The answer? See for yourself, is it inflation or housing or both?
If Google Trends are any indication then inflation has been a top-of-mind topic.
CPI – Consumer Price Index
This is not surprising as one has to be a survivalist living far away from civilization and fully self-sufficient to have not been impacted by rising prices and slower delivery and service times.
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Mark Twain once said, “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote a long one.”
When writing (and speaking) it’s fairly easy to let the words flow without much regard to precisely communicating. If one gets into a stream of consciousness state it can be helpful for the writer and speaker to release what’s welling up inside but this may not be what’s best for the reader or listener in terms of communicating clearly,
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Yes, I am a fan of the Grateful Dead. There was a period of time when they occupied an important part of my life when I was traveling to see many shows with friends and immersed in the Dead community. While I didn’t care much for some of the personal grooming habits,
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I keep focusing my blog posts on economic data via chart representation because we’re in one of those times that needs to be monitored closely for trend reversals (disinflation to inflation) and a change in the Fed’s reaction function (supporting Main Street vs Wall Street).
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Given how hot the housing market is there are understandable concerns as to whether we are in a bubble. Bloomberg Businessweek had a good article addressing some of these concerns that included some interesting charts.
This first one shows how the cumulative appreciation over the last five years has matched that of the bubble years of 2002-7.
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Gary Carmell
Posted in Apartments, COVID 19, Economy, Interest Rates, Investing, Stock Market, Uncategorized, Wealth
2 Comments ↓
I have been turning to charts more regularly for my weekly blog posts than I have in the past. Like most people, I see many of the challenges and price pressures resulting from the massively disrupted global supply chain. It shows up in terribly unreliable contractors (I’m having a pool built so I am experiencing this first hand) and the significant increase in the cost of materials that are leading to the rationing of some goods like plywood and even chlorine.
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It is hard to be a patient long-term investor when the long-term is comprised of a series of often volatile short-terms. This requires great emotional and intestinal fortitude to hang in there when one sees his or her net worth dropping quite rapidly. It is very difficult when markets are volatile and dropping seemingly endlessly to know if those long-hoped-for positive signals may be the light at the end of the tunnel or the train coming at you.
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Gary Carmell
Posted in Economy, Housing, Interest Rates, Investing, News, Uncategorized
1 Comment ↓
The multi-trillion dollar question is whether inflation is transitory. The Fed and other central bankers believe it is as this chart depicts.
As I’ve written about before, the Fed’s reaction function has switched from a forecasting-based approach to one that is now outcomes-focused in terms of needing to see tangible improvements occurring on Main Street even if it leads to speculation and large rewards on Wall Street.
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Anyone who invests is well aware of average returns that are published over the years for various types of indices. These include, but are in no way limited to, the S&P 500, Wilshire 5000, NASDAQ, Emerging Markets, Bonds (short-term and long-term, corporates and government), and various industry sectors (e.g.
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I’m a subscriber to SiriusXM radio and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the new U2 channel went live recently. Once I started listening to it I found it hard to turn off. I was first introduced to the band during my sophomore year at UCLA.
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