John Maynard Keynes Personal Fortune

How John Maynard Keynes Beat the Stock Market by 8% Points Per Year Between 1921-1946

he Journal of Economic Perspectives: Vol. 27 No. 3 (Summer 2013) has a wonderful piece on the investment record of John Maynard Keynes, who managed to beat the market by an average of 8 percent per year from 1921 through 1946 by focusing on long-term, high quality dividend-paying stocks as well as smaller enterprises that had room to grow.  When he died in his early sixties, Keynes had achieved the rank of one of the richest economists in history, amassing a fortune equal to $30,000,000 today.

Eli Lilly and the Insanity of Foreign Taxes

Eli Lilly and the Insanity of Foreign Taxes

I’m going through the corporate bond filings of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly just out of curiosity.  They have a huge patent cliff coming up, during which time as much as 40% of their revenue base will be exposed to generic competition.  I wondered what it would do to the risk metrics on the senior bonds so I pulled the Moody’s rating and reading over the figures as I listen to an old 1970s song called Snookeroo.

Investing in Bonds Tricky Right Now

Investing In Corporate Bonds and Debentures Is a Bit Tricky At the Moment

I spent a big percentage of my day reading indenture documents for corporate debt securities because I was helping someone pick up some additional fixed income investments for a retirement portfolio.  I managed to get my hands on a nice block of high-grade, non-callable debentures from a major packaged foods company with a 4.3% yield-to-maturity on the remaining decade before maturity, but still have a bit of their dry powder left to spend.