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Factor In Your Income Sources When Seeking Diversification

September 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Are You a Stock or a Bond

When it comes to diversification, you have to look at your entire life and not just your portfolio.  Several years ago there was a book I really enjoyed that dealt with this topic called Are You a Stock or a Bond?: Create Your Own Pension Plan for a Secure Financial Future. It explained some professions, like tenured professors, are like bonds - there is little risk of you ever losing your job, the pay it steady and almost fixed with small incremental increases based upon inflation, and you … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Recommendations, Diversification Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Are You an Average American Worker?

September 3, 2010 By 1 Comment
Household Income in the United States

A Word on the "Average" Worker The universal law of mathematics is that half of all citizens must be above average and half must be below average.  (Our job is to try and increase that average over time so that someone who is "average" today is richer than someone who was "average" 100 years ago). In the United States, average is defined as $50,000 per household income annually. To adjust for folks like Bill Gates on the high end and the homeless guy on the low end skewing the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Economics, Making Money Tagged With: , , , , ,

American Manufacturing Profits Are the Same After Inflation As In 1960

September 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Profit by Industry in the United States of America

The manufacturing sector in the United States generates the same inflation-adjusted profits it did in 1960.  Surprised?  Consider this: In 1960, the United States manufacturing sector generated total profits of $23.8 billion. In 2008, the United States manufacturing sector generated total profits of $175.5 billion. If we adjust for inflation, 2008 profits from manufacturing should have been $171.17 billion, so we are actually ahead of the game a bit.  The problem is, at the same … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Case Studies & Profiles, Economics Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Final Third of the Year Begins!

August 18, 2010 By 1 Comment
Autumn and Winter

I'm really excited that we are heading into the back third of the year and the schools are back in session. Third and fourth quarter generate most of our revenue and sales.  I love being well dressed, wearing a cashmere Ralph Lauren coat, and going Christmas shopping for family at my favorite high-end department stores.  I love having steak dinners at Fleming's and Ruth's Chris.  I love contributing to my retirement accounts and pension plans.  I love counting that year's profits and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: My Life Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Secret Philosophy of Successful Investing – One of My Best About.com Articles

July 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Investing Philosophy

This is a cross-post of The Secret Philosophy of Successful Investing from About.com, a division of The New York Times because I want to highlight the piece in case any of you missed it and get you to head over to the Investing for Beginners site to check it out! Why?  I've received tons of private messages, emails, and other communications thanking me for writing this specific article, causing this to become, hands down, one of the highest rated pieces of content I've published in the past ten … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Announcements, Investing Articles Tagged With: , , , , , ,

New Jersey Battles Over Millionaire Tax

June 20, 2010 By 3 Comments
New Jersey Governor's Mansion

Think about all the income I earn and my businesses earn.  The sales and profits that are generated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  Guess what?  The taxable income could have belonged to the state of New Jersey.  However, the cost of living, driven in part by the state tax rates, were too high for my liking so I left after roughly five years. Now, the New Jersey legislature wants to pass a tax that will hit 16,000 millionaires by taking 10.75% of their income above $1 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics, Religion & Culture Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Sugar Prices Hit 30 Year Highs

May 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Imperial Sugar

I spent the evening reading through the annual report and SEC filings of Imperial Sugar on the iPad listening to the river outside with the windows open. (That would be an article in and of itself - the company had a huge explosion in 2008 at one of its sugar refineries, killing several employees and injuring dozens more.  The insurance proceeds have been paid and they rebuilt a state-of-the-art facility that is just now gearing up for full production.  Yet, they are off hedge accounting, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Commodities Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Charlie Munger Value Investing Strategy

December 20, 2009 By 2 Comments
Charlie Munger at the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting

Charlie Munger, the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, former hedge fund manager, and billionaire value investor, was instrumental in changing Warren Buffett's way of thinking about value investing. Charlie insisted that the investor would be better served by focusing on better quality businesses, even if the price were higher, because those businesses could be held for decades, continually churning out cash and profits for the owners. In fact, it was this influence that resulted in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Legendary Investors, Value Investing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Common Misconceptions About Dollar Cost Averaging

December 16, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Dollar Cost Averaging Investing Strategy Stock Market

It is a common misconception that dollar cost averaging is merely the regular saving of money through automatic investment.  Technically, this is not dollar cost averaging, although it closely resembles it.  Instead, dollar cost averaging is the regular investing of a fixed amount of money as opposed to putting it in to the market in a lump sum.  If you were to win the lottery, receive a pension lump sum payout, or cash out of a real estate investment, dollar cost averaging would mean you … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Dollar Cost Averaging Tagged With: , , , , ,

Asset Positioning Asset Allocation Strategy

December 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Asset Positioning Asset Class

Did you know there is a unique tax strategy that can help improve your asset allocation investing by keeping more money in your pocket? It's called asset positioning and it can be practiced by virtually anyone with investments.  I once wrote about asset positioning over at Investing for Beginners at About.com, a division of The New York Times, even though it is more of an intermediate investing concept rather than one for total newbies. What Is Asset Positioning? Asset positioning, or asset … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Asset Allocation Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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