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January Stock and Fund Picks

State of the Economy: As growth slow and AI continues to grow, the labor market slowly deteriorates as the "Labor Market Trends Index" shows: The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) Declined in December Latest Press Release Updated: Monday, January 12, 2026 The Conference Board Employment Trends Index™ (ETI) declined in December to 104.27, from a downwardly revised 104.64 in November. The Employment Trends Index is a leading composite index for payroll employment. When the Index increases, employment is likely…

December Stock and Fund Picks

Another in a long line of Presidential disasters brought on by ignorance and incompetence continues to be a plaque on the markets. Obama, as you might remember, was leading us into a recession during his second term by overregulating everything in sight. I'm sure his intentions were good but he kept increasing costs and slowing economic growth anyway. Trump is no different. His tariffs lead to both an economic slowdown and inflation. This is commonly referred to as a stagflationary…

November Stock and Fund Picks

November 20, 2025: We've completed our move to another state and I should be back to updating this blog more regularly as a consequence. As we slowly slide into a more distinctive stagflationary scenario resulting from an internal supply-side shock caused by increased tariffs, the Fed is increasingly uncertain as to whether it should focus on the deteriorating economy through interest rate cuts, or the increasing inflationary outlook through interest rate increases. Recently, it has focused on the deteriorating economy…

June Stock and Fund Picks

June 7: There are currently three areas of relative value for investing. Only two of them are relatively safe from tariff risks. These two are municipal bonds and gold. Municipal bonds have been sold off sufficiently that many CEFs sell at discounted values and provide fairly high interest rates. The after tax equivalent yield is obtained by dividing 1 - your marginal tax rate into the nominal yield. Obviously, the higher your marginal tax bracket the higher the after tax…

May Stock and Fund Picks

May 30, 2025: Trump only offers bad things for our economy. Everyone knows, since the last half of Trump's first administration, that tariffs are his only policy. Moreover, tariffs only do harm. Thus, the more recent announcements of new tariffs have caused the stock market to plunge. Trump then chickens out and announces the tariffs are now off. The stock market then rallies. This is called the "TACO" or Trump always chickens out trade. There is no long-run growth or…

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