Fill your brain with some goodness and read some of these recommended articles on debt, investing, health, time management, and other interesting tidbits to give you a leg up in life.
Simplify your life. Find your truth. Work towards your goals.
Macro
- Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater, one of the largest and most successful hedge funds in the world is not optimistic on our financial future – Ray Dalio: US most divided socially and economically since 1937 – https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/21/ray-dalio-us-most-divided-socially-and-economically-since-1937.html
- Wall Street firms start to warn of the impending end of the current business cycle (the longest business cycle in financial history) – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-22/wall-street-banks-warn-winter-is-coming-as-business-cycle-peaks
- One thing that always make my eyebrows raise is the topic of gold and its use as a “store of value.” Many people make a logical argument that the world is off of the gold standard (we certainly are in the United States.). But if the entire developed world has moved on to a fiat currency system, and has fully abandoned gold, why are so many countries building and maintaining large gold reserves? Kind of makes you go, “Hmmmm” – Germany’s central bank just shifted 50,000 gold bars held overseas due to Cold War fears – https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/23/germanys-central-bank-just-shifted-50000-gold-bars-held-overseas-due-to-cold-war-fears.html
Investments/Valuations
- John Hussman is a PhD economist, an authority on market cycles, and shares the math behind the curtains. Although his writings aren’t intended for the newbie investor, his message and warnings should be noted. GDP is a function of labor growth and productivity. Growth is currently grossly over-estimated by most investors who are ignoring the underlying data in labor growth demographics and productivity. There may be a very good reason for low interest rates heading out over the second half of this market cycle (poor real economic growth). Mix that in will grossly offensive equity valuations and the second half of this market cycle has a high probability of generating negative returns that could see equity prices in the U.S. coming down 50% to 70% for just a “run of the mill return to the long-term averages.” – http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc170821.htm
- This white paper by Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo, one of the most successful value based investment firms is so good it blows my mind. The key takeaway from this is allowing the reader to learn and understand the four main components to long term total stock return growth; Dividends, earnings growth, corporate profit margins and the valuation multiple being paid in the markets. Knowing how these revert to the long term trends through the business and economic cycle like gravity is essential for understanding where market prices will be over 5, 7 or 10 year periods. If you truly understand these dynamics, you will then understand why investors are fooling themselves about their future returns over the next 10 years – https://www.gmo.com/docs/default-source/research-and-commentary/strategies/asset-allocation/the-s-p-500-just-say-no.pdf?sfvrsn=5
- I find it interesting that many investors have moved past the argument of whether or not this market is over-valued. The argument now is, “Is this the most over-valued market of all time? Or is it really only the second or third most over-valued market of all time?” (With the knowledge that any of the previous periods of over-valuation resulted in equity price reductions that exceeded 50%.) Michael Lebowitz makes the argument that we are in the most over-valued market of all time – https://realinvestmentadvice.com/a-peak-above-all-others/
Health
- Sitting is the new smoking. We need to keep watching the data. Clearly sitting too long is bad for us. The solutions are being debated through ongoing research. Best to stay tuned and up to date with the latest – https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/dangers-of-sitting
- This is where the future of nutrition is going. We all don’t process foods the same. Two people can eat the exact same diets yet have different results. Why? It’s your DNA and your unique way of digesting and processing nutrients – https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/trying-find-healthy-diet-look-your-genes-n795841