Healthcare has been a great sector in which to invest for many years now. But as The Economist lays out in this article, there are factors in place that may change the source of those high returns, especially for some participants in the industry. Read the full article in The Economist
Excellent review of the struggle investors have between growth and high interest rates that curb earnings. Read the full article in The Wall Street Journal
Steven Pinker’s latest book, “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress,” posits that the prevalence (and allure) of negative news undermines the amazing progress humanity is making. Nowhere is this more true than the public markets, where the most recent bout of volatility focused the minds of investors (and clients alike) more…
Here is an article from The Economist that details the dangers of structured products, such as Credit Suisse’s XIV which collapsed spectacularly last week. Banks like to sell these products to institutional and high net worth clients because they generate fees for the banks and often times are not well understood by the clients –…
Why can’t wages climb? Because huge companies buy out competitors and then cap salaries to insure that profitability rises, justifying the purchase price. True in everyone in every industry, including farm-equipment mechanics. Read the full article in The New York Times
Great article about how simply pricing as much as the market will bear is not always the best strategy for the long term. Read the full article in The New York Times
This is something we’ve talked about often – the high percent of income Americans spend on housing and the percent dropped slightly in the last reading. They measure the percent of the renting population spending over 30% of their income on rent – it was 49% but just fell to 48% in the last reading….
We keep adding jobs and the unemployment rate is extremely low. So why don’t overall wages rise more that 2-2.5% year over a year? Holding constant the retirement of high paid baby boomers and millennials entering the work force at starting salaries, we should still normally see more wage growth and tightness in the labor…
Perhaps because Amazon and others attract billions of consumers with rock bottom prices, no firms have money to pay higher wages, although they need plenty of workers to fill orders. Read the full article in The New York Times
The US government again helps Amazon by limiting whomever might be able to be a real competitor. As long as prices fall, the US doesn’t seem to care about anti-trust issues. Read the full article in The New York Times