Travel to Greece all year-round. Trevor Gerszt: Is Your Retirement Caught Up in the Death Spiral? In previous decades there have been predictions of wars and recessions related to oil, but in those scenarios the combatants were fighting over a shortage of the fossil fuel. Back then anyone suggesting future recessions and oil wars would be sparked by having too much oil would have been laughed out of the room. But that’s exactly where we find ourselves today. With gas prices under two dollars a gallon in many places, it’s tempting to cast a smirk at oil-producing states and think this is what they deserve.
After all, these are the same big oil companies and arrogant nations that had no problem sticking it to us when oil was $110 a barrel. The problem is it’s also a real threat to the U.S. Officially Oilmageddon According to a new report by Citi, the world is now trapped in a “death spiral” from the combination of a too-strong dollar, lower commodity prices and a shortage of petrodollar liquidity. Another Debt Bomb In addition, U.S. credit markets are once again under threat.
Trevor Gerszt: Defensive Investing For the Volatile New World. Any way you look at the numbers, 2016 has had the worst starts for the stock market since they’ve been keeping track. A number of factors came together to produce a near-perfect storm for stock prices and panicked investors turned to financial media for guidance. Ironically, market crashes are great for TV financial pundits and investment websites as millions of Americans watching their hopes for a secure retirement go up in smoke turn to experts for advice.
But instead of useful counsel most got either condescending platitudes or predictable advice to ride it out. These were the same media that, just a few months ago, were trumpeting the stock market’s Bull Run. Also missing from the current analysis is any discussion of the causes of the current havoc and how factors both inside and outside the market could impact our investments going forward. The investing environment we face today is significantly different from any in history. A New Game Plan © 2016 Newsmax Finance. Trevor Gerszt: A Lot More Market Madness Still to Come.
Global investment markets don’t just seem scary these days, they are scary. What’s more, the instability of modern markets, and their roller coaster volatility, is something we’d better get used to because it’s here to stay. Fundamentals that have traditionally guided our investment decisions are in a state of upheaval, and investors, both big and small, are yanking their money out of equity markets and investment instruments like mutual funds and ETFs. 2015 will go down as a year of transition for many reasons.
Chief among these is the fact that we transitioned from a world economy led by the United States to a global economy where the U.S. is just one economic power among many. While this change to a globally-connected economy is significant, what’s more relevant for today’s investors is that 2015 also marked the transition from a marketplace where greed was the dominant motivator to one where fear rules. What Are We Running From? Fear is a Poor Investment Adviser © 2016 Newsmax Finance. Why Gold Will Continue to Crush Other Investments. Gold prices moved higher in European markets on Monday, supporting a trend that’s been in place since the beginning of the year. It’s up nearly twenty percent so far in 2016 and there are good reasons to suspect the bull market is just beginning.
Just in this first quarter gold has outperformed the S&P 500, demonstrating why smart investors keep a percentage of their wealth in liquid hard assets and rebalance their portfolios regularly, adjusting the asset allocation as they near retirement. Gold’s turned in a strong performance in spite of factors normally cited as headwinds for higher prices. Yields on bonds have been moving higher, employment numbers are healthy, equities are recovering and we’re still in a tightening monetary environment for the Fed. Looking ahead there are good reasons to believe this rally has steam in spite of the obstacles. Chinese Investors Buying Gold Heavily The crash of the Chinese stock market has spurred the government there to implement capital controls.