The Retired Investor: Precious Metals Normally Fall in Septemberby Bill Schmick,
04:22PM / Thursday, September 05, 2024 | |
As one of the best-performing areas of the financial markets this year, gold and silver have been added to many investors' portfolios. And while every dip has been used as an excuse to buy, bulls should hold off a bit when making any new purchases.
The price of gold is up more than 20 percent and silver gained over 17 percent so far this year. Despite the sector's performance, there are many portfolio managers out there who won't touch precious metals and probably never will. "Too speculative," "impossible to analyze," and "we are not in the business of gambling" are all explanations I have heard through the 0 Comments
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The Retired Investor: How the U.S. Can Manage Its Increasing Debt LoadBy Bill Schmick,
04:12PM / Thursday, August 29, 2024 | |
U.S. deficits at $35.225 trillion are going through the roof and interest payments on our debt load account for an increasing share of gross domestic product. We are not alone in facing this trend. The question is what monetary and fiscal policymakers will do about it.
The time-honored, go-to strategy that has worked well for decades among nations in times like these is to devalue one's currency. How does that work?
Readers need to understand that the level of interest rates plays an important role in currency devaluation. For example, the U.S. dollar and U.S. interest rates work hand in hand. When traders buy dollars, they don't just keep their 0 Comments
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The Retired Investor: Taxing Social Security Benefits Hurts SeniorsBy Bill Schmick,
05:02PM / Thursday, August 22, 2024 | |
In this election season of competing promises, one idea stands out as a good way of redistributing income from the haves to the have-nots. More than 70 million needy Americans would benefit directly by cutting federal taxes on Social Security.
Let's face it, retirees have been getting the short end of the stick for a long time. For years, with interest rates at practically zero, retired savers, unwilling to bet on the stock market, have received scanty returns on their savings.
Fast forward to the pandemic and its aftermath. Elderly Americans, if they were lucky enough to dodge serious sickness or death as the highest-risk segment of the population, they 0 Comments
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The Retired Investor: Presidents Have a Long History of Fed Bashingby Bill Schmick,
04:49PM / Thursday, August 15, 2024 | |
Many on Wall Street are horrified that a presidential candidate might want to erode the independence of the Fed. Some have even called the idea the biggest threat to the U.S. economy. Any student of central bank history would beg to disagree.
We all would like to think that the Federal Reserve Bank's independence is sacrosanct. Once appointed by the president, the chairman of the Fed has the right and the duty to make decisions solely based on what is best for the economy and the labor force. The problem has been that many past presidents thought they knew best and sometimes they did.
A president can indeed both appoint and fire the Fed chair as well as 0 Comments
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@theMarket: Storm Clouds of Volatility Roil Global Marketsby Bill Schmick,
03:31PM / Friday, August 09, 2024 | |
It was a week of massive moves, both up and down. A host of unanswered questions made pricing stocks at the right level almost impossible. Are we on the brink of recession? How low will the unwinding of the Japanese yen carry trade take the U.S. equity markets? Will conflict in the Middle East spill over into something even more serious?
There are no quick or easy answers to these questions. Last week's down draft in the US nonfarm payrolls numbers triggered an 8 percent decline in the S&P 500 index and more than double that for the tech-heavy NASDAQ. Was that even justified?
If the labor market is truly rolling over, say the bears, then a recession 0 Comments
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