Why I Work for You, and Not the Other Way Around
If you’re a client, you know you matter. We have a relationship. We talk about our families. You matter. In an industry where mega-investment-firms are acquiring medium-sized firms, what tends to get lost in the churn is you, the client—the one making it all work. Integration of your needs into a bigger firm’s desires is like a chicken processing plant, where there’s not much to talk about afterward because the relationship died long ago, and you’re there for the pickin’. Bringing in a new client takes time. It shouldn’t happen with a takeover deal. It takes care. It takes several … [Read more...]
Why Your Next Diamond Might Be Grown in a Lab
In The New York Times, Victoria Gomelsky reports on how the closure of the Argyle Mine in Western Australia will change the way the diamond industry sources its gems. She writes: After mining more than 865 million carats of rough diamonds since opening in 1983, the Argyle Mine in the remote East Kimberley region of Western Australia brought the last truck of diamond-bearing ore to the surface on Nov. 3. The owner, the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, had announced in 2018 that, by the end of this year, it would no longer be economical to keep digging. Argyle was famed for … [Read more...]
This Rivals the Dotcom Mania
The most famous book on the history of financial bubbles was written by Charles Kindleberger. He called it, Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises. Kindleberger wrote manias are first enabled through an expansion of money and credit. “Speculative manias gather speed through expansion of money and credit. Most expansions of money and credit do not lead to a mania; there are many more economic expansions than there are manias. But every mania has been associated with the expansion of credit.” We have an expansion of money and credit, thanks to a central bank that views … [Read more...]
How to Hire Investment Counsel: This is the Way
Real quick. You’re interested in hiring a financial advisor—one who’s held to a fiduciary standard by law, not some silly suitability one. You know you need help, but you just can’t make it happen because there’s resistance: No time, no real interest in digging into it, or you don’t know enough to explain to a loved one why you need it. “We’re fine, aren’t we?” She might ask. OK, here are summaries of two calls I had yesterday with prospective clients that will help you gain some perspective. The first one was with a prospective client whom was referred to me by a client I’ve been … [Read more...]
Will Work PCs Become a Thing of the Past?
ComputerWorld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols outlines the future of PCs as he sees it, writing: Ready or not, here comes Windows as a Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) for all users in the forthcoming Microsoft Cloud PC offering. I've been predicting that many of us would soon be using Desktop-as-a-Service for a long time now. I can give you an approximate date now. By May 2021, most of you will be able to run Windows from Microsoft's Azure cloud using Cloud PC. Of course, you've long been able to run Windows remotely. Citrix Systems , after all, starting back in 1989 made a multi-billion dollar … [Read more...]
Steering One of the World’s Largest Food Suppliers Through a Pandemic
Jacob Bunge of The Wall Street Journal tells us how David MacLennan of Cargill Inc. steered on of the world's largest food suppliers through Covid-19's world-wide spread. MacLennan is bracing for another surge, Bunge writes (abridged): David MacLennan steered one of the world’s biggest food suppliers through Covid-19’s world-wide spread in the spring. Now he is bracing for another surge. Cargill Inc., a 155-year-old company with 155,000 employees in 70 countries, straddles the global food- and agriculture-supply chains, processing farmers’ crops, packing meat and distributing sugar, salt, … [Read more...]
While US Continues to Recover, Europe Falters
Paul Hannon and Amara Omeokwe of The Wall Street Journal reports: The U.S. economy continues to recover from the downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to business surveys that show services and manufacturing activity growing despite a rising number of infections. The U.S. performance contrasts with surveys showing the European economy is set for a fresh contraction in the final quarter of 2020, as lockdowns aimed at containing the coronavirus have led to a sharp decline in activity in the dominant services sector. … [Read more...]
Be a Shepherd. You’ll Be Happier. Greed Kills
I was talking with a client yesterday. He emailed me earlier in the afternoon. The subject line read “New Customer.” His neighbor recently retired. She has a lot of company stock. She asked him what he’s doing with his money. She was intrigued by the “Armadillo” approach. I’ll let you know how our talk goes. Until then, I want to share with you the rest of my conversation. I’m so impressed with my client. He’s built his business over many years of hard work by taking small steps. Being in technology, he’s benefitted significantly from COVID. But he was ready for it. He was preparing all of … [Read more...]
The Swedish Firm that Could Turn Amazon into an Also-ran
As we all know, Amazon dominates online commerce. Wal-mart is a strong, but distant number two. The pandemic exacerbated those trends, but it may have also lit a fire under complacent retailers. Brick and mortar retailers who want to survive realized they must have a strong online presence. The two biggest hurdles we see to buying from other online retailers are fast shipping and the hassle of signing up for an account. A Swedish startup firm, Klarna may have a solution to the second problem. Klarna allows users who sign up for their service to buy products online and pay later at … [Read more...]