Retail investors are in love with dividends more than they should be with significant fan followings and discussion forums online dedicated to the worship of dividend stocks. Clearly, dividends are seen as important because public companies love to brag about how consistent their dividend payments have been and how much they’ve raised them. Dividends are
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The Fed funds rate is a hotly debated topic because it’s the main policy tool the Fed uses. There is economic data which can be interpreted to support every argument. Furthermore, after the metrics are taken into account, the goals are subject to interpretation. Just because the core inflation rate goes above 2%, doesn’t mean
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In the financial media, it’s easy to see what the economists and analysts think about the current economy because usually they propose more of the same when asked about the future. It’s simple to extend the current trend indefinitely, but that’s not always a good idea, nor is it realistic. Even during economic expansions, there
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The purpose of this article is to objectively examine trade policy and its impact on the economy. While there will be discussion of government policy, our review is not negatively nor positively inclined towards any particular administration. During the presidential campaign trail, then Candidate Trump stated that he’d renegotiate trade deals to stop other countries
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One of the biggest generational differences which causes a disconnect between baby boomers and millennials is student debt. Many baby boomers are confused why college graduates don’t immediately move out of their parents’ house like baby boomers did. The issue is that once a student graduates, they become debtors. It’s a vicious cycle which turns
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Investors are trying to get a reading on where inflation will go in the next 12 months because it’s a key variable for forecasting asset prices and the Fed funds rate. As you can see from the chart below, the year over year core CPI will hit near 2.5% in late 2018 if the month
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We’re going to dedicate another article to re-discovering the relationship between the 10 year bond and the stock market. With bond yields skyrocketing in the 4th quarter of 2017 and the first 2 months of 2018, it’s more important now than ever to understand the relationship. The confusing aspect, which started during the correction in
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Some analysts speculated if the Fed would try to keep rates low to support the government’s spending binge. However, instead of worrying about the debt, the $400 billion spending plan and the tax cuts are being used as an excuse to raise interest rates and let the government bonds on the Fed’s balance sheet expire.
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With the first stock market correction in over a year, having occurred in early February, there were many media narratives about what caused the selloff. We think it was driven by the unwind of the short VIX trade. Buying protection wasn’t considered important with the VIX at record lows in 2017. However, when nobody thinks
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We’ve discussed the price to income ratio of housing in a previous article. This gave us an idea of how expensive housing has become. We’ll discuss some of best points why real estate is too expensive and then provide the counterpoint explaining why housing isn’t in a bubble.
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In January, the ECB tapered its bond buying from €60 billion per month to €30 billion per month. Equally as important, the central bank is expected to stop its bond buying completely by September 2018. European economic growth has accelerated recently, but it’s unclear how much the economy was helped by the QE and how
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In 1962, the first version of Spacewar! was completed. Technically, this wasn’t the first video game ever created, but it was probably the first one that really mattered, as it serves as the beginning of the long line of advances in video game technology that continues into the present day. The invention of the game is generally
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There are a plethora of reasons why education in America is mediocre. We can argue that teacher unions care more about personal benefits than teaching kids, that the information taught in America is far less advanced than the information taught in other nations, or even that America is not fostering a culture where the youth
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There are many ways to measure market cycles and the business cycle, however economics is not an exact science. One of the methods that can be used alongside measuring of the yield curve is the output gap. The output gap is the difference between actual and potential economic production. It allows economists and investors to
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Valuation is the method of determining what an asset is worth. The price, on any given day of a stock, is how the market is valuing that asset. Your ability to look at various metrics when coming up with a valuation will determine if you can do a better job than the market at determining
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As with seemingly every election cycle, tax reform is a hot topic, as though a carrot that dangles in front of the horse. Whether you’re in favor of larger or smaller taxes, its a discussion that is important to have. The goal of this preliminary tax discussion is to separate the narrative from the reality. With
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‘This Congress is going to be the busiest Congress in decades — maybe ever.’’ With these words, President Donald Trump urged fellow Republicans in Congress to help him halt illegal immigration by supporting his plan to build a United States-Mexico border wall. But a wall that isn’t erected by the private land owners bordering Mexican
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The election of President-elect Donald Trump last month has awakened, what some people are calling, the “animal spirits” of capitalism. Anyone with a 401k or money in the stock market could tell you that things are going very well at the moment. The election of President-elect Trump and conservative, pro-market Republican majorities in the House
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Would you like to know my secret to turning my environmentalist friends into stalwart defenders of the marketplace? The answer is simple: coal. You would be amazed by the reversal in rhetoric witnessed right before your eyes, typically accompanied by a big dose of schadenfreude aimed at Appalachian people. The “free market killed coal” adage
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The latest jobs report is out for November 2016 and the media is in a frenzy over the fact that the unemployment rate has fallen to a nine year low at 4.6%. However, as anyone who has a passing familiarity with the voodoo science of statistics will tell you, numbers can be made to dance
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In his far-reaching effort, known as “A Better Way”, to define a coherent, conservative legislative agenda, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan brought together the talent and put in the time to chart a path forward in the War on Poverty. For too long, conservatives have allowed the War on Poverty to be waged by
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Venezuela’s current political crisis has drawn much attention worldwide. The shortages, increasing violence, skyrocketing inflation, and the increasing militarization of its economy are all fixtures of Venezuela’s current national disaster. Opposition movements have naturally arisen in response to Venezuela’s squalid state, with the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) leading the charge against the current ruling class. Despite the
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The rise of Donald Trump’s candidacy has generated a strong degree of backlash among the chattering classes worldwide. No stranger to controversy himself, his campaign’s unconventional style has led various experts to draw parallels between Trump and the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. While both Chávez and Trump never shied away from throwing verbal haymakers
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In recent times, Venezuela has been the object of many headlines across the globe that detail its current economic predicament. Once Latin America’s most stable country, Venezuela is now experiencing a historically unprecedented economic and social collapse. How did such a nation awash with bountiful oil reserves and numerous decades of democratic stability stoop to
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In a recent article of mine, I debunked the red herring of the “roads” argument that many modern socialists throw around. It turns out that lately this article has gotten some pretty lively responses from its critical readers. One such commenter was someone I might have expected to be on my side (politically speaking) as he was presumably a
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The age of social media has given rise to an increasingly large group of people who believe that a couple sentences, or even just a few words posted on a picture constitute an effective argument. While in some ways, political and philosophical debate is healthier than ever before, the over reliance on simplistic arguments is
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We are routinely being sold on this idea that the solution to poverty is more government power and more regulation. Rarely are any connections made when catastrophic events occur as a result of these policies. Instead of considering the alternative – freedom – they continue to look for government-created solutions when they are the ones who created
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Although there is very little on which we agree, Marxists and socialists have provided me with some excellent philosophical discussions. One such person recently wrote this article in which he attempted to take to task the libertarian concept of freedom. The piece starts out well enough as he does a decent job describing how libertarians
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