Investor CAFÉ Newsletters
Update on Bitcoin — Separate the Wheat from the Chaff so You Don’t Get the Shaft
“Don’t be that Fool. Bitcon is a bubble and it will end badly.” — Gary Smith, Professor of Economics, Pomona College Alabama voters this week rejected the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Roy Moore, and saved themselves an embarrassment. Even though that choice will make it more difficult to pass legislation, voters made the right decision. The results were […]
How to be a Scrooge Investor During the Holidays
“Save your money, nephew! Pennies saved today are dollars in your pocket tomorrow!” — Uncle Scrooge McDuck Today, I appeared on CNBC with Rick Santelli to talk about the economy, the Santa Claus rally and Bitcoin euphoria. Watch the three-minute interview here. One of the traditions during the Christmas holidays is to read Charles Dickens’ famous book “A Christmas Carol,” or […]
Are Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies for Real?
“If you’re stupid enough to buy Bitcoin, you’ll pay the price for it one day.” — Jamie Dimon, CEO, J.P. Morgan Chase “Bitcoin should be outlawed. It serves no socially useful function. It’s a bubble and when the government starts regulating it, it will collapse.” — Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University Famous last words! Like many of […]
Ben Franklin’s Politically Incorrect Telling of the First Thanksgiving
Did you know that the day we celebrate as Thanksgiving was supposed to be a fast? It took one politically incorrect farmer to change the course of history. When the government tried to impose a fast, he called for a grand feast — thanksgivings — so that Americans could celebrate their bounty and nourish their […]
Is Wall Street another Las Vegas?
“Although it’s easy to forget sometimes, a share of stock is not a lottery ticket. It’s part ownership in a company.” — Peter Lynch, “One Up on Wall Street” Every other year, I teach a course in “financial economics” at Chapman University. I’ll be teaching again in the spring. In the class, I hold up a […]
The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Triumph of Democratic Capitalism
“The state that emerges at the end of history is liberal insofar as it recognizes and protects through a system of a law man’s universal right to freedom, and democratic insofar as it exists only with the consent of the governed.” — Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” (1989) Today commemorates the collapse of […]
Slowdown in Economy Won’t Last
The federal government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) today released its second- quarter 2017 gross output (GO) report, and I was surprised that adjusted GO grew only 2.9% in nominal terms and only 1.7% in real terms. Not only is this figure less than gross domestic product (GDP) growth, which was a robust 3.1%, but […]
What Happens to the Stock Market When the Communists Take Over
Look at the chart below. Which of these two countries was the better investment? The chart shows the returns on the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange from 1865 to 1917 (the data is in U.S. dollar terms and excludes dividends). During that period, Russia clearly outperformed the United States. Russia […]
Can ‘It’ Happen Again?
“We will not have any more crashes in our time.” — John Maynard Keynes (1926) All last year a prominent ad ran in Yahoo Finance and elsewhere predicting an “80 Percent Collapse in Stocks.” A lot of Cassandras are wiping the egg off their faces, having predicted another stock market crash, economic depression or a dollar […]
Nobel Calling: A Painless Way to Triple Your Retirement Income
Do you live in fear that you haven’t saved enough for retirement? Join the crowd. The clear majority of investors have not saved enough for retirement, and live in fear of running out of money before they die, leaving themselves too dependent on Social Security and their heirs for assistance, or significantly downsizing their lifestyle. According […]
