No one is watching To re-cap, I am asserting that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic value and that they automatically create a Ponzi Scheme. I have never heard a coherent answer to the question, “How do you figure bitcoin has any value?” And I get the same responses. 1.People want it to use as a “store of value.” …
Why Can’t People Accumulate Wealth?
Craig Verdi-August 9 2023 The idea, which most people know but few heed, is that your returns are determined by your behavior. The markets as tracked by an index, such as the S&P 500, have done fine. It has returned about 10% on average for nearly 100 years. The index is the story of growth of profits and dividends over …
Did Dave Ramsey read my Book?
06-27-2023 Today, TheStreet.com ran the article attached below. Dave Ramsey Reveals the Biggest Factor of Success in Personal Finance According to Ramsey, this is just how it is. (June 27, 2023, Thestreet.com) Excerpts: “Personal finance is only 20 percent head knowledge,” he explains. “The other 80 percent — the bulk of the issue — is behavior. And it’s our behaviors …
Anxiety!
Confucius: “Man who is burnt by soup, blows on salad” Okay, it’s not Confucius. Anxiety is all the rage nowadays. It is an anxious time. It is normal after what we went through with covid, inflation and being forced into beliefs that make no sense, and it seems half the population has lost its mind. Now we are afraid of …
Does Crypto have value? & Lifetime non investors.
Let’s have a good year regardless of what the market does. The market goes up 10% a year on average. If it was a steady, every year 10%, you would have it made or be invested in a Ponzi Scheme. Speaking of Ponzi’s, I highly recommend the new docuseries “Madoff: The monster of Wall Street.” I of course, was in …
Someone ought to sell tickets
March 23rd, 2022 Mindful Money Blog –Explaining the mind behind investor behavior I love the movie Raising Arizona. The movie is a nonstop bunch of absurd happenings. After one of those absurdities, the Nicolas Cage character is told it’s a crazy world. Cage says, “Yeah, someone ought to sell tickets.” I have used that a lot in the last year. …
Our own worst enemy
March 14, 2022 Energy When stocks are fully priced, people begin to look for an excuse to sell. We have 2 excuses. A war, and inflation. Problems have been exacerbated by the administration. While facing a war, it is at war with our great oil and gas industry. Even as I write this, the Biden Administration is unable to allow …
Panic Down, Panic Up
01-26-2022 Panic Selling, Panic Buying I guess I should talk about the recent market “correction.” Because even if you are well suited mentally and emotionally for it, it is still concerning. Why is it called a correction.? We may have been feeling like the market will just continue on its jolly way the rest of our lives. We know that’s …
2021 An Earth Odyssey
2021- An Earth Odyssey 2021. Another interesting year. With 7 trading days left in 2021, the S&P is up over 25%. For those who have missed out on this bull market, regret is hardly a strong enough word. The S&P index is up 5-fold from June 2009, the bottom of the 2008-2009 unpleasantness. So, do investors have 5 times the …
Two Costly Thinking Errors that Derail Investors
Two Thinking Errors that Kill Investment Success This is from a continuing series from my Book, Mindful Money- How to Overcome the Number-one enemy of Financial Success: Your Brain. Common thinking errors can cost us fortunes if we don’t recognize them. Here are two of the deadliest errors. Anchoring When investing we get “anchored” to a past price, or …
The Fantasy of Solar and Wind-Part 3
Friends, This is the 3rd of 3 parts. This has all been a long explanation of my thinking that oil and gas stocks have been a great opportunity and will be in the future. Those comments are at the end. Let’s recap. My analysis says that solar and wind can’t work. I have outlined the reasons. Some random crazy things …
The Fantasy of Solar and Wind-Part 2
The Fantasy of Wind and Solar-Part two: Electric Vehicles The purpose of this series of blogs is to share my thoughts about whether oil and gas will continue to be something to consider as good investments, and to explore some options to the zombie like march to batteries running the world. I have no expertise as a scientist or engineer. …
The Fantasy of Wind and Solar-Part 1
The opening scene of Bladerunner (2017) is of a future aircraft flying over California. In the scene virtually all available land is paved over with solar panels. What was meant for light has created a very dark world. Recently California put out a “Flex Alert” asking Californians to avoid charging their cars during times of heavy power use. This was …
The Biden Tax Plan
As I mentioned last time, I would go over what I know about the Biden tax plan. I know about items that I believe may hurt investors. Before you get depressed and start drinking heavily, two warnings: None of these items have become law. So, please call your Congressperson. And we never really know the results of these changes. The …
Trovid
I have had several conversations lately with people who are terrified by what they see as horrible policies coming out of the new administration. We had the same thing with Trump. The media and democrats were sure financial Armageddon was at hand. Half of the country feels this way at every election. Whoever you voted for will do well and …
Bulls, Bears, and bad Arithmetic
Anyone watching the market this year thinks we are seeing a wild ride. Part of that is just getting used to high numbers. When the Dow was 11,000 about 10 years ago, a 200-point loss was bad. It was 2.7% of your total. Where the Dow is today over 31,000, a 200-point drop is less than a 1% loss. We …
Ground Hog Day
Blog for February 2 Happy Ground Hog Day, I have not blogged in a while! A lot has happened in a couple of months. I have sold my house in Scottsdale and I am closing on a house in Boise at the end of this month. I hope to be up there in late March. My plan is to be …
A Question
Just a quick note. I know a lot of you are feeling unsure about the future. Well, that’s how the future works unfortunately. Usually bad things happen when we are thinking we are doing well. So good things must be coming! I am looking forward to seeing how 2021 plays out with the vaccine. The market seems to like the …
The Election and the Market
Overall, the market doesn’t seem to care who wins. When Biden is ahead they say he is causing the market to rise. When Trump is doing well they say he has caused it. The market has been good for those in the right industries. It is very narrow focus, often dictated by Covid news. Stocks like Amazon, Walmart, McDonalds, Apple, …
Another week in Weirdsville
Sept 18, 2020 Markets: The markets continue to amaze me with their resilience. Some companies have benefited from lockdowns and restrictions. That is little consolation to the store, restaurant, bar, and salons, etc. who have willing patrons but can’t let them in. Who would have guessed that governments would set up a situation where money is funneled to a small …