Despite increasing global concerns
Inflation erodes consumers' purchasing power. But the most recent data shows that consumers are still purchasing discretionary items that they would choose to cut if they were feeling constrained.  

There is no alternative country
The world is a mess right now and the US economy is not escaping pain free. But compared with the rest of the world, the USA looks pretty good. 

Time is on the side of the patient investor
The portfolio management system we began using two years ago yields some interesting information about client accounts. Below are two charts that illustrate why investing for the long-term can be rewarding. More importantly, the charts show that accepting the risks of investing is necessary if clients are to achieve financial security. 

So far, so good
Looking back it is clear that several important turning points were reached in June: inflation peaked, interest rates peaked, and the stock market (probably) hit bottom for this cycle.

Cutting out the middleman
We read a lot. But we’re selective about what we read. Starting about 7 years ago, I cut down my news consumption and started reading more from primary sources. For example, instead of reading an article about the GDP report—read the actual GDP report.

Why we start with the financials
Everyone has heard of Twitter. Few people have heard of Cadence Design Systems. You could call both companies “Technology companies” and their annual revenue is comparable (Twitter’s revenue is about 5.2B, Cadence’s is about 3.3B). But that’s where the similarities end. 

Tesla Remains a Major Opportunity
Tesla has always been a controversial company and stock. Nearly all of the controversy comes from its major stockholder and CEO, Elon Musk. Here are a just few of his traits that have discouraged many from investing in Tesla stock

Cryptocurrencies collapse
Bear markets reveal economic mistakes. In 2000 the mistake was investing too early in the Internet, resulting in the Dot-Com bust. In 2008 it was loaning too much money on easy terms to home buyers. This time the mistake was leaving interest rates too low for too long.

Another asset class suffering permanent value destruction
In another note we introduced the idea of permanent value destruction vs the temporary variety. Hundreds of Cryptocurrencies and recent IPOs without earnings were examples. But these markets are relatively small when compared with the bond market.

Demographics as Destiny
Nobody is born knowing anything. As a consequence, each generation tends to learn the same lessons as the prior ones, but under some different circumstances.