With all the talk in the financial media about a “looming recession”, we thought we’d share some facts about them: The definition of a recession: The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is generally recognized as the authority that defines the starting and ending dates of U.S. recessions. They state that a recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. The “other” definition: In 1974, economist Julius Shiskin defined a recession as two consecutive quarters of …
Frequently “Oaked” Questions
You Asked, So We’ll Answer FOQ: Aren’t dividends from stocks a good way to generate income? Short: Nope. Long: Focusing on dividend paying stocks for income presents a bunch of issues: lack of diversification, tax inefficiency, timing of payments and size of payments. FOQ: I’m guessing that’s bad, right? Short: Yup. Long: Diversification is a pillar of prudent investing. Yet only roughly half of global stocks pay a dividend. So loading up on them would cut your diversification in half, at least. And in our experience, those seeking dividend income tend to concentrate their holdings to 50 …
Patience in Investing: 2022 Update
The saying “Risk equals reward” is incomplete on its own. For example, were you to say, “Risk equals reward, but not all risks are rewarded”, you’d be correct (that’s a topic for another time). Furthermore, there’s a time factor involved in the reward side of this simple equation. We’d say, “Risk equals reward. But you have to wait for it.” How long? You never know. And therein lies the risk. While we’ve recently hit new highs, the road to these levels has been peppered with periods of no growth, or no reward for the risk – periods that can make …
2021: Year in Review
Oops, They Did It Again! We imagine it went something like this, just before 2021 rang in: Analyst: Well that was a crazy year! 22 percent? Didn’t see that coming, with all this covid. Other Analyst: The S&P? It was up 18. Analyst: I meant my bonus. But yeah, 18 percent – wow. I’ll take it. I guessed only 8. Still better than your guess! 5, wasn’t it? Other analyst: Whatever. I got the same bonus. But seriously, the boss wants a prediction for next year. I mean, we really can’t go up more with all these variants popping …