Easy Change

 I attended an interesting presentations given by IShares/Blackrock with the goal of showing how to use their ETF products to capitalize on investing themes for 2021: Gargi Pal Chaudhuri - Head of iShares Markets & Investments Strategy Dorothy Lariviere - iShares Product Consultant iShares (by BlackRock) - 2021 Outlook: New President, COVID-19, and Policy I found that this presentation was quite interesting. The presenters included two women which was a pleasure to see and they were quite intelligent and well-spoken. I don't advocate for any particular investment or forecast, but I thought that the summary was interesting and if you want to review the particular symbols they mention as ways to act on these themes, they are included at the end. US GDP Forecasts Above 6% for 2021 This presentation included a forecast that perhaps is not too shocking, but a positive report that GDP looks to be positive and a substantial number. The drivers for this include the ongoing fiscal and...

  The Economist , dated Dec 12-18, 2020, has a cover story, "Will Inflation Return ?". The question is not if, but when. According to the article, three arguments for increased inflation include the following: 1. Pent up demand 2. Aging societies which reduce the number of overall workers 3. Complacent politicians, who are happy to spent more, even if it goes over 2% inflation targets in order to satisfy liabilities, specifically mentioning those related to health care for an aging population, see point 2 above. I find the article a competent summary, to be sure. And the question to me is not whether there will be inflation. There will be. The question I am having for myself is twofold: 1. When will it show up? 2. How will it show up? I find that this, along with many other macro-level items are some of the most interesting aspects of finance for me. While they are tough to bet on individually, that is exactly what I am going to discuss here.  Regarding when it will show up, ...

Author's Note: I have recently restarted my blog and I will be posting old posts as a way to show how things have changed in my original thinking versus when I wrote the article. Also, it is a great way to look back. I'll label these posts as "FromTheArchives". This post was originally written in March 2013. Recently, it was a short week at work with the Good Friday holiday. There were only four working days available. Then to make matters worse, I was coming off a few days of vacation. But all of this lamenting makes it important to reflect on the upside of something that I decided to do recently: rebalance. At my current position, I am fortunate to have a 401k match and safe harbor contribution that I will continue to cherish as long as I have it. Additionally, I am working to continue to put myself in a better financial situation each month. One major way in which I do this is to aggressively monitor my retirement accounts. I think this is essential because o...

One of the biggest things that has made it possible for me to be able to improve my personal financial situation is the maintaining of a freedom fund. A freedom fund is a different bucket of money that is used for clear and present expenses coming in the next 12 months. This is entirely separate money from your emergency fund. The Emergency fund is some bucket of money that is set aside as insurance against loss of income for unavoidable expenses. When something happens and the income is lost, it is difficult to adjust lifestyle immediately. In fact, when you typically lose your income, there can be difficulty adjusting because you now have larger amounts of available time and this may coincide with some residual depression/anxiety resulting in an uptick in spending. If you're anything like me, there are a series of expenses that you'd cut immediately if there was a loss in income. Then there are probably a series of expenses that you'd cut only if absolutely necessary...

Just this past week I was on a visit to some family a few hours away and I was pleased at how efficient the trip was. The cost of the fuel to get there was not overly expensive and good planning kept the costs down to something reasonable. Due to space constraints, I opted to get a hotel room for the night but this was planned for in advance. I use the same chain each time to accumulate reward points. However, about half way through the weekend, I noticed that I was getting a cold and felt like I had a sore throat. Cut to a trip to the pharmacy to get a package of cold medicine. Even the store brand, which was on sale, still cost about nine dollars. The costs of these things really are increasing. That is the very reason why I find comments that there is no inflation to be dubious at best. Statistics from the Dept. of Labor when it comes to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) tell a more accurate story than just waving-of-hands types of comments. The CPI shows, in short that there are many...

Financial Primer When I think back on my financial situation growing up, I never really understood how many issues that there are when it comes to money. Understanding the major financial concepts early on in life and having some tangible, concrete understanding would have been much better than some random experiences and emotions. Just understanding these important aspects as a young person and how to handle them correctly can contribute to financial well being. Income Income is the way money enters your life. Usually, this is in the form of a job, but there are also other sources of income like gifts, bonuses, interest income, and investment income. My concept of income was rather skewed as a kid. I didn't usually need much money. I like to think that I wasn't that greedy. I generally was happy if I had a bike to ride and some sticks and balls to play with outside and some video games to play with inside. I never got a steady allowance per se, so by the time I started learnin...

I read this article about inflation recently. In a nutshell, inflation is a serious concern at this point. And we're not talking about that wonderful 'special' inflation that excludes the cost of food and energy. This type of inflation is absolutely ridiculous because for most families, the inflation on those two items alone is what is effecting their heating, transportation, and food costs. This is not an article about inflation measurement. I think that everyone needs to accept the fact that prices have gone up significantly in a short period of time for the average US citizen. For the average person, this can be a difficult situation to deal with. So, I'd like to describe some anti-inflation strategies. Some of these were talked about this morning on Consuelo Mack: Wealthtrack as a means to describe anti-risk investments. The first basic idea is simple: If you know that the value of the dollar is declining and/or prices are rising, spend the dollars quickly before t...