In December we do a chocolate recipe. In January we are expected to comment on the year ahead. The Financial Times did an excellent piece on looking at the future in its September 6–7, 2014 issue. They noted that talking about the future is not really about the future at all but about the problems […]
News & Insights
“Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”
So says super(thin)model Kate Moss. While these words resonate with us in January when we’re ready to turn a new leaf, their power seems to fade with time. That’s why weight loss keeps returning to the top of New Year’s resolution lists year after year – because many of us try and fail. And while […]
How Low Can Oil Prices Go?
Most investors have the good sense to ignore the daily barrage of market statistics. But the recent sharp drop in oil prices seems to have caught everyone’s attention. Over the last six months, oil prices have fallen 50% to levels not seen since 2009. The causes of the decline are pretty straightforward. Oil is a […]
Julie Won Attends Easter Seals Event
Julie Won attended the “18th Annual Food Wine and Beer Fest” on December 4, 2014, in San Ramon, CA, a fundraiser for Easter Seals Bay Area (ESBA). Event attendees sampled food and world-class wine and beer poured by Northern California’s top-rated wineries and breweries to support ESBA, a nonprofit that helps individuals and families affected by disabilities […]
Our Holiday Gift
Seventeen years and running now we have dusted off our Test Kitchen each December and tried out a new chocolate Holiday Treat. We have done cupcakes and mousse and even a bourbon infused chocolate bundt cake. But we have never done macaroons. The added attraction here, and remember we are in finance, is the recipe […]
The Baltics in Winter
I must confess I don’t know that much about Eastern Europe so a trip to the Baltics sounded like a good idea. It was a great choice. The Baltics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) get their name from the Baltic Sea (see map). The three countries are small with populations between 1 million (Estonia) and 3 […]
What Investment Success Really Means
What is investing success? How do we know when we’re doing really well? Most of us would say that success is when our investment returns are better than whatever we choose to compare them to. We may compare them to a specific benchmark like the S&P500, or to how others around us doing, but no […]
Things You May Have Missed in 2014
When I think about the past year, a number of significant events come to mind; the heart-wrenching Ebola outbreak in Africa, the simmering conflict in Ukraine and rise of ISIS, the al Qaeda splinter group that has gained power across much of Syria and Iraq. But while all of these developments were justifiably headline grabbing, […]
The China Speed Read
China is important today. Julie is writing about it on page 4 and I give you three snippets here that have been in the news recently and may be of interest. How big is big? China’s development since 1979 is for the record books. No country in history has pulled as many people out of […]
Great News – A Life Extended
The chart below is music to our ears. If you are fortunate enough to get to 65, the tables say you are going to live two years longer on average than the same tables predicted in 2000. Advances in medicine for the two biggest killers, heart disease and cancer, have certainly helped. And further good […]
We Are The New China
Well not exactly but it is looking more like this. For many years China was the engine of the world. It was reassuring to see China growing 10% to 12% per year while we in the developed world were stumbling from one Bubble to another. Now the tables have turned a bit. China is still […]
Luck Runs Out for Macau’s Casinos
After years of light-speed growth, gambling in Macau is finally taking a breather. This is the first year ever that gambling revenue in the Chinese territory has fallen, and the slowdown has been significant. October, the fifth straight month of dwindling business, was the worst decline in history. And the stock prices of Macau’s big […]
