You need food to survive. And as it turns out, so does Amazon. With the purchase of Whole Foods, Amazon has determined how it will get into a customer’s home. More important, it has figured out a way to welcome customers into its home. Whole Foods is Amazon’s “Welcome Home” mat. Obviously the purchase is great news for Whole Foods with its 30% increase in stock value Friday. I love the move for Amazon too. But to me, this is a beautiful move for retail in general. Retailers have been put on notice: You’re in play. Getting into customers’ homes is the future. It’s what Amazon, Apple, … [Read more...]
Summer Plans? Total Solar Eclipse and the Moon House
What are you doing this summer? I’d love to hear about it. One client that lives is Jackson Hole told me they’re preparing for a huge spike in visitors for the total eclipse of the sun on August 21st. Jackson will be a great viewing spot. Here’s ten more great places for viewing. [pdf-embedder url="https://www.youngresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Best-places-to-view-reduced.pdf" title="Best places to view reduced"] In another conversation I was told about a rare opportunity a client had visiting the “Moon House”: An American Stonehenge. He suggested I check out Astronomy magazine … [Read more...]
This is What Terrorizes the Fed
Imagine for a moment that you’re the Fed. You own all of these mortgages. You want to get out of them. You also want to increase interest rates. Aren’t you chasing your own tail recognizing that bond prices decline as rates go up? The Fed can fight this battle in the press but they can’t ignore the natural law of bonds. [gview file="https://www.youngresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/h41.pdf" width="100%"] … [Read more...]
What Good is Money if You Can’t Enjoy It?
What good is money if you can’t enjoy it? Keep moving. It’s good for you. I like this piece from Outside Online. The message is, your brain is much healthier when you exercise your body. Kate Wheeling writes: Human beings evolved to move. Our bodies, including our brains, were fine-tuned for endurance activities over millennia of stalking and chasing down prey. “We’ve engineered that out of our lives now,” says Charles Hillman, a psychology professor at Northeastern University who has spent decades studying the link between exercise and cognition. The toll our relatively new sedentary … [Read more...]
A Temporary Corporate Tax Cut Won’t Help Much
Senate procedural limits on legislation that will increase the budget deficit are hampering the potential for permanent tax rate cuts. But as Alan Cole writes at the Tax Foundation, temporary cuts won't help the economy as much as permanent cuts. Companies dealing with temporary cuts will reduce their investment as the end of the lower-rate period draws near. Cole writes: In recent months, Republicans in the federal government and in Congress have been considering tax reform ideas. One issue that lawmakers are considering is the difference between temporary and permanent changes in tax … [Read more...]
A Lawyer Fights Exorbitant 401(k) Fees
Investors' performance can be quickly sliced down when advisers and managers take hefty fees off the top. Fee abuse has been especially rampant in 401(k) programs, where employees sometimes aren't paying enough attention, or operating procedures are opaque. Fed up with this assault on employee savings, lawyer Jerome Schlichter of St. Louis has begun suing for clients. At first, no one took him seriously. Anne Tergesen writes: When Jerome Schlichter started filing 401(k)-fee lawsuits against big companies a decade ago, the personal-injury lawyer from St. Louis wasn’t taken seriously. “We … [Read more...]
Heed This Warning from an Investing Legend
One of the many features of the stocks in Young Research's Retirement Compounders portfolio (RCs), is their dividend paying histories. Pair the RCs with a solid fixed-income investment, and you're on your way to being a world class investor. At MarketWatch, investing legend John Bogle echoes the call for defensive investing. One development could mitigate much of the advantage that index funds enjoy and slow the rush to own them, but you’re probably not going to like it. When the market suffers a prolonged decline, active managers can gain an edge over indexers by moving large portions of … [Read more...]
Putnam Announces 3 “Alternatives” Funds: Time to Sell?
The low hanging fruit may have already been picked in “alternatives.” And yet, Putnam has announced three new Alt mutual funds. We’ve seen this movie before (see here and here). Putnam Investments plans to introduce three new alternative types of mutual funds that will be managed by PanAgora Asset Management, a Boston firm that typically manages money for institutions and is majority-owned by Putnam. The new funds include one aimed at investing money under “varying economic conditions,” and another that’s market neutral — or long/short fund — meaning the managers buy stocks they believe … [Read more...]
Trump Hotel Chain: American Idea is a Great One
Donald Trump, Jr. speaking with supporters of his father, Donald Trump, at a campaign rally at the Sun Devil Fitness Center at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. “American Idea” hotel chain? Sounds great to me. I was tuned into this story while scanning Drudge Report last night. "On the campaign trail, President Trump’s children rolled through dozens of small towns across the country, reveling in the adoration of the crowds. But they were less enamored of the budget-friendly hotels along the way, an assortment of run-of-the-mill offerings that were barely distinguishable from one … [Read more...]
June RAGE Gauge: Sell Your Winners
Not much has changed in the last month. That’s the conclusion in reviewing the data points in June’s RAGE Gauge. As I mentioned in last month’s gauge, investors seem to be complacent and that feeling continues today. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly investors forget about the devastation markets can bring. They troll the internet for articles that support their points of view. And all is right in their world. Until it isn’t. This is the perfect time to imagine the market falling by 40% to see what that would feel like. How would your overall portfolio handle it? Have you done enough … [Read more...]
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