Stay the course: Stay in cash and do not buy any new stocks or funds at this time. If I don’t recommend you deploy capital then I can’t be accused of giving you overly risky or just plain bad advise. If you already have a dividend reinvestment portfolio then just hold it and let it… Continue reading April Stock and Fund Picks
March 2020 State of the Markets
Last week of February priced in only a part of the negative supply-side shock of the Corona virus outbreak. When theme parks and public events such as the Olympics are either under consideration for cancelation or being canceled at an accelerating rate, people are staying home rather than going out such as in Italy and… Continue reading March 2020 State of the Markets
February Stock and Fund Picks
All business cycle monitoring sites from Seeking Alpha indicate an ongoing expansion that is simply slowing down due to a lack of private sector investment, industrial production, and anti-supply-side protectionist trade policies. Instead of cyclical indicators only, I prefer to also look at the misery index as an indicator of a potential recession. The misery… Continue reading February Stock and Fund Picks
January 2020 Stock and Fund Picks
All policies have negative consequences. The hope is that positive consequences will outweigh those that are negative. For example, in the late 1990s Pres. Clinton placed recruitment restrictions on the CIA that caused its staff to shrink by half. Clinton also cut CIA and military funding substantially. The 9/11 terrorist attacks followed. Bill Clinton also… Continue reading January 2020 Stock and Fund Picks
December Stock and Fund Picks
Isolationism and increasing inefficiency that results will continue to push output down. Already it has reduced investment, which in turn reduces productivity growth, as well as both exports and imports which account for about 40 – 45% of our economy. Let me illustrate how this works. Two nearby islands routinely trade with each other because… Continue reading December Stock and Fund Picks
November Stock and Fund Picks
Beware the unemployment rate. It went down during the Obama administration because people dropped out of the labor force, not because job growth was strong. To illustrate, assume 100 people are in the labor force (working or looking for work and unemployed, non-institutionalized, and greater than 16 years of age). Assume 5 people are unemployed… Continue reading November Stock and Fund Picks
October Stock and Fund Picks
The last quarter appears to hinge on whether economist’s negative expectations of an economy that has slowed from 3% to 2% growth because of tariff policies will continue to slow and then fall into a recession. For the previous 2 quarters negative earnings estimates have been below actual results. That this quarters earnings will continue… Continue reading October Stock and Fund Picks
September Stock and Fund Picks
The new dovish Fed posture requires some adjustment among income funds in my suggested portfolio of monthly paying stocks and funds (the last one is from the August post). REITS and bond funs with longer duration tend to outperform when short rates are lowered. Floating rate funds, on the other hand, have performed worse. Also,… Continue reading September Stock and Fund Picks
August Stock and Fund Picks
Week 1 -2 (Aug. 1 – 15): There are changes to my personal portfolio from July. Specifically, I’m dropping EPR and CCMNX and adding PHD and BSL. These changes are now reflected in the updated portfolio. Most stock analysts are weak at Open Economy Macroeconomics and tend to look only at the initial static effect… Continue reading August Stock and Fund Picks
July Stock and Fund Picks
Week 1 (July 1 – 5): As opposed to just kicking the can down the road and giving the Chinese spy company Huawei a life-line, the bullish bias in the market has interpreted the trade truce with China as an actual trade deal . As you know, I’m not in favor of doing any business… Continue reading July Stock and Fund Picks