Your Survival Guy enjoyed this story in the WSJ: “The Koch Brothers Are Sitting on a Real Estate Empire Worth Hundreds of Millions” Katherine Clarke writes (abridged): Billionaire brothers Charles Koch and the late David Koch became known for their financial support of conservative and arts causes. But they, and their two brothers, Bill and Frederick, quietly built another legacy: hundreds of millions of dollars worth of high-end real estate. The four brothers have amassed some of the world’s most spectacular private homes, including a large waterfront compound on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod … [Read more...]
Don’t Let Your Retirement Dream Community Become a Nightmare
When it comes to your living situation in retirement, there are developments (literally) that may turn your idyllic retirement community into an “anywhere in the USA” suburb. As liberal states like California, crush the middle-class, neighboring states such as Idaho, and towns west of Boise like Star, pick up the slack, explains Dan Frosch in the WSJ: Over the past nine years, Star’s population has doubled to more than 10,000. Most of the growth has come from people like the Turnipseeds who uprooted from the West Coast to the greater Boise area—known as the Treasure Valley—drawn by the … [Read more...]
Cutting Carbon Emissions Won’t Stop Forest Fires
This week, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told investors that his company, the world's largest asset manager, will make "sustainability"--corporate code for climate change reactionism--the "new standard for investing." Holman W. Jenkins explains in The Wall Street Journal that the climate change hysteria surrounding weather phenomenon like the Australian and Californian forest fires is misplaced. He writes: What about Australia’s and California’s wildfires? Some won’t want to hear it, but climate policy is not a solution for the problems of forest management, especially the need for controlled … [Read more...]
You May Not Be Able to Trust the World’s Largest Asset Manager
Be careful who you let run your money because they might have their best interests in mind, not yours. Despite his fiduciary duty to clients, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, is focusing the company's efforts on achieving his own social goals, rather than on profits for investors. The Wall Street Journal reports: BlackRock is a fiduciary and as such is legally obligated to act in its clients’ best interest. This is ostensibly why BlackRock has voted against more than 80% of the climate resolutions on proxy ballots by activist shareholders. But suddenly Mr. Fink is prioritizing the interests of … [Read more...]
Value Stocks are Nearly the Cheapest They’ve Ever Been…
“Value stocks are nearly the cheapest they’ve ever been compared with growth companies,” writes Jason Zweig in his WSJ column Intelligent Investor referencing a study by Research Affiliates. The study finds that value stocks aren’t necessarily inexpensive relative to their own earnings and assets, but they are when compared to growth companies. It looks like this is another example of an emotionally charged market. When it will end? Nobody knows, but it may not be pretty when it does. Zweig writes: Financial logic says cheap stocks should ultimately earn higher returns than expensive ones; … [Read more...]
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!
BMW Breaks Records in Right to Work South Carolina
When BMW came to America looking for a place to build its award-winning SUVs, it landed in South Carolina. One of the driving factors pushing BMW, and other foreign automakers like Volvo and Mercedes-Benz to South Carolina, rather than Michigan, the traditional home of American automaking, was that South Carolina is a right to work state with low taxes. If you haven't already heard about South Carolina's business-friendly atmosphere, read here: Right to Work South Carolina is Flooded in Jobs Where to Live to Make a Living? Try this Southern Gem Southern States on Tax Cuts: Bring it … [Read more...]
These Stocks Just Crossed an Ominous Threshold: Your Neighbor Probably Owns Them
You can read here about the late Jack Bogle’s concerns with index funds. Now they’ve crossed an ominous threshold: The market cap of the top five companies in the S&P 500 Index represent 18% of the total index capitalization, higher than at any time on record, including the Tech Bubble. Those companies are Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, and Facebook. When mutual funds and ETFs have a mandate to buy an index of stocks, like those in the S&P 500, research and analysis go out the door—there’s zero analysis—because the purchases are required. In replicating an index, the … [Read more...]
You’ll Love This if You’re Dreaming of an Active Retirement Life
My clients are ski bums. Well, not exactly, considering they own their own place in the Tetons. But rising before dawn, queuing up for the first tram, especially on powder days, is a ski bum’s life. That’s why it was no surprise to receive this email: Hi EJ! Snow over a hundred inches so far in 2020! Every day a powder day! Several more days for this storm cycle! We have been very happy with your care of our financials. Skiing has been fabulous. More powder tomorrow! Will give you a call when we come up for air! When they get home in the spring, to Lake Champlain, they … [Read more...]
What You Need to Know about the Secure Act and Your RMD
You no doubt heard about the Secure Act, an unpleasant piece of legislation passed by Congress on their way out the door before Christmas break. The law became effective on January 1, 2020. What this means to you is that if you didn’t turn 70 ½ before Jan 1, then you don’t have to take your required minimum distribution (RMD) from your IRA until you turn 72. Understand, if you’ve already begun taking your RMD prior to Jan 1, and are under age 72, you still need to keep taking it. Also note, qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) from IRAs can still be made if you’re 70 ½ (up to … [Read more...]