Sa For Fas

Friday’s big OPEC meeting in Vienna will have a big influence on how much consumers pay at the pump over the next several months, and it appears likely that prices will moderate in the coming period. Though oil producers have been benefiting from rising oil prices, ironically, a tacit agreement between the biggest producer and the biggest consumer of oil appears to be holding sway to keep prices down.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

South Korean stocks are a bargain, but the question is: How long do we need to wait for concrete confirmation of genuine progress in the peace process on the Korean peninsula? The market makes no announcements when reaching a bottom. If we wait until South Korean construction companies are paving the foundation for a new Riviera on the Sea of Japan, we’ve waited too long. Yet actions on the part of North Korea suggest the peace train has left the station.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Wall Street Journal recently recounted the story of a 37-year-old orthodontist whose loan debt exceeds $1 million. Here’s how you can go about paying as little for college as possible: First, define your goals. Maybe college isn’t even an appropriate expenditure. If it is appropriate, get a scholarship. If you can’t get one, take that as a signal to start off in community college. Finally, consider a low-cost online bachelor’s, allowing you to target higher value graduate and professional degreeLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The media focus on personalities, but history records policies and policy shifts. That goes for this weekend’s G-7 summit, in which President Trump took umbrage at Prime Minister Trudeau’s news conference in which he declared that “Canadians will not be pushed around.” The drama we see performed today is bigger than any individual personalities and is signaling a policy direction – one of reduced international cooperation.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

America’s protectionist policy is bad for business. What has given America its historical competitive edge was the rule of law, private property rights and low taxation, which stimulated sustained high levels of economic growth. The tariff mindset is at odds with this tradition, and it's a small step from tariffs to unneeded domestic regulation that would choke off future Apples and Googles. The U.S. should do the opposite -- that is, work to further reduce tariffs, duties and restrictions.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seeking Alpha's Robyn Conti discusses her personal financial recovery in the two years since she wrote poignantly of the financial difficulty she found herself in. Her story is testimony to the ability we all have to turn ourselves around, start living within our means and start building toward a brighter future.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Bain & Company report called “Labor 2030: The Collision of Demographics, Automation and Inequality” warns that advanced economies are hurtling towards a demographic bust. However, the ensuing shrinkage of the workforce does not imply higher pay, since automation could eventually eliminate up to 50% of all current jobs. But robots can’t do everything, and the burden of work may fall on pre-retirees aged 55 to 74, while 18 to 29-year-olds hunker down in a new life stage Bain calls “second adolescencLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A CNBC headline proclaims that the “oil market is ignoring the big Iran story.” Is there something that one analyst CNBC interviewed understands that the oil market does not? To the contrary, the market has correctly figured out what Saudi Arabia’s current interests are, and what Russia’s interests are, and as they go, so will go oil prices for now. Fears of a “nasty” Iranian response to U.S. sanctions, voiced by one analyst, are not relevant to the current oil price trend.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Memorial Day honors members of the country’s armed forces who gave their lives in the service of their country. It would be fitting to acknowledge the price paid to afford us our freedom in a manner tailored to an investment audience. Specifically, what might a “Memorial Day portfolio” look like? We offer a few suggestions.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are drug companies villains profiteering off of a public that can ill afford needed medicines or are they merely earning the reward markets provide for their lifesaving and life-enhancing work? And what of advisors? The two cases are different because healthcare is a more fundamental human need, but we can still observe of both of them that society benefits from a system that rewards excellence in these areas.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

U.S. fertility has reached the lowest rate since the government began tracking this figure over a century ago. The usual question troubling economists is how a declining ratio of workers to retirees can continue to support the rising retirement and health care needs of a rapidly aging population. But I wonder if falling fertility is leading to another unwholesome economic trend quietly taking root in our day-to-day lives.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’ve yet to see a straightforward way of applying behavioral finance insights to investing. Are you supposed to have a checklist to make sure you’re not anchoring, herding or acting out of confirmation bias? I propose a simpler way of understanding what investing requires.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alibaba Group chairman Jack Ma was far from a stellar student before he became one of the most successful entrepreneurs in history. Whether as an entrepreneur, professional or craftsman, everyone has unique advantages they can put to good use in the marketplace.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Housing is typically the largest item in a household budget. Thus, if you can reduce that expense, you’ve got lots of room to boost your saving and investment. You can even enjoy luxury without incurring the costs of ownership and maintenance. The important thing is to remain within the bounds of what you can afford.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Deutsche Bank warns in a research report that the U.S. is on a path toward a debt crisis. Whereas past deficits were mainly based on the business cycle – deficits rose when tax receipts were down – today deficits are reaching new highs despite robust revenue. And whereas other counties with huge deficits are simultaneously accumulating foreign assets, the U.S. is accumulating foreign debt. Given this trajectory, we need clarity as to what options we have, and what level of pain they imply.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is the peace deal with North Korea legit? Why would North Korea accede to a deal? The behind-the-scenes diplomacy is as yet unknown, but we speculate that the matter may be akin to Libya’s voluntary decommissioning of its nuclear program in 2003. The message for markets? Markets without effective policing invites piracy. Despite not infrequent isolationist lapses, the U.S. has taken a lead role in policing markets since the beginning of the Republic. Peace on the Korean peninsula would remove a nagging Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The ratio of working-age population to the level of retirees continues to shrink and is on track to reach just two workers for every retiree by 2050. Just like oil economies that can't wean themselves away from the volatile commodity, or consumers who buy gas guzzlers when oil is cheap, the prison of economic dependency is hard to break away from.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sterling has returned to levels seen before Brexit trashed the pound. Britain has indeed made significant economic progress; but investors should ask themselves: Where is the upside? Conservative Party leader Theresa May is not having an easy time maintaining her leadership, and lying in the opposition is Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, ready to return the UK to pre-Thatcher days. With sterling and UK stocks up, now may be a good time to take profits.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

U.S.-China tension and even North Korea’s nuclear ambitions are lesser threats to global stability than Syria. Just as allowing debt problems to fester makes future solutions more costly, the price tag for having kicked the can down the road in Syria may prove devastatingly high. Supporters of peace and prosperity must remain ever vigilant about economic and military threats while they are mere brush fires, easy and cheap to put out.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office now projects a U.S. budget deficit of $1 trillion in 2020. Debt scourges do their scourging from the sidelines; in today’s environment, policies are implemented by pseudo-Keynesians (who like spending, but forget Keynes’ call to cut spending, or cut taxes but forget his call to raise them). Ironically, it may take a sharp economic dislocation to make long-term thinking cool again.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices