As I’m writing this, the Russian ETF (ERUS) has lost 12% in one day. As many value investors know, you need to buy stocks when there is blood in the streets so I’ve had many questions about whether this is an opportunity or a trap.
Let’s take a look at what’s going on, look at the fundamental perspective, and the stock market perspective on investing in Russia.
Introduction
If you have been following Investiv Daily for the past year and a half, you know that I have been extremely bullish on emerging markets because of their relative cheapness when compared to developed markets, positive demographics, and positive economic growth. More →
Introduction
Financial bubbles are always repeating. Sometimes they are small, just like the meal delivery businesses (like Blue Apron) craze of the last two years. Sometimes they are a bit bigger, like cryptocurrencies have been lately. Sometimes they are huge, just like the current stock or debt markets. More →
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from my research on financial markets, it’s that you always have to expect the unexpected. Nothing is linear, everything works in cycles and what monetary policy makers say is usually wrong.
Last week when the FED raised interest rates, Janet Yellen said: “We’re in a synchronized expansion. This is the first time in many years we’ve seen this.”
That might be true, but the fact is that every economy today is a global economy and the global economy isn’t synchronized. At some point, it will crack somewhere as it always does. The important thing for us is to be prepared for something like that and to see how to best position our portfolios for the consequences that a financial shock might create. More →
Introduction
I’ll start this discussion with the story of American Express (NYSE: AXP) and its 1963 salad oil scandal.
Anthony “Tino” De Angelis, a former commodities broker, figured that he could trick inspectors by putting just a few feet of salad oil in his containers and make it look like the containers were full as the oil floats on top of sea water. This allowed him to borrow huge amounts against the salad oil collateral. At one point, the oil market crashed and it was impossible to cash in on the collateral as there wasn’t any. More →
Introduction
Back in October, I wrote an article that discussed 8 charts that show how the stock market doesn’t always go up.
Aside from these charts, I discussed the research of Professor Emeritus Edward F. McQuarrie, from the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. What’s interesting from his research is that he found that dividends and inflation contributed to 99.7% of investing returns since 1929, which is a mind-blowing number. More →
Introduction
An often overlooked part of investing and portfolio strategies are currencies.
The easiest way to look at it is to say that it all evens out over time and that the only thing important is to be diversified. By owning the S&P 500 or companies that have global revenues, we could say that a portfolio is well diversified. More →
Introduction
I’ve talked a lot about investing in emerging markets, but I’ve never assessed emerging markets from an holistic perspective.
Today, you’ll read everything you need to know about investing in emerging markets. It’s extremely important to know why to invest in emerging markets, and then to understand the best way how to do so because not every investment in emerging markets is going to do well. More →
Introduction
What we’re mostly focused on now will probably be completely irrelevant in a few years and will almost certainly be in fifteen years.
Most of the market related talk now focuses around possible tax reform or similar incentives. As these are short term factors and the economy offers no free lunch, nobody knows how those probable measures will actually impact the economy and stocks. More →
Introduction
In today’s article, I’ll analyze the current global debt environment.
Debt is an economic factor that is unwatched as long as things are going well but as soon at things turn south, everyone will be screaming about a debt crisis and the end of the financial world as we know it.
Given this, it’s extremely important to know what is going on, how sustainable the current debt levels are, what the impact of debt on the economy is, how to position your portfolio, and perhaps even how to take advantage of potential black swans arising from future debt instabilities. More →
