Investing is a confidence game. Without a certain expectation of return, no one will defer current consumption and invest for future consumption. Currently, we are being overwhelmed by a lack of confidence in that return. People have been fed a fairly steady diet of bad news about nearly everything and never given the whole story in such a way as to increase that expectation of return. It was Will Rogers who quipped “I’ve stopped worrying about the return on my money. Now I just worry about the return of my money.” We all have a piece of Will Rogers in us these days. But, the big question is whether that attitude is warranted and will it continue? Read more
A Look at Our Cumulative Debt
As Herb Stein Might Say
Let’s take A Look at Our Cumulative Debt. The topic seems to be much in the news, so maybe a little data would help understand just where we are. Read more
Real Estate Outlook: Bumpy Recovery
What do you make of a market where pending home sales drop, as they did in the latest monthly survey, but many other real estate and mortgage indicators are trending positive at the same time? Read more
Water Features Enhance Home Appeal
With the summer months pushing temperatures over 100 degrees in some areas and humidity leaving drips of perspiration on people’s brows, it might be time to consider a water feature to help enhance your home’s appeal.
I’m writing this from the desert and everywhere you look, flowing, glistening, and pleasant-sounding water pours from fountains on commercial and home properties. It’s alluring, welcoming, and calming. When it comes to selling your home, a water fountain can help to create a peaceful and enjoyable experience. It can also help to drown out noisy children playing nearby. Read more
Think Long-Term Investment
We have been getting a little short-term focused in recent missives. We apologize for this short-coming. We really need to think and act long-term all of the time. What does it mean to think and act long-term? Well, not everyone has the same idea about that, but here is ours: don’t worry about the short-term outlook, worry about meeting long-term goals. No one is going to meet their long-term goals by sitting in cash, especially at 0.10% yields. Very few people are going to meet their long-term goals by buying bonds with coupons of 3%, especially when you have to pay a premium to get them. The math just doesn’t work that way. The only way for anyone with a long-term return requirement of 6% or 7% is going to meet that goal is by owning stocks, real estate and commodities most of the time. Read more
What’s the Dow Doing Today?
We hope your Holiday weekend was a good one.
With the general negative sentiment and outlook surrounding the world markets over the past several weeks and months, we have to wonder how many “sellers” remain. If we go back to the basic underpinnings of what a market represents-a structure for exchange, dictated by constantly-changing supply and demand-what else would need to be “priced in” for more shares in various companies to be sold? That’s correct, companies with value and individual merits, as opposed to just index numbers. We have a tendency to forget this relationship as well as the one that strong pessimism and market troughs on a graph tend to appear together. The centuries-old “buy when you see blood in the streets” adage has been effective, although it doesn’t feel so positive at the time. Read more