The Retired Investor: Natural Diamonds Take Back Seat to Lab-Grown StonesBy Bill Schmick,
04:31PM / Thursday, October 24, 2024 | |
There was a day when a man's love for his bride was measured by the clarity and size of a diamond ring. That notion is as outdated as believing that "artificial" or lab-grown diamonds are second-class stones.
Chances are that if you purchased a diamond this year, it may have been manufactured in a laboratory. Lab-grown diamonds account for roughly 46 percent of the U.S. diamond jewelry market. What is interesting is that while the quantity of diamonds sold is almost neck and neck with the natural market, as a percentage of revenue, lab-growns only account for 23 percent of sales.
There are two trends at work here. Natural diamonds are getting 0 Comments
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The Retired Investor: Politics and Crypto, the New BedfellowsBy Bill Schmick,
04:27PM / Thursday, October 17, 2024 | |
There was a time when the upstart scruffy purveyors of cryptocurrencies were a mere stepchild of the financial community. Those days are gone as the crypto industry becomes a growing force in influencing election outcomes nationally.
In 2024, the crypto industry has accounted for about half of all corporate contributions to political action committees, according to consumer advocacy group, Public Citizen. The donations are being funneled into congressional candidates of both parties and the candidate for president who is deemed to be friendly to the cryptocurrency space.
That is a big leap from the historical practice of industries that side with one 0 Comments
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The Retired Investor: Back to the Future in Nuclear EnergyBy Bill Schmick,
04:44PM / Thursday, October 10, 2024 | |
In the 1950s, nuclear was deemed the energy of the future. Unfortunately, the world's ardor for replacing fossil fuels with clean atomic energy hit a brick wall in the 1970s. It is only recently, after decades of false hopes, that we may be entering a new age of U.S. nuclear power.
Today, nuclear power represents no more than 20 percent of U.S. electricity, and that may be an overstatement. The industry's brick wall occurred in March 1979 at Three Mile Island in Middletown, Pa. A partial meltdown of its Unit 2 reactor released a small amount of radioactivity.
I remember it well. The leak resulted from equipment malfunctions, design-related problems, 0 Comments
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The Retired Investor: Economic Storm Clouds Could Be Just Around the CornerBy Bill Schmick,
04:17PM / Thursday, October 03, 2024 | |
The U.S. economy continues to grow, fueled by generous fiscal spending in an election year, robust corporate earnings, and a consumer willing to keep spending. The Federal Reserve Bank's loosening of monetary policy last month also promises to boost growth.
That dovetails with my expectations, at least in the short term. I expect economic growth will continue to show decent numbers when the third-quarter GDP data is released. At the same time, we should see additional modest progress in reducing inflation. September's CPI inflation data, however, could mark the low for this inflation cycle, in my opinion.
That is certainly not the consensus view. 0 Comments
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The Retired Investor: My Economic Outlook into 2025By Bill Schmick,
02:29PM / Friday, September 27, 2024 | |
On the back of last week's half-point cut in interest rates by the Federal Reserve Bank, equities and many commodities rallied anticipating continued growth in the U.S. economy. Why, therefore, did bond prices plunge?
Normally, after the Federal Reserve Bank begins an interest rate-cutting cycle, bond prices rally, and yields fall. But not this time. Economists were scratching their heads all week looking for answers. The explanation is straightforward.
For weeks before the meeting, many traders were betting that the Fed would be too slow to cut interest rates. And when and if they did it would be a small cut. That delay increased the probability that 0 Comments
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