In my conversations with you, you ask me why we use Fidelity Investments as our custodian for client accounts. As you know, we have a long history with Fidelity going back to when Dick Young called on the firm during his Boston days, well before he started Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report. As Dick tells the story, Fidelity was always the high-water mark, along with Wellington Management, especially for the institutional business, and clearly was moving strongly into retail. Fidelity simply never looked back and continues its dominance today. So, if you’re going to trust your lifetime … [Read more...]

A power of attorney for a loved one is something you need to have in place ahead of any possible necessity. It should be as much a part of your preparations as storing water or preparing for a wildfire. Christine Fletcher explains some power of attorney clauses you should understand, writing: Many people have signed at least one power of attorney in their life. A power of attorney, which names a trusted family member, friend or advisor as your “attorney-in-fact” to control your assets, is meant to be used if you are incapacitated. For instance, if you have been in a car accident or are in a … [Read more...]

You know that BlackRock's Larry Fink has taken on the role of arbiter of corporate ethics. He's feeding his own EGO. His push to use investor money to sway board decisions on so-called environmental, social, and governance issues (ESG), has had major effects on how corporations are being run. Instead of focusing on returning value to shareholders, CEOs, whose pay is often tied to the company's short-term stock price (not long-term performance), are focused on making sure company stock ends up in BlackRock's latest ESG index fund offering. If it's included, the CEOs can expect a major bump in … [Read more...]

You have here yet another reason why certain exchange-traded funds and mutual funds are dangerous because MODELS break. That's when things get ugly. Dawn Lim reports in The Wall Street Journal what happened when some BlackRock models were altered. She writes: When BlackRock told brokerages that it had tweaked rules around its flagship model portfolios in late May, that set in motion synchronized buying and selling across its own funds. A BlackRock fund that tracks financial stocks took in a record influx of money for a day too. As part of changes on the week of May 26, BlackRock also cut the … [Read more...]

You understand you need food. You also understand food storage is hard. I know it’s a challenge for me. I’m good for about a week or two with what’s in my pantry. Then there’s another few months of freeze-dried stuff, which might make me feel like death, and then what? It’s just not an easy subject to tackle. And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it. I’m on the food thing again because of my recent experience described in, Oops! Your Survival Guy’s Encounter at the Grocery Store. Our food supply may be plentiful, but the workers moving the goods from farm to checkout are as fragile as … [Read more...]

You know I have been warning you about the big business billionaires who sell ways to save the world, like ESG funds, while really they're just charging you higher fees for a repackaged index fund. For them, it's all about their EGO. Now, The Wall Street Journal's Simon Clark reports on another example of investors being sold the idea of saving the world, only to be bilked by another pretender. Clark writes: “It’s a crucial moment in history. It’s an opportunity to immutably and absolutely change the course of innumerable lives.” Arif Naqvi, a silver-haired man of soft, bearish charm, … [Read more...]