News

If you don’t have enough to be thankful for this Thanksgiving…Be thankful THIS Market hasn’t fallen apart – yet: The usual caveats:  The markets were “normed” in this view to January 1, 2000.  Plus, this is our own Aggregate Index which is based on the idea of equal dollar allocations into the Dow, S&P 500, … Read More

Problem on the table this morning is “When to take the money and run?” Which we will muse on with an “indicators review.” Before that, a few general economic notes plus we have a slug of fresh economic indicators to consider as we head to the table for turkey. More for Subscribers      |||     SUBSCRIBE NOW!       … Read More

Picture first: From the Cash-Shiller/S&P/ CoreLogic (and whoever else is in on it) report: MONTH-OVER-MONTH Before seasonal adjustment, the National Index posted a month-over-month increase of 0.1% in September. The 10-City Composite did not post any gains and the 20-City Composite posted a 0.1% increase for the month. After seasonal adjustment, the National Index recorded … Read More

Remember this above all else, this morning:  The Right to Tax is the Right to Govern. And, so, as we read the  Wall St. Journal  story “Corporate Executives Try to Assess Potential Impact of Tax Change Proposals Companies are studying suggestions by the OECD that would mark a departure from current international tax rules, but … Read More

Since we haven’t been invited over to your place for Thanksgiving, we will be spending most of the day in the studio here working on the “time machine” project.  A bit of “personal woo” on that in a second. Since you won’t have Elaine or me sitting around to prompt you, here’s a short list … Read More

Recycling is a lot like going fishing.  You are never sure what you’re going to land, but it’s always fun.  Besides, why send perfectly good parts to the land fill? One of our heaters died recently.  (You saw the rap of winter and small electric space heaters, I hope.)  The san thing to do would be … Read More

Besides mastery of self- discipline, holidays are  a great time to construct  a “10-Year Investment Program.” These can be simply monitored with a 1-Year Investment Horizon.  Done every 3-6 months. Unlike very short-term trades (based on various cockamamie schemes, some of which don’t work, others of which do, but with lots of qualifiers), long-term choices … Read More

With the Schiff-Show wrapped up – and the democrats doing a HUGE favor to the nation in two ways.  The coming week will let America move on to “the  other turkeys.”  And speaking of the bird, let’s raise one toward Washington (and both parties) as Congress will go home and get off TV for a … Read More

Sorting out the future, are we?  Well, seems simple enough.  But it’s not. One reason is uncertainty about China.  On the positive side, the report that Futures Flat After China Invites Top US Trade Negotiators For More Talks could be seen as an encouraging sign. Yet, as of this morning, we are back to wondering if … Read More

Since we’re going into the “slow holiday weeks” I thought it would be useful to work on self-discipline.  Which by extension includes organization  of “life parts:” in addition to finances..  This came up because my consigliere will be visiting from this weekend and over the Thanksgiving period.  Not a big deal, but I decided to … Read More

Breaking: Housing Data Low rates have set things ablaze: “Privately?owned housing units authorized by building permits in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate  of 1,461,000.  This is 5.0 percent (±1.7 percent) above the revised September rate of 1,391,000 and is 14.1 percent  (±2.1 percent) above the October 2018 rate of 1,281,000.” T’ain’t Funny McGee Fibber McGee & Molly aide, T’ain’t nothing funny, anymore.  Even the late-night clips I’ve been through have run out of left-wing slurs on Orange Man.  So much so, in fact, that recently Bill Maher seemed to be almost (can … Read More

Been an interesting year from the perspective of an economics student.  Because the “new thing” globally is SynGro and MUM. SynGro is short, obviously, for  synthetic growth.   The way SynGro works is this:  You “make-up” a problem, “make-up” a solution, and turn it into a huge business model. I’d have to go back to … Read More

We had our first good-sized storm come through Texas earlier this week and it brought to mind a laundry-list of winter storm items that we do as a matter of course. Life in the woods, and all that… If you’re new to home ownership (617-thousand homes were sold in the USA last year), here’s a … Read More