Is your lazy cash still eating all your food and making a mess of the place? Stick with Your Survival Guy. You can sink your teeth into today’s money market yields. Take, for example, the Fidelity Treasury Money Market. It’s yielding 4.99%. Action Line: Don’t miss the boat. When you’re ready to talk, let’s. … [Read more...]
Storming the Magic Kingdom: Wall Street and the Raiders…
When you look at the long-term advance of stocks over the past four decades, an observation worth noting: It was good to be 24 in 84. Meaning if you were young and hungry and happened to work on Wall Street, the world was your oyster. Until it wasn’t. Risk was rewarded, and a fair amount of luck was involved, disguised as skill. Not that these weren’t wicked smart people like Mike Milken, for example, the father of junk bonds. Because it was Milken who showed corporate raider Saul Steinberg how to storm Walt Disney’s castle with high-yield debt. Steinberg, like Captain Hook, had a boatload … [Read more...]
The End of Easy Money for Borrowers, Not Savers
You can see on the chart below of ten-year and three-month treasury rates that the era of easy money for borrowers is over. But savers finally have some rates they can sink their teeth into. Read more about the end of easy money in Storming the Magic Kingdom: Wall Street and the Raiders…. Action Line: When you want to talk about saving your money, I'm here. In the meantime, try to avoid making mistakes with your money. Click here to download my latest free special report on the Top 10 Investing Mistakes to Avoid. … [Read more...]
“There’s No Way He Deserves It,” They Say
When you look at today’s yields, you can finally say, “Self, this is your grandfather’s treasury bill rate.” Because it’s been a long time since we had rates that you can sink your teeth into. Yet, that doesn’t stop the howls and jeers for lower rates from the talking heads. “Houses are too expensive,” they complain. But you remember a time when your first mortgage rate was in the teens. You got through it. You figured it out. And here you are. In a world of instant gratification, where every asset was going up, and everyone was a stock market trader, now we’re seeing a taste of reality. … [Read more...]
Time to Revisit Your Bond Portfolio?
In The Wall Street Journal, John Greenwood and Steve H. Hanke, both economists at Johns Hopkins, discuss the similarities of today's markets to that of 1987, and October 19 of that year, which is known as "Black Monday." They write: This brings us to the stock-market crash of 1987. In that year the key 10-year bond yield rose steeply from January onward (from 7% in January to 10% by Black Monday in October) and the money supply slowed sharply. In 1987 growth of M2 declined by almost half, from 9.7% year-on-year in January to 4.9% in September, while M3—no longer published by the Fed—slowed … [Read more...]
Part II: When Others Resent You for Your Success
You appreciate what you have, where you’re at in life (maybe a little more money wouldn’t hurt), and where you’re going. You saved ‘til it hurt, and you know you definitely don’t want to have to do that again. You worked hard at your job, your business, and you put in the time. It went by fast, but a lot of those days were long. Now, you need to keep what you’ve made. A different skill set is needed. What are you going to do? First, I want you to avoid the mistakes that keep investors from realizing the success they deserve. Mr. Market has a way of wanting to change people’s lives, and not … [Read more...]
Life: When Others Resent You for Your Success
Let’s not beat around the bush. I’m Your Survival Guy, not Your Get Rich Quick Guy. I’m interested in helping the highly successful, fairly wealthy among you get through tough times with the peace of mind you deserve. My focus is mostly on navigating Your Retirement Life, the times when you want to enjoy your life’s work; living off your savings, not draining the bank, and doing what you have always wanted to do. Ahhh, the savings. I can’t do that part for you. That’s the heavy lifting that’s up to you. The showing up every day and getting the job done. Because the act of saving is just … [Read more...]
Should You Invest in Municipal Bonds?
Your Survival Guy’s not a big fan of municipal bonds. States with the highest taxes and the highest debt don’t seem like great investment partners to me. And with the social antipathy towards the investing class, who’s to say these states won’t change their promises? If you are undeterred by the idea of partnering with some of the least effective governments in America, Oyin Adedoyin explains the basics of municipal bond buying in The Wall Street Journal, writing: Want to get a tax-free return on your money? Put sewers and subway systems in your portfolio. The municipal bonds that state … [Read more...]
Investing Habits of the Fairly Wealthy: #7 “C-“
A lesson in investing: It’s a lot like high school. There’s ups and downs. It can be an emotional roller coaster. But if you own your bonds and stocks outright and hang in there, then there’s a graduation date—your bonds mature, you collect dividends, and you move on to the next step in life. As if it were that easy. It’s not easy. One spring Friday afternoon of my high school freshman year, Your Survival Guy got off the bus looking forward to the weekend only to find my dad at his desk looking over my report card. “What’s going on at school?” he asked. “Not much,” I said. “I … [Read more...]
“The Hard Thing About Getting Older Is Everything…”
You know, investing is a lot like high school, especially when it comes to bonds. When you buy a bond, for example, you’re making an investment at a specific point in time with a set graduation date. If you hang in there, have patience, and don’t get kicked out, you graduate. But nothing’s guaranteed. Your Survival Guy’s a big believer in the tough love of compounding experiences. Doing the work. Gaining knowledge. Learning the hard way, sometimes, having a little luck by just showing up. And somehow getting by. That’s a lot of what high school and bond investing are both … [Read more...]
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