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The Independent Investor: NCAA Up Against Ropes on College Pay for Athletes
By Bill Schmick,
05:08PM / Thursday, October 31, 2019
This week the Board of Governors of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) met at Emory University in Atlanta to hear the pros and cons of allowing athletes to accept money for endorsements. It has been a long time coming.   This is an issue that has been around for as long as I can remember, but it has only been the recent moves by certain states, as well as the Federal government, that has forced the NCAA to at least acknowledge that the status quo is no longer working for them or for their students.   It is currently illegal for athletes to receive gifts or income related to their college athletic activities. If they do and get caught, the

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@theMarket: Earnings Give Mixed Signals
By Bill Schmick,
03:57PM / Friday, October 25, 2019
So far, third-quarter earnings results have been all over the place. A mixed bag of beats, in-line numbers, and some big disappointments have kept the stock market treading water.   Companies such as Caterpillar, with large exposure to China, came in with lower than expected results. Boeing, another big Dow stock, also reported a 50 percent slide in earnings thanks to the problems generated by two crashes of their 737 Max aircraft. And yet, both stocks rallied on the news.   Semiconductor company Texas Instruments also issued poor earnings, sales, and guidance, but in this case, investors not only punished the stock but trashed the entire semiconductor sector

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The Independent Investor: Will Trump Ruin Thanksgiving?
By Bill Schmick,
05:19PM / Thursday, October 24, 2019
Nov. 21 will mark the deadline for the nation's lawmakers to approve a government budget for next year. Given the animosity between the two parties, the present all-encompassing focus directed at an impeachment inquiry, and the rage of many congressmen towards Trump's handling of the Syrian Crisis, is there any hope for a meeting of the minds when it comes to a budget resolution?   Right now, I would say it is a good bet that Congress just does not have the time to pass all of the 12 annual spending bills that are required to fund the portions of the government that Congress controls. Some of those bills will come up for a vote next week. That should give us an

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@theMarket: Markets Await a Brexit Vote
By Bill Schmick,
10:56AM / Saturday, October 19, 2019
Great Britain's House of Parliament is voting on yet another proposal to exit the European Union this weekend. While Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the President of the European Union, Jean-Claude Juncker, have a tentative agreement, there is no guarantee parliament will vote for it.   In this world of binary events, financial markets are looking at the vote as a black or white outcome. Parliament votes yes and the British pound, world stock markets, and the European Union (EU) celebrates. If, as they have done in the past, the British politicians vote no, then gloom and doom will likely beset the markets.   My own opinion is that a no vote will simply

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The Independent Investor: Was There Really a Trade Deal?
By Bill Schmick,
02:52PM / Friday, October 18, 2019
Last Friday a "phase one" trade agreement between the United States and China was announced with great fanfare. The problem is that nothing was written down, nor were the terms agreed upon. In the end, we only have a gentlemen's handshake. Will that be enough?   With the stock market up by over one percent, President Donald Trump spent most of the that day in front of the cameras crowing that China had agreed to buy $40-$50 billion worth of food imports from our nation's farmers. He repeated those numbers over and over, throwing in comments of how famers were going to have to buy bigger tractors to handle the business.   China's Vice

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