The Wall Street Journal ran an article this week called “The Only Six Stocks That Matter” about this year’s market gains being concentrated in just a few stocks. About half the gain in the Nasdaq this year (up over 7% YTD) has been from just six stocks — Amazon.com, Google, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, and Gilead […]
Julie Won
3000 people attend a cat’s funeral? Only in Japan . . .
Kitkat bars in dozens of flavors, rockabilly music, and KFC for Christmas dinner? These are a few of Japan’s quirky infatuations. And then there are cats – all kinds of cats. . . Only in Japan would a cat named Tama-chan become so revered that she would be given a Shinto-style funeral attended by thousands. […]
Can Doing Good Also Do Well?…
Socially responsible investing is getting big. In the U.S., investment assets taking some kind of socially responsible approach top $6.5 trillion. Globally, according to the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance, they make up 30% of institutionally managed assets, or $21.4 trillion. Some big investors have been stepping up too. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund and Stanford are […]
$100 goes far in Mississippi . . . but San Francisco? Not so much
The Christian Science Monitor just published an article on the states where $100 is worth the most and least based on cost of living data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. A hundred dollars is worth the most in 1. Mississippi ($115.21) 2. Arkansas ($114.20) 3. South Dakota ($114.16) 4. Alabama ($114.03) 5. West […]
It takes a trigger to burst a bubble: Broad overvaluation alone won’t do it
Source: Marketwatch At a recent Morningstar event, Jeremy Grantham of Boston investment firm GMO said stock valuations are high, but we’re not in bubble territory yet. The current market PE of 21 exceeds the normal 16, and corporate profit margins of 7.3% remain well above the historical norm of 5.7%. Eventually those will have to […]
How do we know Japan’s economy is brightening? From the secondhand market for luxury handbags
Japanese women are using their luxury handbags for a savvy currency play. Photo Source Komehyo The economic mood in Japan is brightening and consumer confidence is way up. That is the word anyway from Takuji Ishihara — not an economist but the president of Komehyo, a well known dealer in secondhand high-end handbags. Working across from […]
We Are Not Rational
Here are some questions to ponder: • Why would someone drive 10 minutes to a get a $10 discount on a $45 clock radio but not do the same for a $10 discount on a $495 television? • Why would someone refuse to pay an exorbitant $10 to get his lawn mowed but refuse to […]
Have Goals? Then Keep it Simple
When we resolve to eat healthier, read more, watch less television, or become more productive at work, it’s hard to actually follow through and become that better person we want to be. What’s easy is avoiding the hard projects at work while we check Facebook and email first, or grabbing a quick cookie instead of […]
A Look at the Short and Long Term
In an era of ever improving living standards, it’s hard to believe that growth was non existent for most of human history. But take a look at the very long run – and by that, I mean a few millennia – and that is what you’ll see. The chart below, from a speech by Andrew […]
Globalization: Dormant But Not Extinct
In the late 1990s and 2000s up to the financial crisis in 2008, globalization seemed a powerful inexorable force. The world was becoming more interconnected. Goods, services, capital, and people were moving ever more freely around the globe without regard to borders. The world was getting flatter. Global champions, we were told – whether companies […]
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 […]
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 […]
