I recently traveled to China for two weeks both to visit a company we are invested in and also to visit a publisher who has translated into Chinese my father’s book on life as a newspaper reporter in China in the 1930’s (Haldore Hanson, Humane Endeavour, Farrar Rinehart, 1939). No matter how often I visit […]
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Retail is Dead, Long Live Retail…
Is there hope for retailers with a heavy bricks and mortar presence? There may just be. In fact, it may just be that reports on the death of retail have been greatly exaggerated. For one thing, quite a few retailers have announced good holiday results. The tone at the recent ICR Conference for consumer and […]
Expecting The Unexpected…
2017 turned out to be a banner year for investors. Stock markets around the globe produced stellar gains with limited volatility and even bonds inched ahead in the face of gradually rising rates. Understandably, most are wondering if this benign environment can continue in 2018. In a recent article, the Financial Times predicted that this […]
The 2-Minute Thought: The Lesson from Retail Stocks: Patience
The stock of Kohl’s Corporation (KSS), the operator of Kohl’s department stores, fell from $79 in early 2015 to $36 by mid-2016. For anyone who got interested in the stock as it was falling, it’s been a frustrating period. Kohl’s has had its ups and downs, but the news has been generally dismal. The stock […]
The 2-Minute Thought: The Calendar Effect and Eating
In a recent Financial Times story that profiled several workers making sandwiches at the UK-based sandwich shop Pret A Manger, it was fascinating to read about the rhythms of the shift from 5 am through the breakfast and lunch rush. It also was fascinating to read that there’s a weekly pattern to what customers choose […]
The 2-Minute Thought Looking for Stocks Like Pepper Food Service
Source: Nikkei Asian Review Do you know Pepper Food Service? It’s a Japanese company that runs steak restaurant chains. If you haven’t heard of it, you’d be far from alone. But you may wish you had because its stock is up more than 800% since January of this year. At one point in late October, […]
The 2-Minute Thought: Tax Reform in a Different Spirit
Suffering from tax reform fatigue? If so, perhaps it would be refreshing to take a look at something completely different — like Japan, which also is planning changes to its tax code but in an entirely different spirit. What’s different? One thing is that although Shinzo Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party are conservatives, […]
And This Year’s Winner Is…
We have been publishing a chocolate Holiday Treat in the December Newsletter for 20 years now, but we must confess it wasn’t until last year that we got our test kitchen act together. Now we are organized. Everyone in the office is challenged to bring in a chocolate recipe to be taste-tested by all and […]
Economics Is The Allocation Of Scarce Resources…
I teach a course at the University of Vermont through the Grossman School of Business titled Personal Finance and Investing. Few colleges have ever offered a course like this. People ask me, “What is this, how to balance a checkbook?” Hardly. Personal Finance is taught so infrequently because it is considered “trade school,” not sufficiently […]
Things Are Better Than We Think…
Ready for some good news before the Holidays? Here it is: The world is happier than you think, and things probably are not as bad as they seem. What do I mean? Take a look at the chart here from the excellent site Our World in Data. It compares how happy people are with how […]
If Some Is Good, More Must Be Better…
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are considered to be one of the investment world’s great inventions. When first launched back in 1993, ETFs represented an improvement over their earlier index mutual fund cousins largely because they allowed investors to trade throughout the day rather than accept only end of day prices. Unfortunately, Wall Street, ever on […]
The 2-Minute Thought: What I Learned from Writing a Novel in a Month
Forgive me for taking a slightly longer break from “The 2-Minute Thought” than expected. The reason was that I wrote a novel in the month of November – and then I needed to recuperate for a week. Yup, I wrote a novel in 30 days. It isn’t bestseller material, and it ain’t publishable or even […]
