Monetary Policy Is the Key to Understanding the Business Cycle
No matter which way stock markets are moving, there are always people trying to understand why they go up or down, or which way they’ll move in the future. It can be tough to weed out the important commentary from the downright false, as many pundits have a vested interest in seeing markets move one way or another. But...
Foreign Policy Foibles Will Continue to Weigh on Markets
Will he or won’t he? That’s the question everyone is asking about the nuclear summit between the United States and North Korea. Will President Trump pull the plug on the summit, or will it go ahead as scheduled? With all the back and forth, no one seems to know for sure. And that uncertainty has weighed on stock markets,...
Markets Are Waiting… Now Is the Time for Action
After an amazing two-year run in which stock markets gained 60% in value, the past three months have seen stocks take a long hiatus. With the Dow trading mostly in the 24-25,000 point range, markets are largely waiting to see what direction the economy will take. On the positive side, the Trump tax cuts have put billions of dollars into...
Egyptian Billionaire Puts Half His Net Worth Into Gold
Many investment advisers take a dim view of investing in gold. They’ll try to push their clients into stocks and bonds, CDs, and various other financial investments. If gold even gets a mention, it might get a recommendation to make up about 3-5% of an investor’s portfolio. Even billionaires like Warren Buffet denigrate the importance of gold, which is...
Warren Buffett Is Completely Wrong on Gold
Every year the financial media await the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting, relishing the opportunity to run interviews with Warren Buffett. Buffett didn’t disappoint this year, speaking freely about his thoughts on a number of issues. Among them was the idea of gold as an investment, which Buffett rejected. The media reported his statements on gold with not even...
The Subtle But Powerful Danger of Inflation
We haven’t heard its name bandied about much in recent years, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a major threat: inflation. As John Maynard Keynes once wrote: Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved,...