While emerging markets investors generally flee bad news, and others who remain to scout out opportunities get trampled on the way to the exits, a third approach exists to escape the overall EM trend when it is moving powerfully downward, as it is today. This brief podcast (5:05) argues that economic growth has shifted to emerging markets, but investors no longer need be trampled by clumsy investment products that group emerging markets all together.
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The retirement system in the U.S. consists of three pillars, and each is continually getting wobblier, as Roger Salus details in his most recent article on Seeking Alpha. The emerging reality seems to be that retirement is becoming a luxury that decreasing numbers will be able to afford. This brief podcast (5:12) argues that the choice has come down to enjoyment of luxuries in one’s earlier years or later ones, and offers ideas on how to view the household balance sheet and conceptualize “crisis.”
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Should investors finally throw in the towel on global diversification after the S&P 500’s trouncing of everything else for over a decade now? This brief podcast (4:11) argues that if the path to riches were knowable, one would expect the most highly trained economists to be among those who discerned it, yet they’re always wrong. Giving up on asset allocation and putting everything into the S&P 500 strikes me as actually guaranteed to become painfully wrong.
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Investing is not some sort of Aristotelian system that one derives from pure reason. This brief podcast (4:27) argues that an advisor can’t make the client’s money work hard for him unless he truly understands how hard the client worked for the money.
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Deflation is the dread of the Fed, yet individuals have a clear and easy form of protection, namely, paying down debt. This brief podcast (4:05) argues that, apart from the benefits of cash as a portfolio hedge, there are other rewards for conservative debt management, including surviving a potential new round of deflation.
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People have a powerful instinct people to squeeze out every drop of efficiency in their investments, but a little slack, especially before retirement, can be a good thing.This brief podcast (4:19) argues that putting your assets to work means putting them at risk; once you’ve done that adequately, there’s no shame in holding cash.
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Corn prices have jumped to a three-year high amid extreme wet weather. USDA data two months ago that suggested there was nothing to worry about today confirm that there was something to worry about. This brief podcast (3:37) argues that the key issue of concern to investors amidst this commodity spike is inflation protection. Owning commodity futures is one way to hedge this risk; those uninterested in fine-tuning their portfolios could rely on cash and gold to get them through the market’s tantrums.
 
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Money’s final print issue discusses real-life Golden Girls who moved in together in retirement. These ladies have applied the same efficiency to their residential lives as a tontine brings to a shared pension, sparing themselves the $8,365 average monthly cost of a nursing home. This brief podcast (4:51) explains why the Golden Girls' method of sharing retirement housing with friends is a winning strategy financially, emotionally and health-wise.
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President Trump says he expects to conclude a trade agreement with Japan in August, yet he also characterized the bilateral trade imbalance as a “security threat” and as "unbelievably large.” How do we parse these seemingly contradictory signals? This brief podcast (4:41) offers several arguments to remain upbeat about Japan, including the notion that defining the trade imbalance as a security threat is likely to mean giving Japan a pass on military security issues, which would drain the Japanese economy; also, a deal with the U.S. would strengthen Prime Minister Abe in July elections.
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A New York Times describes a remarkable new trend, confirmed by Census Bureau data, that non-wealthy Americans are fleeing what are thought to be the country's most appealing urban centers. The article doesn’t discuss retirement, but it would seem that this changed economics of daily life may have parallel implications for retirement planners. Specifically, retirees may have an opportunity to use the changed pattern of costs and benefits to their advantage.
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