Latest Posts
-
Finance 0
US Wages: The Short-Term Mystery Resolved
The Great Recession ended more than eight years ago, in June 2009. The US unemployment rate declined slowly after that, but it has now been below 5.0% every month for more than two years, since September 2015. Thus, an ongoing mystery for the US economy is: Why haven’t wages started to rise more quickly as the labor market conditions improved? Jay Shambaugh, Ryan Nunn, Patrick Liu, and Greg Nantz provide some factual background to address this question in “Thirteen Facts about Wage Growth,” written for the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution (September 2017). The second part of the report addresses the questi... -
Finance 0
Deutsche: The Swings In The Market Are About To Get Bigger And Bigger
One week ago, on November 9 something snapped in the Nikkei, which in the span of just over an one hour (from 13:20 to 14:30) crashed more than 800 points (before closing almost unchanged) at the same something snapped in the Nikkei, that foreigners had just bought a record amount of Japanese stocks the previous month. As expected, numerous theories emerged shortly after the wild plunge, with explanation from the mundane, i.e., foreigners dumping as the upward momentum abruptly ended, to the “Greek”, as gamma and vega stops were hit by various vol-targeting (CTAs, systemic, variable annutities, and risk parity) funds. One such... -
Finance 0
Bitcoin’s Price Drop Not A Buying Opportunity
“Paul, what do you think of bitcoin?” If you read my ll, you know that I believe bitcoin is real. However, the current mania for it looks unsustainable. Now, bitcoin fans and owners are going to disagree with me. After all, how can you really argue with their success? On December 31, 2016, you could buy a bitcoin for $968.23. At its high on November 8, 2017, it was at $7,879.06. That’s a gain of 714% in under a year! Astonishing, incredible and mind-boggling gains. In other words, when it comes to the real bottom line — making money through gains — bitcoin owners have been right. However, bitcoin has suddenly lost its mojo. A Sharp... -
Finance 0
Five Decades Of Middle-Class Wages: October 2017 Update
We’ve updated this series to include yesterday’s release of the Consumer Price Index as the deflator and the October monthly employment update. The latest hypothetical real (inflation-adjusted) annual earnings are at $37,441, down 12.8% from 44 years ago. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been collecting data on this workforce cohort since 1964. The government numbers provide some excellent insights on the income history of what we might think of as the private middle-class wage earner. The first snapshot shows the growth of average hourly earnings. The nominal data exhibits a relatively smooth upward trend. There are, however, t... -
Finance 0
Junk Bounce
Today’s buy-a-palooza is neatly represented by the surge in high-yield bonds, such as JNK: ……and the high-yield corporate fund HYG: ... -
Finance 0
Bitcoin’s Success Is Excellent News For Gold
2017 isn’t over yet but one could say, without a doubt, it has been a good year for Bitcoin – from 1,000 dollars at the start of January to more than 7,000 dollars in November! All records have been broken and there is still a lot of room for it to progress, given the many innovations allowed by this crypto-currency. We’re at the beginning of a true paradigm change. 2017 will also be the year of Bitcoin’s public success since more and more people want to participate in this adventure and profit from such rapid gains. Coinbase, the main Bitcoin trading platform in the United States, where one can exchange Bitcoins for dollars, announc... -
Finance 0
Nvidia The Guaranteed Way To Make Money In The Stock Market?
Have you heard of Nvidia (NVDA)? They are the jewel of the stock market right now and for good reason. The company is hitting on all cylinders. But when a stock price endlessly rises, investors get nervous thinking it will soon reach its peak and then trend lower. While this is a valid concern, it is not applicable to Nvidia. Why? Because this company has made the right moves to plant itself as a guaranteed performer for the next 10 years, at least. Let’s dive into Nvidia and see what makes this company so amazing and why the stock price is only going to continue to rise. Who Is Nvidia? Nvidia is a chip maker plain and simple. They make the... -
News 0
The threat of water scarcity looms large
“Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a sailor finds himself trapped in the middle of the ocean, dehydrated and surrounded by useless salt water. Today, we are faced with a similar problem globally: while about 71 percent of the Earth is covered by water, there is a troublesome mismatch between where water is and where it’s needed. The effects of water scarcity can be catastrophic – so much so that, since 2012, the World Economic Forum has rated water crises among its top three global risks in terms of impact, ranking them alongside weapons of mass... -
Finance 0
Stocks Are 40% Undervalued Right Now
The bears have great arguments in the current market. Among the most interesting is that stocks are overvalued. But with interest rates where they are, stocks are deeply undervalued. The chart below shows the actual price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of the S&P 500 and the justified P/E ratio, which is the fair value of the ratio based on interest rates. The current P/E ratio is 26.9. That’s higher than average, and that has the bears worried. Legendary investor Warren Buffett’s teacher, Ben Graham, taught that the proper P/E ratio depended on interest rates. He wrote that the P/E ratio should be equal to the inverse of the long-term in... -
Finance 0
All Eyes On Amazon As Cities Compete For Second HQ
Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) seeks to be the world’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they may want to buy online. The company lists unique items in categories such as books, music, DVDs, videos, consumer electronics, toys, camera and photo items, software, computer and video games, tools and hardware, lawn and patio items, kitchen products, and wireless products. We have been hitting retail hard of late in our bulletins and long-time readers know that driving so much of the “creative destruction” in the sector is the elephant on the internet, Amazon.com. Amazon’s online sales ar...
Top Posts
-
The Importance for Individuals to Use Sustainable Chemicals
-
Small Businesses: Finding the Right Candidate for the Job
-
How to Write the Perfect Thank You Letter After Your Job Interview
-
3 Best Large-Cap Blend Mutual Funds For Enticing Returns
-
China suspected in massive breach of federal personnel data
