Blog Archives

The Omniscient Yield Curve: My Belief in Variable Rate Loans

Omniscient Yield Curve

The future is clearly unknowable other than the certainty of our demise. All we can do is to utilize our knowledge and experience to assess when we think the odds are in our favor or against us and take action accordingly. Everything comes down to risk and reward,

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Singapore: It Wasn't Easy Becoming Green

Singapore Going Green

Warren Buffett has said that people should read 500 pages a day if they want to compound knowledge at a very high rate. Along the same lines, Bill Gates reads at least one book a week to help satisfy his immense curiosity.

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Rand, Soros, Munger, Dalio, and The Founding Fathers

Rand

Like most people, especially investors, I’ve been wondering about whether there is a philosophical prism through which Donald Trump sees the world other than through deals and negotiations. In business, especially in real estate, there are often objective outcomes to shoot for to know if you are winning,

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The Discipline of Lee Kuan Yew - Transforming Wealth Into Well Being

Lee Kuan Yew

On my recent trip, I visited 10 countries in Africa and Asia. My last destination was Singapore. I had been there in 1999 and remember how impressed I was with the city-state then and departed this time even more so. Singapore became an independent state after being kicked out of the Malaysian Federation in 1965.

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Tariffs & The Wisdom of Grover Cleveland

The tariff debate and controversy seems to be escalating and has been leading to tremendous stock market volatility. Whenever there is such a heated topic that catalyzes strong emotions I like to take a step back and find ways to drown out the cacophony. One of the ways I do this is to ignore today and look to history to see what I can learn from the past.

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Philosophical Investor Keeping an Eye On Top Trends

Trends I'm Keeping An Eye On

I am an avid reader and always on the lookout for interesting information and trends that might spark some kind of insight with regard to economic, financial, or societal trends. I thought I would share a few graphics that caught my attention recently. These are in no particular order.

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Succeeding Through Market Bubbles for the Philosophical Investor

China Export

Chinese Lending Practices

I am reading with some fascination the incredible excesses that have been taking place in China with regard to terrible lending practices and widespread fraud. The unregulated banking system is clearly running amuck in China. Here is a very interesting link from Mish’s Global Economic Trends highlighting the massive problems unfolding with regard to loan guarantees not to being honored.

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When One Thinks of Disruptors - FDR or Tech Titans?

FDR Churchill Bezos

When one thinks of disruptors it’s not surprising to think of modern tech titans like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Reed Hastings, Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Marc Benioff, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, etc. I was reading an interview with the great American writer Philip Roth in the New York Times and he referenced books that he has recently read and what triggered his interest in them.

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Stock Market Volatility - Up Like an Escalator and Down Like an Elevator

stock market

Trite generalizations have been able to have longevity because there is enough truth in them to have proven wise and insightful. One of them is that markets go up like an escalator and drop like an elevator. Last week was a perfect example of this.

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Texas Still Going Strong

Austin Texas

[2018 UPDATE ] The Dallas Fed released its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey, January 29, 2018. The data was collected Jan. 16–24, and 97 Texas manufacturers responded to the survey. As you can see the business indicators in Texas remain strong as following chart shows:

Business Indicators Texas 2018

Note the highlighted section showing that every indicator is “increasing”.

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