The stork is not working overtime: 10.6 million – the number of babies born in China in 2021, the lowest since 1949. The one child policy put in place in 1980 was highly effective. Now China needs more babies, but urban couples are balking. Like everywhere, raising more children is increasingly expensive. (Barron’s)7.3 million – […]
News & Insights
Revisiting the 4% rule…
You have saved diligently for 20, 30, even 40 years. Now comes the big question: How much can you comfortably withdraw from your nest egg and not run out of funds by the time you die? This is not an inconsequential question since life expectancy is up significantly the past 50 years. The average 65-year-old […]
Back to normal! Uh, excuse me, what again is normal?…
Now that we are getting back to some semblance of normal, we have all sorts of questions. Should we still wear masks even where it is no longer officially required? And what about restaurants? Some of us have not been inside one for months if not years. Everything still the same there? And what about […]
As they say in Texas, “That was a long bus ride for not very much.” …
I am talking about the value of making market predictions. The yield curve (see chart) is rising now, meaning short-term rates are moving higher and long-term rates also. Starting from the bottom, the lines represent the yield curve at the beginning of 2021, a month ago, a week ago, and today. The point is rates […]
If you’re right more than 50% of the time… you’re lying…
Not sure exactly who said this, but they were talking about making predictions. It’s just a fool’s errand to try to look too precisely into the future. Unfortunately, this is what we all must do when dealing with our investments. COVID has been a real disruptor to everyone’s daily lives but surprisingly not a big […]
One thing you can always count on…
Is the delight of a chocolate recipe extraordinaire. Each year since 1998, we have scoured the very ends of the earth for the right chocolate recipe for our December issue. This year’s comes from Art Wright, and it’s a winner. Don’t forget the whipped cream and enjoy. Happy holidays from all of us. Ultimate Bread […]
Not back in the office yet…
According to Google’s Community Mobility data, we are visiting supermarkets and drugstores at the same level we did before the pandemic, and we are almost back to pre-pandemic levels when it comes to visiting restaurants, shopping centers, and recreational spots like theme parks, movie theaters, and museums. But the one place we still are not […]
Hanson + Doremus’ Vermont City Marathon Relay Team
Team Hanson+Doremus had a great time running in the 2021 Vermont City Marathon Relay! The event looked a little different this year, with everyone running the same 5-mile course at the same time (instead of handing off to each other across the regular marathon route). This was great for us because we could all keep […]
How worried are we about the world?…
How worried should we be? The list of potential investing headwinds is growing. The economy looks like it’s decelerating as the Delta variant, supply chain constraints, and hiring challenges throw sand in the cogs of growth. Inflation is running hot. Some are even talking about stagflation, the combination of low growth and high inflation that […]
“Things are hopeless but not serious.” (Viennese Satirist, Karl Kraus)
The Social Security Trustees recently released their Annual Report August 31, which warned that the Social Security Reserve Fund would run out of money by 2033, one year earlier than previously projected. Social Security is paid from two sources: First from FICA payroll taxes, the 7.65% of gross pay paid by both employees and employers. […]
Back to the office…Remedial education required
We here at Hanson+Doremus try to be “impactful” and “value-add.” We are all about “big data” (we read multiple newspapers!) we have “great capacity” (10+ employees!) and operate “holistically” and “sustainably” (just like the SATs, I am going to assume it is OK to guess on the meaning of some of these.) Buzzwords. Buzzwords. The […]
A quarter century on…any words of wisdom?
We have been writing this newsletter for 25 years now. We are not market forecasters. We don’t try to tell you when to buy or when to sell. We are long-term investors, almost always fully invested. We help clients decide on an appropriate level of risk, stocks versus bonds versus cash, and then we stick […]
Keeping an eye on your cash…
For most of the past decade, we didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about how to invest our clients’ cash. With short-term interest rates pegged near zero, it didn’t really matter whether your “ready” funds were in a bank deposit account, money market fund, CD, or short-term Treasury bill. Income on cash-like instruments of […]
Are bonds still worth it?…
Dropping bond prices have recently caused anguish for many investors, especially since bonds are usually held out as the less risky part of a balanced portfolio. With the U.S. bond market losing more than 9% so far in 2022, it’s natural to wonder if bonds are still holding up their end of the bargain. Over […]
Globalization in retreat? 1914 redux?…
From the end of the Civil War to 1914, globalization, or the increase in trade between nations, grew dramatically. This was due in part to leaps in transportation technology like steamships, the building of the Suez/Panama Canals, and transatlantic cables which allowed for more direct telegraph links. Then came World War I, and globalization came […]
What are this year’s tech breakthroughs?
Picture a factory that sucks carbon dioxide out of the air to reduce global warming, then turns it into stone. Well, it’s real, and it’s been operating outside of Reykjavik, Iceland since last September. It’s also been identified as one of the 10 breakthrough technologies of 2022 by the MIT Technology Review, which has been […]
It’s 2022 and prices are on a tear…
It’s our 36th year of tracking the Hanson Index, our yearly lighthearted look at local prices for Vermont essentials like a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cone or a Burlington beach permit. As you’d expect, prices are mostly up, but luckily, our Hanson Index doesn’t include the worst of the past year’s price hikes like […]
The trend is your friend…Except at both ends…
Barton Biggs was one of the absolute best stock market commentators in the 1980s and 90s. He was a partner at Morgan Stanley for over 30 years and the firm’s first Global Strategist. I saved one of his commentaries from 1982, which talks about the need for different strategies in different times. “Winston Churchill in […]
Is diversification working?…
As professional investors, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to best construct portfolios for our clients. These efforts focus on identifying the combination of assets (stocks, bonds, cash etc.) that will produce the maximum return for a desired level of risk. A whole body of research, based on vast quantities of historic […]
“There are weeks when decades happen.” – Vladimir Lenin
This is one of those times. The invasion of Ukraine has produced horrors on the ground, a refugee crisis of one to two million Ukrainians fleeing to neighboring countries (and counting), and a response by the West that has been both strong and unified. Not only have Western Europe and the U.S. put lockdown restrictions […]
Are wage gains here to stay?…
Companies are struggling to cope with rising wage costs. As reported in recent earnings calls, this fact seems to be true regardless of whether you are a firm trying to attract and retain hourly workers or highly paid software engineers. In some cases, the labor shortage is having an immediate impact; restaurants like Starbucks have […]
