One of the many pitfalls for the investor, and there are many, is the lure of past performance. Past performance is the rock that catches many a ship. Even when the investor might know better, the false confidence that past performance provides can be ruinous. With all the information out there today, it never fails to amaze me how reckless investors can be by betting their savings on yesterday’s winners. If you’ve ever been stuck in the fog, you know what I’m talking about. You think you’re in one place, and when it clears, you can’t believe where you are. What we imagine, or what we … [Read more...]
Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises
As a reminder of how ugly markets can be, this holiday season, Your Survival Guy’s been thumbing through Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (fourth edition) by Charles P. Kindleberger. I’ll offer some titles that also work: Bad Stuff Happens, Look Out Below, They Never Learn. The first edition was published in 1978 with plenty of pre-World War II disasters to cover. But what has me thinking this morning is that the latest one, the fourth edition, was written in 2000 before the dot com crash. Little did Kindleberger know what was about to take place, or did he sense … [Read more...]
“What Have You Done for Me Lately?”
In a “What have you done for me lately?” world, it’s easy for investors to see this year’s returns on the S&P 500 and compare their performance. That’s short-sighted. Because if we look over the last two years, for example, the S&P 500 has basically returned to where it was this time in 2021. What’s lost on many is that a dividend-centric approach offered a way to be paid while the market price spun its wheels. Now then, what’s not often discussed is how many investors bailed out of stocks on the way down and missed the rebound, and in their frustration, are now … [Read more...]
“Take Cover! Get Out of the Market!”
In my conversations and emails with you, you tell me about the many predictions being made for next year. As I wrote to you yesterday, one economist, who seems to be wrong at every turn, is calling for a major correction next year—predicting the stock market bubble will burst. Another manager up in Boston is calling for one, too, and has been for a while. I’m not looking to pile on with criticism. But you may have heard another hedge fund guy on Fox talk about commercial real estate “opportunities” as if he’s talking up his book to dig out from losses. Whether it’s his book, a real book, or … [Read more...]
A Stock Market Boom or Bust for 2024?
Your Survival Guy received some Christmas emails asking about a certain economist’s stock market prediction that the bubble’s about to burst. My take? Why ruin Christmas? Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s wrong. What I know for sure is he’s in the business of selling books and making headlines. That’s not acting like a fiduciary. I remember back in 1998 when this same economist wrote a book calling for the roaring 2000s. The roar turned out to be the sound from investors pummeled by the tech bust a few years later. Then he called for, in 2004, another boom to come, taking a pass on the … [Read more...]
The Coaches
“As Florida State linebackers coach in 1972, Bill Parcells read the preface for Bill Libby’s The Coaches, published that year by Regnery. Feeling that it eloquently described his profession, Parcells condensed the 1,039-word introduction into roughly 390 words that hit home the most. The coach laminated the shortened version. Throughout his long football career, he re-read it, especially during tough times. Below is the exact wording from Parcells’s sheet,” from Parcells: A Football Life, by Bill Parcells and Nunyo Demasio. He is called “Coach.” It is a difficult job, and there is no clear … [Read more...]
The Human Freedom Index 2023
Cato's 2023 Human Freedom Index is out. Download the report below. The ninth annual Human Freedom Index, now available free online, is the most comprehensive freedom index so far created for a globally meaningful set of countries and jurisdictions, representing 98.8 percent of the world’s population. The HFI covers 165 countries based on 86 distinct indicators of personal, civil, and economic freedom, using data from 2000 to 2021, the most recent year for which sufficient data are available. The second year of the coronavirus pandemic witnessed a further decline in global freedom. From … [Read more...]
Vanguard GNMA
Your Survival Guy’s been digging through his investment attic looking for wrapping paper and came across these four letters: GNMA. It’s been a while since I’ve written to you about Vanguard GNMA, and like most investments I make, I still own it. I’m a collector. A pack rat, if you will. I find things I forgot I have all the time. But I never really forgot about Vanguard GNMA. I know many of you, too, wonder about it. Let’s talk about it. It’s been slim pickings through the most recent years with Vanguard GNMA. But those are the cards we were dealt by the Fed’s zero percent interest rates … [Read more...]
Your Survival Guy Trapped in the Key West Cemetery
Happy Friday. Your Survival Guy and Gal recently spent some time in Key West, our home away from home. On one hot sunny afternoon, we decided it was five o’clock somewhere and strolled down to Schooner Wharf for some barbequed shrimp, oysters, and beer. We could have stayed all night, but dinner was at six. With not a lot of time to spare, we decided to take a shortcut and walk through the cemetery. If you’ve been, you know it’s high ground (if you can consider anything high ground in KW), and the sunsets are amazing. The full moon made it especially eerie. “Let’s pick up the pace,” Your … [Read more...]
RAGE Gauge January: What the Fed Means to You
Once again, the Fed proves it’s a political beast, signaling yesterday that it’s open to rate cuts next year (as many as three) just in time for the election. Wow. You can’t make this stuff up. Inflation is beat? Hardly, as many of you who’ve gone out to dinner this holiday season know all too well. Just when the savers of the world could invest (remember that word?) in bonds that actually pay something, the Fed pulls the rug out from under them. The pressure from Washington and Wall Street to “do something” proved once again to be too much to handle. Americans can feel that something is … [Read more...]
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