You would think Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase has little to worry about today. The economy is strong, loan losses are minimal and the bank’s earnings and stock price are doing great. But in Dimon’s annual letter to shareholders he is very worried about one thing – – a pickup in inflation. If […]
Eric Hanson
Demographics are Destiny…
Well not exactly, but there is truth in this. It takes a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman to hold a country’s population steady. The U.S. had been at this number but recently has fallen back (see chart below). The number of children American women hope to have and what they achieve is drifting […]
All That Is In Peril Is Not Lost…
Well maybe, but you might not want to be too complacent. China is the world leader in many areas today (manufacturing, exports, solar panels, etc.) and catching up fast in others, like technology. Chinese startups have come to Silicon Valley for years to see how things are done. Now they are wondering if there is […]
A Wall Street Update: Back to Reality…
Ernest Hemingway once said about bankruptcy, it happens “gradually and then suddenly.” Well on Wall Street we got a rude awakening recently as we moved from little or no volatility last year to multi-day triple digit declines. We were lulled into complacency in 2018 with a gently rising market. Now it’s back to reality. Over […]
“How To Invest In An Overpriced World”…
My apologies to The Wall Street Journal for stealing their headline from an article by Burton Malkiel on how to best position yourself in today’s uncertain times. Malkiel is important to listen to since he is the author of the all-time Investment classic, A Random Walk Down Wall Street. With the market increase in 2018, […]
The Trend Is Your Friend…Except At Both Ends…
What does 2018 hold for the market? Anne discusses this in more detail on page 4 but the consensus probably is for MOTS – “More of The Same.” Growth in the Global Economy and higher corporate profits should lead to higher stock prices. Caveat Emptor however, this is the perceived wisdom and we all know […]
A Trip To China…
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 […]
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 […]
Life is Understood Backwards…But Lived Forwards…
We are Value investors which means we believe that successful long-term investing involves buying out of favor securities selling cheap relative to their earnings and assets. Stock prices are a function of many things – earnings, dividends and the level of interest rates – but equally important is human emotions. Ray DeVoe, a well known […]
So When Is The Next Big Drop Coming?…
Wow, talk about a question beyond my pay grade! But in this charged environment we have to ask. A lot of people are very anxious and nervous in this market. Since March 2009 it has been nothing but up for stock prices. This is the second longest uptrend in history. Only the 1987 – 2001 […]
Playing the Long Game in China…
China is famous for taking the long view in both Economics and Politics. Zhou Enlai, the Premier under Mao Zedong, was once asked about the impact of the French Revolution, which occurred 200 years before his time. He famously replied, “it’s still too early to say.” China has been a difficult place for Western business. […]
