help millions … [Read more...]
Richard C.Young’s Old Line “4% Rule”
There Are No Second Chances at Retirement
There are no second chances at living a full and happy retirement. You enter retirement only with what you bring with you, and you leave behind whatever remains. You don’t get another try, but there is a way to make your investment plan pay you to retire. The only catch is, many of you will have to make a 180° degree change in how you approach retirement. Here’s how I explain my plan: You Need to Make a 180° Switch in Your Approach to Common Stock Investing In the past you have probably looked on common stock investing as a program of (1) buying a stock and (2) selling it to someone else … [Read more...]
You Must Defend Your Wealth with a Tactical Battle Plan
There’s nothing more important to your investment success than protecting your principal. Capital gains will come and go, but losing the money you worked hard to earn is like taking a direct hit from a Scud missile. You need to build a tactical battle plan to kill the enemy—in this case, risk—and to win. Here’s the battle plan I laid out for readers shortly after Operation Desert Storm, and I remain committed to it today. You’ll Be The Big Winner! General Norman Schwarzkopf built the allied forces military victory in the Middle East on diversity. Schwarzkopf did not go into battle … [Read more...]
One More Reason You Shouldn’t Invest in China
The coronavirus is just one more reason you should avoid direct investment in China. Symptoms of a bigger problem are the decisions of the Chinese government to: restrict information on the spread of the virus, deflect blame onto others, and to silence early attempts to alert the public to the problem. In 2012, I explained China’s bigger problem to readers, and why you should avoid the Middle Kingdom as an investment destination: China I have long advised against direct investment in China. Among the many reasons I am bearish on China is the country’s vastly distorted … [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...]
Should You Take the Dividend Blood Oath?
I have always been passionate about dividends, and if you learn to understand their power, you will be too. I even told readers in 2002 to take a blood oath to buy only dividend payers. Alarmed? While I was joking about the blood oath, I was very serious about the power of dividends in an investment portfolio, and I still am. Here’s what I wrote: As to dividends, not long ago, Fortune ran a nice piece, “Reap the Dividends.” Fortune wrote, “According to Ibbotson Associates (I love their work), if you had invested $100 in the S&P 500 in 1926 and continually reinvested the dividends, … [Read more...]
What the Iran Situation Means for Gold
Since the end of 2019, gold prices have been on a breakout trajectory. Now, in response to rising tensions with Iran, things are getting very interesting. The news that the United States had bombed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani increased the perception of risk in the Middle East, and drove the price of gold even higher. I have always suggested to investors that they maintain a gold component in their portfolios, not as a road to riches, but as an insurance policy against inflation, disaster, and war. Typically when every other assets’ price is falling, gold’s is … [Read more...]
Did You Get AirPods for Christmas?
At the turn of the century, the most popular Christmas gifts among America’s young teens were Pokemon playing cards and merchandise. Now, 20 years later, the hottest gift for Christmas is Apple’s AirPods. The pro version of the small wireless headphones cost $249 (before taxes). Shortly after the kids opened their gifts on Christmas 1999, I was writing about a new technology I thought would be significant in the coming years: Bluetooth. Through inference reading and analysis, I had determined that Bluetooth could be a major innovation in technology. As it turns out, it is the very … [Read more...]
Can You Live Forever? How about Your Investment Portfolio?
A recent study performed by Australian scientists found that the human genome predicts the species’ lifespan to be about 38 years. Modern scientific discoveries and improvements in the standard of living have increased that to about 72 years worldwide and much higher in some developed countries. It should come as no surprise that the longer you live beyond the day you retire, the more you’ll spend during retirement on maintaining your standard of living. How long can you do that? 20 years? 500 years? Here’s how I explained the idea of living to 500, and how you can plan your investment … [Read more...]
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