Tag Archives: 5.) Alhambra Investments

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Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Sherlock Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Sherlock Holmes: “That was the curious incident.” From Silver Blaze by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1892 It is hard to determine sometimes what causes markets to move as they do. Take last Friday’s stock market selloff. The widely cited “reason”...

New home sales were reported for July as down nearly 13% to 511K, a number that is just about the average since 2010 (543k). But that doesn’t tell the whole story obviously. New home sales have fallen sharply since December of last year, down 39%. The drop from the peak in August 2020 is even more dramatic, down nearly 51%. Obviously, the fall this year is related to rising mortgage rates but that can’t be the reason sales have been falling for nearly two years....

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index rose to 0.27 in July with all four categories of indicators rising. The 3 month average was unchanged at -0.09. That indicates growth is slightly below trend and is far from the recession threshold of -0.7. The index had been down for two consecutive months and both May and June were revised slightly lower. The data in August so far has been positive as well, particularly the production data with IP last week surprising to...

History never repeats itself. Man always does. Voltaire Mark Twain is credited with a similar saying, that history doesn’t repeat but it rhymes. Of course, there is scant evidence that Clemens said anything of the sort just as Voltaire may or may not have penned the quote above. But both men were much wittier than I – than most – so I’ll take them both as being representative if not genuine. I have been a professional investor for now over 30 years and I have seen...

The clock is ticking and it gets louder the closer you get to the magic age of 65. That’s when you sign up for Medicare. But there’s more than one way to receive Medicare coverage. There are Medicare Advantage plans, sometimes referred to as all-in-one plans, because they provide medical coverage and can also provide benefits for vision, dental, hearing, and prescriptions. There is Original Medicare, which comes packaged as Part A, which provides hospital insurance,...

It’s almost time for the Social Security Administration to break out pencil and calculator to find out how much more it costs to live this year than it did last, and then decide how much of a raise Social Security beneficiaries will get in 2023. For 2022, the Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) was 5.9%, the largest increase since 1982. Well, hang on to your hat boys and girls because, in the words of Bachman Turner Overdrive, “you ain’t see nuthin’...

It all became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I’ve ever made, in my entire life, has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have, in every aspect of life, be it something to wear, something to eat… It’s all been wrong. Every one. – George Constanza If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right. – Jerry Seinfeld From the Seinfeld episode “The Opposite” I...

Since the beginning of 401(k) plans in 1978, people have considered it to be the quintessential retirement plan—you get to save money before taxes and in most cases, the company puts money into your account, too. What could be better than that? But now, 44 years later, it’s time to take a broader look at 401(k)s that considers taxes on 401(k) distributions. 401(k)s certainly have a place in your investment plan. Most employers offer some kind of match up to a...

Investors crave certainty. They want to know that there are definitive signals for them to follow as they adjust their investments to fit the current market and economy. They want to know that A leads to B leads to C. Tea leaf readers are always in high demand on Wall Street and they continue to find employment despite their almost universally dismal track record. In this case, it is demand that drives supply rather than the other way around. The constant demand for...