If you had to own just one mutual fund, which one should it be? My answer is Vanguard Wellesley. In 2011, I coined the phrase “Sleep Well-esley at Night” to capture the safety first, survivalist manner of this balanced fund. A must have for you and your family. Since then we've made a lot of money together with the fund. It’s not an exciting fund. After all, close to two-thirds of the Vanguard Wellesley fund is in bonds. The rest is in stocks. But Vanguard Wellesley pays you a decent wage while you work through this market. It yields 2.74%. Sure there’s stocks or mutual funds that … [Read more...]
Never Run Out of Gas Again with a Connected Car
ExxonMobil is teaming up with Ford to add ExxonMobil's Speedpass+ app to Ford's SYNC3 Connectivity System. The connected systems will tell users before they even get into their vehicles if they're running low on gasoline. It will also pay for their gasoline automatically at Exxon and Mobil stations. Drivers will find the stations with GPS connected to the app that will show them the fastest route to the nearest station. The system will also help protect customers from credit card skimmers attached to gas pumps. ExxonMobil's Energy Factor explains the sytem: “What we heard from consumers is … [Read more...]
This is the Future of Elon Musk
I know and speak with a handful of Tesla car owners. They love them. Their enthusiasm is more powerful than an army of car salesmen. That’s not easy to do. It’s a good idea to listen to what Elon Musk is thinking. … [Read more...]
Banks Ask Trump to Hold Off on Crippling New Rules
Some of America's largest banks have asked the Trump administration to hold off on implementing new rules that would change the way banks book losses on their loans. Especially hard hit would be community banks. The bankers told the Trump administration the new rules could reduce lending, especially in depressed economic times. Michael Rapoport writes at The Wall Street Journal: The new loan-loss rule drawing fire from banks will require firms to immediately book all losses that they project their loans will ever suffer, as soon as the loans are issued. That is a significant change from the … [Read more...]
RAGE Gauge: Investors are Becoming Complacent
Complacent. That’s the word that sticks out in my mind in studying May’s RAGE Gauge. Investors have become complacent. As the indexing craze continues mad money props up the same stocks. Is that a good idea? There’s a false sense of confidence in believing one is diversified from buying an index when only a handful of companies move it. May’s reading is another warning of how complacent investors have become. It doesn’t mean the party is over. But it does mean more money riding on a few names. Don’t let the complacency bring you down. … [Read more...]
The Growing Costs of Cybercrime
This week hackers implemented an attack on Gmail users that used a fake authorization for Google Docs to lure users into giving over their login information. Google shutdown the operation quickly, but not before it had snared some unsuspecting users. The cost of global cybercrime is rising, with estimates for 2016 at around $460 billion and projections for 2019 at a stunning $2 trillion. Steve Morgan writes at Forbes: From 2013 to 2015 the cyber crime costs quadrupled, and it looks like there will be another quadrupling from 2015 to 2019. Juniper research recently predicted that the rapid … [Read more...]
Can You Live Anywhere You Want in the World?
Have you heard of Sprout? It’s not a food. It’s a company that’s involved with building the future. Literally. Sprout is part of the tiny house movement where the dream of living in 300 to 600 sq. feet becomes a reality. Sound like fun? Maybe not. For you at least. But hear me out. As real estate prices become more and more expensive in places we want to be—who services them? Think Baby Boomers and think Millennials. How do they co-exist successfully? It’s becoming more difficult in desirable places. Desirable being the driving force. Off the top of my head, and from … [Read more...]
This is a Serious Problem for Investors
We have covered the problem of fake news, media bias, and the declining quality of many of the best print publications in the past (see How to invest in an age of compromised and biased information for example), but much of the coverage on this topic from the mainstream media has been focused on political news. Politics isn’t the only topic where fake news and bias are a problem. As the FT reports, fake news has infiltrated the financial markets. And why wouldn’t it? The proliferation of free “investment analysis” on the internet has made the job of the fraudsters, hucksters, and other … [Read more...]
This is What Happens When the Market Crashes and You Need to Innovate
A market crash has a way of focusing the mind. The 2014-2015 crash in oil prices, for example, forced unconventional oil and gas producers (Frackers) to improve their water management programs. “The predominant overarching trend in the industry is still dominated by ways to reduce the total spend on water—whether through recycling or sourcing water for lower cost,” said Devesh Mittal, vice president and general manager of Aquatech’s Shale Gas Division. Jeff Gunderson writes at Industrial WaterWorld: According to Wastewater Treatment Technologies in Natural Gas Hydraulic Fracturing, a report … [Read more...]
Gadgets are Cheap Commodities, Services are the Future for the Tech Industry
For years tech companies have been trying to hook your phone to your computer, or your tablet to your computer so you can get the best of your mobile tech on your desktop. But after reading David Pierce's article in WIRED, you may think that the tech companies are missing the point. No one wants to connect their phone to their computer, they want to transition one service from their phone to the computer. Rather than enabling gadget marriages, tech companies should focus on moving the service from one device to another seamlessly without hooking them together. Pierce writes: At the very … [Read more...]
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