Amazon, the massive online retailer, just keeps on increasing its logistical infrastructure. Now the e-commerce giant is building a 1 million square foot facility in Burlington, NJ. Jan Hefler of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes: Amazon spokeswoman Rachael Lighty said the 1 million square-foot facility would create 600 full-time jobs for area residents, adding to the more than 16,000 the company employs across the state. Amazon’s selection of the Burlington site continues the company’s plans for distribution warehouses in South Jersey. There are centers in Florence in Burlington County and … [Read more...]
Survive and Thrive June: Knife Attack: Your Survival Guy in Paris
“Did you hear the gun shots?” a friend asked. “No,” I said. When the knife attack occurred, we, like many other families on a Saturday night in Paris, were out to dinner. In fact, we didn’t learn about the attack until much later. In retrospect, I’m surprised no one at our restaurant told us about it or warned us. Part of me believes they knew the situation was under control and didn’t want to ruin our night or scare us. Or they just didn’t know about it. We learned about the attack back in our hotel room, flipping through the channels on the TV. Seeing the live report brought mixed … [Read more...]
Interest Rates Need to be Higher Pronto
Inflation? Yes it’s a thing. Anyone living in the real world recognizes it at the grocery store, in the real estate section of their local newspaper, and the stock market for that matter. Those in retirement trying to live off of their portfolio are paying the price for a reckless monetary policy. Rates need to be higher pronto. The editors of The Wall Street Journal write: Investors briefly bid up the 10-year Treasury yield above 3% on the news before it fell back to 2.97%. But forward guidance has always seemed overrated as a policy tool, and with growth picking up it was becoming a … [Read more...]
A Private Equity Quant Fund?
Yup, as the FT reports here, the folk at Man Group and AQR are developing quant funds to track the returns of private equity. How does one invest quantitatively in private companies? You don’t. The private equity quant funds will seek to replicate the returns of private equity in the public markets. It turns out that buying highly leveraged small-cap value stocks has a return profile similar to the returns of the private equity asset class (see research here for example). One has to applaud the quants for lifting the veil on many Private equity managers sole competitive advantage (that’s … [Read more...]
Highest Number of Pay Raises in Decades
The NFIB small business survey is showing the highest net number of firms raising worker pay in over three decades. A net 35% of small businesses polled report raising compensation over the last three months. This job market is on cooking. … [Read more...]
Higher Costs and Trade Risks Scare American Manufacturers Away from China
In a change of course, American businesses like Amazon and Microsoft are expanding in Taiwan, rather than mainland China. The move is a reaction to rising costs of labor and increased trade risk due to heightened tensions between China's communist government and the Trump administration. Kotaro Hosokawa and Kensaku Ihara report at Nikkei Asian Review: The interest in Taiwan owes partly to a cheaper pool of talent than in China, where labor costs are climbing steadily. In Taiwan, entry-level engineers with master's degrees employed in electronics or telecommunications earn an average of about … [Read more...]
Who is Buying Long Bonds Today?
Thirty-year Treasuries yield 3.11% today. Ten-year Treasuries yield 2.97%. You get an extra 0.13% in income each year for lending the government money for an additional 30 years. Sounds like a raw deal. Not according to some institutional investors as reported here by the FT. The 30-year or “long bond”, currently yielding 3.10 per cent, is attractive for so-called buy and hold investors such as pension funds and insurers who need to offset lengthy liabilities over the coming decades. A steady rise in yields from below 2.70 per cent in December has been accompanied by stronger demand at … [Read more...]
Sweden Puts the Brakes on its Cashless Society Plans
How quickly things can change. Back in April I wrote to you of Sweden's all out dash toward creating the world's first cashless society. Digital currency was the wave of the future, and the Swedes were happy to lead. Now, though, the movement toward a cashless society in Sweden is being challenged. Swedish politicians are attempting to rein in the policies of the Riksbank, Sweden's central bank, that encourage cashlessness. Bloomberg reports: A key committee of Swedish lawmakers wants to force the country’s biggest banks to handle cash in an effort to halt the nation’s march toward … [Read more...]
Vermont’s Relocation Grant, Really?
I keep a regular eye on the way states treat their citizens. I regularly warn readers here to avoid those states papering over their structural problems with higher taxes and freedom-restricting regulations. At the same time I applaud those states where entrepreneurs and businesses are rewarded for their hard work and innovation with lower taxes and greater liberty. One thing that is upsetting to me and probably to most Americans is when a state uses its tax dollars to reward a specific group. Picking winners is not in a state's best interest, nor is it good for that state's citizens. … [Read more...]
Schwarzenegger on Investment: We Learn More from Our Failures
In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal's Chris Kornelis, actor, former Mr. Olympia, and former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger said “We learn not only just from our success, but we learn actually more from our failures.” Schwarzenegger was speaking about the investments he's made in his life, both in his time and his money. Schwarzenegger says his best bet was coming to the United States, and his worst was the film Hercules in New York. He explains why saying of his immigration: “Coming to America opened up all the doors that I didn’t even think about,” he says. … [Read more...]
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