August, 2022

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Why Are TIPS Losing Money With Inflation at 9%?

A Wealth of Common Sense

A reader asks: Hey guys please explain why an inflation-linked bond could have lost money this year with inflation at 9%. I’ve been getting this question a lot lately. How could bonds that have an implicit inflation kicker be down almost 7% this year? Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) are one of the most peculiar assets in the investment universe.

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How Amazon Become Ordinary

The Big Picture

“I constantly remind our employees to be afraid, to wake up every morning terrified. Not of our competition — but of our customers.” -Jeff Bezos, 1998 Amazon shareholder letter. We all know how much FAANMG stocks have faltered this year, but there is a bigger story brewing: The companies themselves seem to have…lost their way. What once made them great has slipped into their historical legacy, with less innovation and far less delight to its end users.

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Jim Ratcliffe declares interest in buying Manchester United

Financial Times M&A

UK billionaire emerges as potential buyer of struggling football giant if Glazer family want to sell

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Why the market is bouncing

The Reformed Broker

Why did the stock market bounce this summer? Everyone has their explanation: The Fed might pivot! Inflation readings have now peaked! Oil prices are down 25%! China is ending the lockdowns! The labor market is staying strong! Earnings are still coming in better than expected! All true. But there’s an even better reason that doesn’t invalidate any of the ones I’ve posted above.

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Lord make me ESG, but not yet

Financial Times: Moral Money

Naked Lunch meets Goodhart’s law

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Innovation Indicators

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

Tech:NYC is the industry association for NY’s tech sector. They play a number of important roles and one of them is to educate and inform about the impact of the tech sector in NY. To that end, they launched a valuable resource last month called Innovation Indicators. Innovation Indicators is a dashboard that shows the latest data on the impact of the tech sector on the NY economy.

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More Trending

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U.S. Cropland Values Hit Record Highs

The Big Picture

Source: AgWeb. If you are interested (as I am) in Real Estate , then allow me to suggest you consider exploring the world of Farmland. It is something I have done for a while, and it is a fascinating rabbit hole to fall into. Not so much as an investor, but as someone interested in how agriculture works (but yes, there is an investor angle here as well).

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Saudi Aramco to buy Valvoline’s products arm for $2.65bn

Financial Times M&A

World’s biggest oil producer says deal will help it expand its downstream activities

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Is this chart going up or down?

The Reformed Broker

Is this chart going up or down? It’s not a trick question. Just look at it and tell me what primary the trend is. You’d be amazed at how many financial advisors, insurance brokers acting as financial advisors, financial planners, wirehouse wealth managers, financial consultants and other assorted intermediaries in this business could not for the life of them look at this chart and give you a straight answer.

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The Optimal Industry Structure

Fortune Financial

A recurring theme in my articles has been the importance of industry-level economics to the success of an investment; it is not uncommon for all participants in an industry with favorable dynamics to outperform, and, similarly, it is all too common for even the best operators in a poor industry to underperform. However, industry importance is not limited to economics; competitive structure is crucial as well.

Investors 119
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Why Is the Wealthfront Cash Account APY So High?

Wealthfront

We all know that when it comes to earning interest on your cash, more is better. But not all financial institutions pay the same rate—not even close. Since we launched the Wealthfront Cash Account back in early 2019, many clients have asked us how we manage to offer a rate that’s so much higher than […]. The post Why Is the Wealthfront Cash Account APY So High?

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Why People Make Dumb Financial Decisions on Purpose

A Wealth of Common Sense

There was a question posed on Twitter this week that caused a stir among finance people: A 50% chance of winning $50 million would equate to an expected value of $25 million. Why would you take $1 million against an expected payout value of $25 million? That doesn’t make any sense. If you understand probabilities, you hit the green button. Easy right?

Financing 145
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Tales from the Dark Side

The Big Picture

I had a fascinating conversation with an old friend who has been working in a giant bulge bracket firm his entire multi-decade career. What made this particular conversation so intriguing was his sudden epiphany about the Sell-side. Our previous discussions (debates really) were over the traditional model of brokerage I push back against versus the fee-based fiduciary asset management I embrace.

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Nikola/Romeo Power: auto tech stars forced into distressed consolidation

Financial Times M&A

Electric truckmaker’s deal for battery group is a measured bet on buying and operating a supplier

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All eyes on SPX 4,000

The Reformed Broker

I like the way Ari Wald at Oppenheimer frames the current technical set-up for the S&P 500. Now we’re caught between the declining 200-day and the rising 50-day – the latter might be the next major pivot point for short-term traders and for general sentiment depending on what happens if and when we get there: Here’s Ari: A Bullish Base vs. a Resuming Bear The S&P 500’s rejection from its 200-d.

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Bridge Loans

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

When fundraising gets tougher for startups, the existing investors (insiders) will often provide a bridge loan to the company to extend the runway for getting another round done. There is more of this sort of thing happening in today’s fundraising market and I thought I’d share some of the things I have learned about setting up bridge loans.

Startups 106
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5 Ways You’re Setting Yourself Up to Fail

Don Connelly & Associates

I don't think any financial advisor wakes up in the morning and intentionally sets out to fail. But I can think of many examples of advisors who unwittingly find ways to sabotage their efforts to build a successful practice. It's often the little things they are either unaware of or don't recognize as problems. But they're big enough to turn prospects and clients away from you.

Prospects 105
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Exceptions to the Rule

A Wealth of Common Sense

Ryan Detrick shared a stat last week that should put stock market investors at ease with the recent rally: Here is Ryan’s data to back this up: And the chart: This sounds pretty good to me and it makes sense intuitively. Bear market rallies are a common occurrence but not to this degree. So are we out of the woods? Maybe? The problem is that although it appears we have skirted a recession for the time being, it&#.

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Future Proof is Almost Here!

The Big Picture

Over the years, I have been involved in a fair share of investment conferences. This began with the Big Picture Conference at the New York Athletic Club, post-GFC. I had flipped bullish in March 2009, but I have vivid recollections that Fall of listening to Jim O’Shaughnessy of OSAM explain the history of markets following a 50+% crash. He was even more bullish than I was, and had the data to back it up.

Investing 134
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Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway wins approval to buy half of Occidental

Financial Times M&A

Shares in US oil and gas producer jump after energy regulator authorises increased stake

Stakes 106
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Gen X spoke at the VMAs last night

The Reformed Broker

You don’t have to go checking to see all the other performances from last night’s Music Video Awards on MTV, you can just take my word for it – RHCP was the highlight. Nice to see Generation X is still in the conversation <laugh cry emoji>, very quietly being talented and capable while the Boomers and Millennials continue their culture war blood feud.

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Financial Advisor Lead Generation Tips You’ll Want to Try Right Now

Covisum

Historically, financial advisors have relied on word of mouth and cold-calling to generate new leads and grow their business, but consumer preferences have changed. Today’s consumers generally don’t respond well—if at all—to cold calls, and online business reviews have become the new word of mouth.

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How to find all the clients you want

Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT)

By Antoinette Tuscano You may be a genius financial advisor, but without clients, you won’t be a successful financial advisor. A dynamic marketing strategy is critical to attracting the clients you can best serve. In the following three MDRT videos, you’ll find a variety of ideas to keep your prospecting pipeline flowing and your schedule full: Gain clients through media exposure.

Prospects 103
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When is a Bear Market Over?

A Wealth of Common Sense

A reader asks: So I know you guys have talked a lot about are we in a recession now and being in a bear market (equities declining 20%). When is a bear market by definition over? For instance if we just trade flat for the next year and then do enter a recession does this correction still count as part of that? The short answer is, yes, if we don’t reach all-time highs and rollover again at some point in the coming m.

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Passive vs. Active

The Big Picture

Yesterday I spent some time with Eric Balchunas recording a Masters in Business podcast. Balchunas is Senior ETF Analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence and the author of “ The Bogle Effect: How John Bogle and Vanguard Turned Wall Street Inside Out and Saved Investors Trillions.”. It’s a fun conversation I’m sure everybody will enjoy. There are parts of our discussion I thought were obvious, but he convinced me as underappreciated: First and foremost, the intense disruption of low-c

Taxes 133
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Lone Star wins $216mn damages as South Korean financial saga nears end

Financial Times M&A

Compensation is far less than $4.

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Literally

The Reformed Broker

Sharing this chart from Guggenheim showing that the S&P 500’s bear market bounce literally stopped on a dime and was turned away at the 200-day moving average. It’s almost too perfect. We manage our tactical portfolio based on technically-oriented rules not because it always works (it doesn’t!) but because it eliminates feelings like fear or fear of missing out from the decision-making process.

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Top 10 Dividend Growth Portfolio

Dear Mr. Market

Dear Mr. Market: Dividends! Journalists write about you daily. Investors constantly think and talk about you. Analysts and economists spend their entire careers trying to figure you out. You’re a complex yet simple character, Mr. Market! All that said, today we want to share with our readers a substantial part of you that doesn’t get enough appreciation (pun intended).

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ESG study concludes it is time for the concept to be scrapped

Financial Times: Moral Money

Funds that score highly on some UN Sustainable Development Goals often score low on others

Funds 101
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How Business Travel Needs to Change in a Remote Working World

A Wealth of Common Sense

There were a lot of predictions at the outset of the pandemic about how the world would be changed forever. Some were kind of right. Others were very wrong. So it goes with these things. The one that never made sense to me is how colleges were going to get disrupted by online classes once students saw how pointless it was to go to class. If anything, the pandemic proved how necessary it is for young people to interact wit.

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Countertrend ?

The Big Picture

One of my favorite ways to contextualize market trends is to divide long periods of time into secular bull and bear markets. When we look at the past century, we can see decades-long eras where the economy is generally robust, supporting markets trending higher, with expanding multiples. We call these eras Secular Bull Markets. The best examples are 1946-66, 1982-2000, and 2013 forward.

Investors 131
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ValueAct takes 7% stake in New York Times with call for new approach

Financial Times M&A

Activist investor says news publisher should promote higher-priced bundles to subscribers

Stakes 103
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This Week on TRB

The Reformed Broker

And if you haven’t subscribed yet, don’t wait. Check it out below or wherever fine podcasts are played. These were the most read posts on the site this week, in case you missed it: The post This Week on TRB appeared first on The Reformed Broker.

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OK, not okay

Investment Writing

Did you know that “OK,” not “okay” is the correct spelling of that familiar expression? If you didn’t know how to spell OK, you have plenty of company, as I discovered when I ran a LinkedIn poll. Origins of OK. The term OK is an initialism. It comes from the misspelling “oll korrect” for “all correct.” Apparently such misspellings were popular in the 1830s, when this term originated, according to “ The Hilarious History of ‘OK’: The English language’s most successful export is a jok

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