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John T. Reed’s news blog

Beware of locking in ‘high’ interest rates

Posted by John Reed on

Today's WSJ says, "With interest rates likely to fall, now is the time to lock in rates above 5%." . Ha! . One of Reed's Rules of finance is that interest rates are totally unpredictable. I am the Reed referenced there. . So the "likely to fall" phrase there is total BS. . No one knows. . If you lock in current yields, and market rates rise, you are screwed. If you do not lock them in, you can escape if rates rise. Or your rate will rise without your doing anything. . The smartest bond guy in the universe...

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Recent interest rate drops do NOT mean stocks will go up

Posted by John Reed on

An investment article in today’s WSJ uses the present participle as part of investment analysis. That is a frequent BS twisting of words to mischaracterize the meaning of investment data..The present participle refers to verbs ending in “ing.” It signals a CONTINUOUS tense. Buy is present tense. Bought is past tense and now over. Will buy is future tense, not yet happened. Continuous tense buying suggests something that was going on, is still going on, and will go on in the future. .The offending sentence in the Journal is .“History suggests that being uninvested [in the stock market] when rates...

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Gold is an awful inflation hedge, here’s a better one

Posted by John Reed on

I see gold commercials on TV daily. Gold is a hedge against inflation because it is a commodity and not USD-denominated. In that, it is no different from silver, and in a broader sense, it is no different from any commodity like wheat or oil or molybdenum or palm oil. I have gold and silver bullion coins. Those have relatively low weight and volume per $1,000 and do not spoil like wheat or oil or iron ore. . I urge you to take delivery of the commodities in which you invest. That means you physically possess and store them. Tight-assed...

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Who is the better parent: Trump or Biden?

Posted by John Reed on

At the end of a 2016 Trump-Hillary debate, an audience member asked each to say something good about the other. It was a nice moment..Trump said she was a fighter who never quit. Hillary said he had done a great job raising his kids..Well, that's interesting. Dems can rail and wail about Trump being Hitler and Satan and a Russian asset and all that BS, but they cannot really find fault with his kids. And how a man carries out his fatherhood responsibilities is a sort of core test of character..With his late first wife Ivana, Trump had Ivanka, Don...

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Nuclear attack on US satellites

Posted by John Reed on

Nothing would remain in space for either side. No one can control space because each side can easily use an EMP close to space. In WW II, air superiority and supremacy allowed us to see all from directly above and to drop bombs on assets we saw. Before heavier than aircraft, the advantageous spot in battle was the high ground. The air is the high ground. . There may be a way to EMP-proof satellites. When we tested an EMP in 1962 in HI, it did not destroy all electronics as everyone seems to assume. . “...the U.S. government had...

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