The Great Wealth Migration, Part II
A week or so ago, we wrote about Travis Brown’s new book, How Money Walks which chronicles the movement of money from high tax, high cost states to low tax, low cost states. Well today we stumbled upon this article on CNBC’s website titled: Retirees Head Abroad to “Arbitrage” Retirement Funds. In other words, US [...]
Some Perspective on the “Can’t Lose” Market
Take a look at these stats from Cullen Roche at Pragmatic Capitalism. It does a great job of putting this year’s market advance in perspective. “Here are some wild stats about the current rally in the S&P 500 in 2013 which brings the gains to 17%+: Of the twenty weeks this year, just four have [...]
Copper Rebounds
Copper prices are a decent real-time gauge of economic activity. Rising prices indicate increasing demand from a growing economy, falling prices indicate the reverse. Note that from late winter until just recently, copper prices tumbled – not a good sign. Recently copper prices have rebounded. Let’s hope this new trend is sustained as it would likely be good [...]
Stocks March Higher
Stocks continued their march higher for the week ended 5/17/2013. Last week I noted that trading volume was falling as the market advanced – often a reason for concern. But it looks like volume rebounded this past week – easing that concern.
Stocks Making New Highs While Ownership Falls
The market is making all time new highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is over 15,000. It’s up more than 10% already. But the sad fact is that many of us have sat out this roaring bull market that from its March 2009 lows is up more than 125%. Indeed, according to this survey from [...]
Would You Rather Spend or Save?
Well? Would you rather spend or save your money? (By the way, we’re here to help you with both…) It appears from this recent survey from Gallup that folks increasingly prefer saving over spending. This behavior changed dramatically after the financial crises of 2008/2009 and continues today. Why? Demographics: As we age, the need to [...]
Have Mortgage Rates Bottomed?
This chart from Bankrate.com certainly appears to show a change in direction for mortgage rates – higher. Now the change is not huge and we saw a similar move in early March. But it bears watching, particularly if you are considering refinancing or purchasing a new home. Also thanks to the folks from Bankrate.com, we [...]
Stock Market Continues To Advance
The stock market continued to advance last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 15,118.49. It is curious that the most recent advance from late April has occurred with declining trading volumes – perhaps a sign that the market is running out of steam. Let’s keep an eye on the divergence.
The Great Wealth Migration
Have you heard about the new book How Money Walks by Travis Brown? I hadn’t until I stumbled upon an interview with the author. This book chronicles the movement of wealth around the country over fifteen years from 1995 to 2010 and the reasons why (think TAXES!). There are important implications of this great migration [...]
House Prices Near 30 Year Low — In Gold
So you thought your house price had fallen a lot over the past ten years or so. Well, think again. Priced in gold the median house is down about 75% from its peak in 2001 – about the level back in 1980! The good news, it looks like home prices (in gold) have bottomed confirming [...]