If there was a “stock of the century” award, Amazon (AMZN) would be the favorite. Since 2001, AMZN has rocketed above $3,300! … turning every $1,000 into just shy of $600,000. Obviously, anyone who got into Amazon early and held on is living…
Read More »Light in the COVID Tunnel
If you ever think you just can’t win, I know how you feel. I’m labeled both a doomsayer and a Pollyanna—sometimes in reaction to the same letter. In fact, I am neither. I used to be the “muddle-through” guy who acknowledged difficulty but expected eventual success. Recently I modified that to “stumble-through,”...
Read More »Business on the Frontline
I write this introduction from an all-too-short vacation in Montana (more below). This week I have asked my longtime associate Patrick Watson to step in and write Thoughts from the Frontline, offering his perspective as a small business owner. As you read this, realize his story is being played out hundreds of...
Read More »The Second Great Depression… But Not Really
"It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job;it's a depression when you lose yours." —Harry S. Truman, 33rd US President In recent weeks, numerous commentators started to suggest the US and the world are entering a depression. For some areas of the economy, that is clearly true. But not every area. Today we...
Read More »Yellow Flag Jobs Data
As I file this letter Friday morning, people are reacting to the July jobs report. My own reaction: The headline report is absurd. I will explain further at the end of this letter. But first, I have another topic. Regular readers know I worry about debt, mainly that the world has too much of it. But it’s a little...
Read More »European Resurgence
One of COVID-19’s many less-than-obvious consequences is the way it makes us look inward. Facing mortality has always done that, of course. West Texas Judge Roy Bean reportedly said, “Nothing focuses the mind like a good hanging.” For the vulnerable and those of us of a certain age (ahem), this virus goes beyond the normal...
Read More »Valuation Inflation
“In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.” —Benjamin Graham You may have noticed a bit of manic activity in the stock market. You may have also noticed inflation (as measured by various government agencies) is quite low, despite a supply...
Read More »Small Business Blues
Politicians love saying small businesses are important to the economy. In this case, it isn’t just rhetoric. The millions of little companies with a handful of workers are, collectively, more important than the few hundred large enterprises we see in the news. That’s one reason the corona crisis has been so...
Read More »Stumble-Through Jobs Market
Work has always been a fact of life. Paycheck-producing jobs are actually a recent development. Until the Industrial Revolution, most people lived on subsistence agriculture, sustaining themselves with whatever they could produce or working as slaves/serfs. The practice of producing something you wouldn’t personally...
Read More »The Blacker Swan
“A similar effect is taking place in economic life. I spoke about globalization in Chapter 3; it is here, but it is not all for the good: it creates interlocking fragility, while reducing volatility and giving the appearance of stability. In other words, it creates devastating Black Swans. We have never lived before under...
Read More »