Retirement Watch Weekly
An Update on the Effects of Brexit
Do you remember Brexit? That was when a majority of those casting votes in the United Kingdom were in favor of leaving the European Union. The initial forecasts were that the vote would be both a short-term and a long-term disaster for the United Kingdom and Europe. Global markets for risk assets (stocks, commodities, real […]
Anticipating Future Stock Market Returns
Meb Faber summarizes a talk he recently gave about valuations and what they say about likely future returns. He doesn’t make forecasts. He looks at the probabilities of different scenarios and what the returns are likely to be in each of those scenarios. The outcomes aren’t very positive for investment positions taken today. Historical returns […]
Steve Eisman, A Big Short, Gives His Current Views on the Economy and the Stock Market
Steve Eisman is one of the people given credit for seeing the mortgage/housing crisis coming and benefiting from the collapse. He’s been quiet the last few years. But this post describes his latest speech, in which he describes what he thinks is likely to be a good short position and a possible source of a […]
Investing in MLPs vs. Infrastructure Companies
Here’s an interesting post comparing investing in master limited partnerships to investing in infrastructure companies, including MLPs. It makes a number of good points and focuses on comparing two ETFs that initially appear to be similar but have very different holdings and performance over the last few years. It concludes that MLPs largely have morphed […]
Negative Surprises in the Economic Data
Markets are more volatile after a placid summer, and the economic data are a major cause. The recent economic data has been full of negative surprises, reports that are not as good as investors expected. Early in the summer it appeared that manufacturing had found its low point and might even start recovering. But most […]
Don’t Rely on the Social Security Administration to give you good Information
The Social Security Administration isn’t doing a good job of advising Americans on their options and how to make the best choices. That shouldn’t surprise any Retirement Watch readers, but it recently was confirmed in a study by the GAO. The government agency studied the information SSA gives to beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries and found […]
Who’s Against Legal Marijuana?
The public choice school of economics says that businesses try to influence laws and regulations to their benefit and their competitors’ detriment. This is called rent-seeking. It also holds that regulators often are captured by those they are supposed to regulate. One way to use this information is to look behind the headlines and surface […]
When Diversification Doesn’t Work
September 15, 2016 When Diversification Doesn’t Work There are times when diversification doesn’t provide the protection investors want. We saw an example in the last week. All, or almost all, assets other than cash decline when real interest rates are rising faster than expected returns on other assets. This situation usually occurs when central […]
