What Is Normal?

What Is Normal?

In 2009, after the so-called Great Recession clobbered stocks, one of the largest mutual fund companies (PIMCO) produced a set of economic and investment analyses that they named the “new normal.” Right now McKinsey & Company is currently promoting their viewpoint of post-COVID changes in the workplace and in the economy under the rubric of…
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Market Declines Are More Common Than You Think

It may seem that the U.S. stock market has been the place to invest your savings over the last few years. The S&P 500 returned 32% in 2019, 18% in 2020, and is currently up almost 20% so far this year. That’s well above its 50-year average annual return of slightly over 10%. During periods…
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The U.S. Healthcare System Is A Mess

The New York Times (NYT) just published an article titled “Hospitals and Insurers Didn’t Want You to See These Prices.” That article is the stimulus for this blog. Have you ever remodeled a bathroom? Imagine walking into a plumbing fixtures store only to discover that none of the items have their prices posted. Instead you…
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You Can’t Have Rights Without Responsibilities

The U.S. is currently facing another surge in COVID cases, hospitalizations, and even deaths. Sadly, this is occurring while the country is awash in vaccines that have shown remarkable efficacy. I’m concerned that the proliferation of this virus could have a highly deleterious effect on our economy and our investment portfolios, not to mention our…
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Dealing With Sudden Wealth

A young tech employee recently wrote an article in New York Magazine about her experience becoming a multi-millionaire after her company went public (see https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/04/confessions-overnight-tech-millionaire.html.) Not surprisingly it involved equal measures of anxiety and jubilation as she movingly described how both large and small aspects of her life have uncontrollably changed. Psychologist & author Stephen…
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Predicting Earnings Growth Isn’t Enough

If company earnings were the most important factor associated with company stock returns, shouldn’t the S&P 500 average annual index performance have reflected the average annual earnings growth of the companies that it comprises? According to Ben Carlson of Ritholtz Wealth Management, over the past 80 years corporate earnings have increased by about 6% annually…
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