5 Financial Issues Only Women Face

5 Financial Issues Only Women Face

By Gabrielle Olya Mar 15, 2022

Women have to deal with additional hurdles in many areas.  When it comes to finances, women often have to deal with extra hurdles their male counterparts don’t — and most men and women openly acknowledge that this is the case. A recent survey conducted by Hartford Funds found that more than half of investors (52%) agree that men and women have different financial needs, specifically in the areas of career considerations (60%), long-term care planning (56%) and budgeting (55%).

Here’s a closer look at some of the financial issues that are unique to women.

The Gender Pay Gap

“One of the biggest financial issues unique to women is the gender pay gap,” said Senofer Mendoza, co-founder and general partner of Mendoza Ventures, a VC firm with a focus on supporting female businesses and founders. “This is a formal way of saying women historically and currently get paid less than men.”

According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data, women earn 82 cents for every dollar a man earns.

“You can imagine how that adds up over a lifetime,” Mendoza said. “It can cut into their retirement savings, investing and many other ways [to build wealth].”

Important: 20% of Women Have Faced Lack of Fair Pay Due To Their Gender — How Can We Change the Status Quo?

Lack of Financial Confidence

“[Women] tend to be more conservative and less confident about their financial experience and expertise,” said Clari Nolet, CFP, CDFA, senior financial advisor at Team Hewins.

This lack of confidence can cause them to be too risk-averse when it comes to their investing decisions.

“Investing too conservatively could mean that when they get older, they need to take on more risk to meet their financial goals,” Nolet said.

Nolet believes that a lack of financial literacy is a factor that contributes to why so many women lack confidence when it comes to money.

“There isn’t a good personal finance curriculum at the high school and college levels, where it would be a huge benefit,” she said.

Longer Life Spans

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/financial-planning/financial-issues-only-women-face/

6 Ways To Keep Your Cash Safe While Traveling

6 Ways To Keep Your Cash Safe While Traveling

Heather Taylor   Wed, May 25, 2022

Whether you're traveling across the United States or heading out on an international flight, travelers need to safeguard their cash and credit cards to ensure nothing gets lost or stolen. What are some of the best ways to protect cash and credit cards?  GOBankingRates spoke to several seasoned travelers about their best tips for keeping cash safe during your travels.

Share Your Travel Plans With Your Bank

Before you leave for a trip, especially if you plan on traveling overseas to another country, it's a good idea to touch base with your bank. Let them know which dates you will be out of the country and the dates you'll be in each country you plan to visit.

Most banks have fraud protection programs in place. These work to protect your financial and personal information, monitor your account in real-time for any suspicious activity and alert you in the event of potential fraud through email, phone calls, texts or a mobile app alert.

Don't Keep All Your Money In One Place

If you are traveling with cash and credit cards, do not keep all of your money in one place like your wallet. Similarly, if you are out and about do not carry all of your cash with you.

Many travelers will consider getting a safe in their hotel rooms and storing their money, credit cards and any other valuables inside. While this is not necessarily bad advice, it's a good idea to check in with the hotel or place you plan on staying at ahead of time to see if they offer this accommodation. If there isn't a safe available, consider dividing your money up and storing it inside various personal items like the ones listed below.

Store Money Inside Fake Personal Items

Michelle O'Donnell, owner of Brit Adventures Travel Blog, has four hacks for keeping money safe while traveling as a solo woman overseas. Here are a few ordinary personal items that can be used to store cash.

A round hairbrush with a hollowed-out middle to store cash inside. O'Donnell said this is great not only for traveling but everyday use in a big city as you're less likely to be robbed of your hairbrush than your wallet.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/6-ways-keep-cash-safe-150018850.html

4 Options for Your Money Other Than the Bank

4 Options for Your Money Other Than the Bank

By Andrew Lisa May 3, 2022 Banking 101

Get savings account safety, but with better returns.

With the average deposit yield stuck at around 0.06% and inflation at a 40-year high of 8.5%, saving isn’t exactly the right word to describe what you’re doing with your money when you put it in the bank in the current economic climate. If you’re looking for an alternative way to grow your money, you could always invest it — but that comes with a level of risk that your emergency fund might not be able to tolerate.

The good news is that savings accounts aren’t the only game in town when it comes to safe, insured, interest-bearing places to stash your cash. In fact, there are options that you might not know about that pay higher yields and offer more convenience than savings accounts without any more risk to the money you’re trying to grow.

Keep reading to learn about some of the best savings account alternatives where you might be able to get your money to work a little bit harder for you.

Credit Unions

If you want all the familiarity of a bank — checking and savings accounts, debit cards, online banking, mobile apps and all the rest — but with better rates and kinder customer service, ditch your big bank and give your local credit union a chance.

Credit unions are member-owned non-profits — when you make a deposit, you’re buying a stake in the institution. With no hungry shareholder mouths to feed, credit unions are known for offering higher yields on deposits and better rates on loans than banks.

Certificates of Deposit

Certificates of deposit (CDs) are a type of savings vehicle that holds a predetermined amount of money for a predetermined period of time. Unlike regular savings accounts, you can’t withdraw your money until the CD matures, which might be after a term of six months, a year or five years.

The longer the term, the higher the yield you’ll earn, and when the CD matures, you can take back your cash plus the interest you gained. The catch is that you’ll be hit with a penalty if you withdraw your money before the term expires. They’re safe investments — the risk is that inflation will outpace your yield, which can reduce or even eliminate your real returns.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.gobankingrates.com/banking/options-other-than-bank-for-your-money/

8 Insights Only the Self-Made Super Wealthy Understand

8 Insights Only the Self-Made Super Wealthy Understand

By Kevin Daum  Inc. 500 entrepreneur and best-selling author@KevinJDaum

Wonder what it's really like to strike it rich? Billionaire Ken Fisher explains the perspectives of the self-made wealthy.  Billionaire Ken Fisher Shares 8 Insights Only the Self-Made Super Wealthy Understand

Not all entrepreneurs are in it for the money, but gaining wealth is certainly among the top motivators for company building. Not surprisingly, having great wealth brings it's own unique responsibilities and circumstances that few get to experience first hand.

I recently had the privilege of interviewing billionaire Ken Fisher, founder, chairman, and CEO of Fisher Investments, best-selling author, Forbes magazine columnist, and No. 225 on the Forbes 400.

Fisher provided a candid, no-holds-barred look at the perspective of the self-made super wealthy.

Here are his insights.

1. It Isn't Pursuit Of Wealth, But Pursuit Of Passion That Creates Wealth.

Focusing on money won't likely get you to the Forbes list like Fisher. He aptly states: "Most people don't get super wealthy by accumulating money. They get super wealthy by following some dream they are passionate about, whether its starting and running a business, or being a rock star musician or a visual entertainer."

He points out that most of the super wealthy overshoot their personal goals, and yet they are still driven by their passion. The super wealthy know that if you pursue your passion, the money will come.

2. After A Certain Monetary Threshold, The Desire Isn't For More Wealth, But More Time.

There is very little that the super wealthy cannot buy. As the wealth keeps accumulating, spending becomes less of a joy or ambition. "After a certain point," Fisher explains, "there isn't much more you can think of that you want."

What becomes more desirable is time to enjoy life. "The vacation homes, cars, boats, and wardrobes are just more stuff to deal with." Fisher observes. "All that stuff clutters your time usage, so at a certain point, the wealthier you get the more you covet time."

3. Everyone You've Known Forever (Except Your Spouse) Will Think You've Changed.

https://www.inc.com/kevin-daum/billionaire-ken-fisher-shares-8-insights-only-the-super-wealthy-understand.html?cid=sf01002

Coping With The Guilt Of Losing Money

Coping With The Guilt Of Losing Money

By THE INVESTOR

I accept it’s normal to feel frustrated, angry, or even downright stupid when you lose money on your investments.

But what about guilt?

My portfolio’s fall from its peak value in summer 2007 to a low in October 2008 represents a big loss for a 30-something private investor like me: at least a couple of years of after-tax income in cash terms.

More importantly, the losses meant I had fewer options in October 2008 than the year before. I’d originally begun investing to build up a house-buying war chest for when the over-valued housing market corrected itself.

After several years waiting, house prices were finally falling, but my investments had fallen further.

It was my sister who put it simplest and best, when I explained to her my fate:

“Ah, I see. If only you’d sold all your investments and put the money into a savings account! Now you’d have even more money, and you could buy a cheaper house.”

My sister was a 100% right.

Being told what I did wrong by my sister, who takes no real interest in money, might have hurt my pride. But then my emotional state has taken several turns during the bear market. I’ve felt:

Frustrated:  After half a decade of waiting for property prices to fall and saving as much as 50% of my annual after-tax income, I’d thrown away my ticket to the ball.

Angry:  At the world, and at the markets. What were the chances of a once in a hundred year credit crisis coming along just when I was finally getting ready to buy a house?

Foolish:  If I’d thought property prices would fall so far, how could I have missed the connection with the stock market? Wishful thinking, perhaps?

Guilty:  My family background is not a wealthy one, and the money I’d lost was modestly substantial – more than my parents’ life savings. What was I thinking playing roulette with the market and exposing myself to such losses?

Despite these churning emotions, I didn’t sell up in despair. Instead, I kept buying while shares were cheap. I did what history and the likes of Warren Buffett say you should do – hanging in and even buying when others were fearful.

Time will tell if this faith in the stock market simply compounds my losses or leads to a recovery, but I’m glad I’ve stuck to the rational line.

Here some tips that might help you if you’re also feeling guilty or giving in to bear market despair.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://monevator.com/coping-with-the-guilt-of-losing-money/

The 7 Deadly Sins Of Finance

The 7 Deadly Sins Of Finance

FORBES | SHOOK Dustin Elliott Top Wealth Advisor Mar 28, 2022

Taking a few X’s and O’s from a playbook on life, I wanted to apply each of the 7 Deadly Sins to the most often discussed topic in the most popular book every written, money. Money, in and of itself, is simply a multiplier of means to an end. It takes whatever is already inside of us…and multiplies it. For example, if you like cars without money and suddenly you have money, chances are, you’ll buy cars.

This observation is why it is exceedingly important that children, teenagers and young adults develop healthy attributes and a deep sense of integrity before they have wealth. Often, the pursuit of wealth teaches us many life lessons that prepare us for managing it. In some cases, we can be taught that money is a means of acquiring the what in life we desire. In others, we can be taught that money is a means of sharing the who we have become.

In my experience, you don’t get very many of the whats until you become the who you are meant to be.

The 7 Deadly Sins of Finance:

ENVY

Being dissatisfied with our lives, talents and gifts while focusing on the circumstances of another’s. In today’s tainted lens of social media, this one is not difficult to grasp. It’s rooted in jealousy. It creates unfair rivalry and unnecessary competition. It can manifest itself in gossip, sarcasm, teasing, contempt and lead to schemes meant to destroy others, while rotting us from the inside out.

Rather than be envious, why not befriend someone whose station in life is appealing to you? Chances are, they are making above average financial decisions, and they may have some insight you could benefit from. It is often said, you are the average of the 5 people you are closest to. Assuming this math is true, how do you add up? If you made an adjustment and added a mentor where a detractor currently resides, would your average increase?

GREED

A desire for inordinate amounts of possessions or status…or in this case, money. Greed uses others for personal gain, with little regard for the harm our manipulation may cause them. It can manifest itself in many ways, gambling excessively, weaseling, narcissism, selfishness, embezzling, avoiding conflict, being unlawful or unethical, being too possessive or even refusing to set healthy boundaries.

Rather than be greedy for more personal pleasure, fall in love with the journey, the pursuit…and establish a process by which you share the fruits of your labor with others. Setup a foundation or DAF that automatically takes 10% (or more) of what you come into and be radically generous with it. There’s no drug on this planet that can compare to the high we get when we help someone else, especially when we do so with no expectation of something in return. The gift of giving truly is without comparison.

LUST

Seeking material or monetary satisfaction to fill the emptiness in our lives…an excessive, driving desire for personal pleasure with more net worth, greater returns or gains on the socioeconomic ladder.

Rather than lusting for more money, set your heart on a desire to learn. Every successful person stands on a hill full of failures - although for them, they’re called lessons. As we try and fail, we learn what not to do, we make adjustments and we file experiences under a super power column called wisdom. As we increase our net worth in wisdom, chances are, we’ll find other rewards as well.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes-shook/2022/03/28/the-7-deadly-sins-of-finance/?sh=7faa5c847483

The Laws of Investing

The Laws of Investing

By Morgan Housel

Think of how big the world is. And how good animals are at hiding. Now think about a biologist whose job it is to determine whether a species has gone extinct. Not an easy thing to do.

A group of Australian biologists once discovered something remarkable. More than a third of all mammals deemed extinct in the last 500 years have later been rediscovered, alive:

We identified 187 mammal species that have been missing (claimed or suspected to be extinct) since 1500. This number includes all such mammals for which we were able to find key variables for analysis. In the complete dataset, 67 species that were once missing have been rediscovered.

A lot of what we know in science is bound to change. That’s what makes science great, what makes it work, and what distinguishes it from religion. Science is filled with rules, evidence-based theories, and probabilistic observations. Laws – immutable truths lacking exceptions – are rare. Most fields only have a handful.

But the handful of laws that exist have a special function: they’re the great grandmothers, the old wise men, of the day-to-day theories and rules used to discover a new truth. There’s a hierarchy of science: laws at the bottom, specific rules above that, then theories, observations, hunches, and so on.

The higher you go on the pyramid the more exciting things become. That’s where discovery and opportunity live. But everything at the top of the pyramid must respect the laws at the bottom.

The idea of flexible rules deriving from unshakeable laws applies to every field. John Reed writes in his book Succeeding:

When you first start to study a field, it seems like you have to memorize a zillion things. You don’t. What you need is to identify the core principles that govern the field. The million things you thought you had to memorize are simply various combinations of the core principles.

Same thing in investing.

What’s an investing law? There’s no definition, so I’ve taken some liberties here. I try to limit them to forces that influence all types of investments, in all sectors, in all countries, throughout all of history, with few exceptions, and some explanation for why it will continue indefinitely.

A theme here is that investing is not just the study of finance. It’s the study of how people behave with money. So most of these “laws” describe a universal feature of how people respond to risk, reward, and scarcity.

They are simple. But they are, I think, part of a foundation that governs most of what happens in investing, and will keep happening as long as investing exists.

Law #1: Optimism and pessimism will always overshoot because the boundaries of both can only be known in hindsight, once they’re passed.

The correct price for any asset is what someone else is willing to pay for it, because all asset prices rely on subjective assumptions about the future. And like a blind man who doesn’t know where a wall is until his cane touches it, markets cannot know when optimism or pessimism has gone too far until they bump into the limits and enough investors protest in the other direction.

The peaks and bottoms of market cycles always look irrational in hindsight, like they went too far. But in real time markets are just trying to find the limits of what people can endure. And they have to do that because any gap between an asset’s potential and what investors are willing to endure creates opportunities that will be exploited.

Yale economist Robert Shiller won the Nobel Prize for a paper he wrote in 1981 about a similar idea. The bottom line is that markets aren’t really rational; they’re just pretty reasonable.

Law #2: Calm plants the seeds of crazy.

There’s More

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-laws-of-investing/

3 Ways to Start Anticipating Your Financial Needs

3 Ways to Start Anticipating Your Financial Needs

Posted by Daniel Azzoli

Managing your finances can sometimes feel like an overwhelming task. You’ve got bills to worry about, maybe a family to support, and plenty of other financial responsibilities on your plate. If you’re trying to keep your financial life in order, one of the most important things you can do is learn how to anticipate your financial needs. This can help you to start preparing for these expenses ahead of time and hopefully ease the impact they have down the line.

If you’re not used to thinking ahead when it comes to your finances, this may be a tricky thing to wrap your head around. For example, when you run out of groceries, maybe you just run over to the grocery store, browse through the aisles and pick out a few items to make meals for the next few days. Or maybe you’re used to getting bills in the mail that you hadn’t expected.

The problem is that when you only deal with financial issues as they come, you might be costing yourself more money than you need to be. Maybe your little trips to the grocery store end up being more expensive than if you had planned your trip ahead of time around an upcoming sale. Or maybe you could have set aside money for those surprise bills ahead of time if you had paid more attention to your budget calendar.

The point is, if you don’t have a clear idea of what your financial needs are in advance, your regular expenses may start to inflate. This may lead you to start racking up credit card debt and spend money you don’t have.

Use Budget To Anticipate Financial Needs

If you want to avoid this, it helps to understand how to anticipate your financial needs. When you’re organized and know that an expense is on the horizon, you can put yourself in a position to make things easier on yourself when it finally comes. Here are three things you can do to prepare yourself for upcoming financial needs.

1. Plan Your Groceries Ahead Of Time

We’ve already spoken a bit about how your grocery shopping habits can affect your budget. You run out of food at home, head to the store, wander through the aisles and slowly pick out a few things that you need, and maybe pick up a few extra items while you’re at it. There are a couple of issues with taking this approach.

First, you may be spending more time than you need to on this process. When you go grocery shopping without a list and a clear idea of what you’re looking for, you can burn time wandering around looking for inspiration for your next few meals. This time could be much better spent doing something more productive.

Secondly, when you take this approach to grocery shopping, you’re not putting yourself in the best position to capitalize on whatever sales are going on. Maybe you get lucky and stumble upon a few things on sale that you grab, but you may be missing a great deal from earlier in the week that could have shaved off a significant amount from your grocery bill. Or maybe you end up buying things on sale just because they’re discounted, and then don’t know what to do with them later on.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.moneykey.com/blog/start-anticipating-financial-needs/

Inheriting a house? Read this before you make any rash decisions

Inheriting a house? Read this before you make any rash decisions

Alessandra Malito  Mon, May 23, 2022

There are tax implications to whatever decision you make.

Beneficiaries must juggle many considerations when they inherit a home, especially if they’re sharing that gift with siblings or others. There are tax implications whether they keep or sell the home, emotional attachments to the house and the items within the house, as well as other potential estate planning issues. In some cases, the property can become a source of rental income, whereas in other situations, it could be another source of cash after it’s sold — especially when the real-estate market is doing well.

Leaving behind a home for a loved one to inherit is a huge gift, but without the right planning, it could be an equally large headache.

Beneficiaries must juggle many considerations when they inherit a home, especially if they’re sharing that gift with siblings or others. There are tax implications whether they keep or sell the home, emotional attachments to the house and the items within the house, as well as other potential estate planning issues.

There is no right or wrong answer when choosing to keep or sell an inherited home. In some cases, the property can become a source of rental income, whereas in other situations, it could be another source of cash after it’s sold — especially when the real-estate market is doing well. But before jumping into the choice, here’s what to know:

The tax implications of selling the home

Individuals who sell a home after living in it for two out of the last five years enjoy the tax benefit of an exemption — for single filers, the exclusion is $250,000, while for those who are married filing jointly, it’s $500,000. This exemption is applied when a home is sold to reduce the capital gains the sellers would have to pay.

For example, if a married couple sold a home for $1 million and had a basis of $500,000, they would pay $0 in capital-gains tax for that sale. Comparatively, if they sold it for $1.5 million, they would reduce the tax obligation by $500,000, and pay capital gains tax on the remaining $500,000.

Surviving spouses who inherit the full value of their home after their husband or wife dies can still take advantage of the $500,000 exemption if they sell the house within two years of death, said Peter Palion, a financial adviser and founder of Master Plan Advisory.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/inheriting-a-house-read-this-before-you-make-any-rash-decisions-11617982189?siteid=yhoof2

A Surprising Benefit To Owning Gold-- Especially Now

A Surprising Benefit To Owning Gold-- Especially Now

Notes From the Field By Simon Black  May 23, 2022

By the year 41 BC, just a few years after the assassination of Julius Caesar, Rome was under the strict rule of a three-person dictatorship known as the Tresviri rei publicae constituendae.

Historians today refer to this committee as the Triumvirate, and it included a general named Aemilius Lepidus, as well as Gaius Octavius-- who would eventually become Emperor Augustus.

But the leader of the group, at least at first, was Marcus Antonius, also known as Mark Antony.

Mark Antony was not especially popular. Many Romans rightfully suspected that Mark Antony had been involved in Caesar’s assassination. Plus he was sleeping with Caesar’s widow, Cleopatra.

But Antony’s power through the Triumvirate was absolute. He could raise taxes, establish new social and religious traditions, regulate daily life, seize private property, and even condemn people to death… all without any oversight or due process.

And he wasn’t shy about using this power to squash his opposition.

Antony put several of his political enemies to death-- including the much beloved Cicero, who was trying to escape Rome when Antony’s goons killed him.

Antony also threatened to kill another Senator named Nonius. But unlike Cicero, Nonius managed to escape Rome… bringing with him about $1.5 million worth of gold and jewels.

People in the ancient world knew that precious metals (and precious stones) were pretty much the only portable forms of wealth.

Human civilization at the time was completely agrarian, so most productive assets like land and crops were impossible to move. Gold was almost the singular option to move large sums of wealth, and it remained this way for centuries.

These days there are much better options. Many forms of wealth-- financial securities, intellectual property, bank deposits, and cryptocurrency-- are completely portable. So gold is no longer necessary as a way to move money abroad.

And yet gold still has a number of incredible benefits.

For starters, it’s a great way to hold wealth privately. When you own physical gold and store it in a safe, there’s no ‘counterparty’ like a bank or broker standing between you and your money.

No one is keeping tabs on your gold, your name isn’t in some database. And when you pass away, your heirs can easily take possession of the gold without any bureaucratic hurdles.

Second, over the long-term, gold has proven to be a pretty great investment.

Since August 1971, in fact, when gold formally decoupled from the US dollar, the gold price has increased 42x.

Comparatively, the S&P 500 has grown about 40x over the same period.

This isn’t to say that gold is a better investment. In fact, if you reinvested dividends, stocks outperformed. But history shows that gold is worth consideration.

Another benefit of gold is that it has traditionally hedged against systemic risks. It’s like an insurance policy; in times of real crisis, physical gold has historically been a great asset to own.

Notice that I keep saying “physical gold”, i.e. bars and coins.

A lot of people invest in ‘paper’ gold products, like Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). And 99.99% of the time, these ETFs perform very similarly to physical gold.

It’s that 0.01% of the time-- the real emergencies-- when the performance of ETFs materially diverges from physical gold.

We saw this quite recently in the early days of the pandemic: in early March 2020, major gold ETFs actually fell by around 10%. But the price of physical gold bars and coins went through the roof.

So, in my opinion, physical is always better than paper.

Now, there are plenty of other reasons to consider owning gold-- but there’s one in particular I want to leave you with today: diversification.

Most people understand the concept of diversification quite well: don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.

We constantly write about international diversification at Sovereign Man, i.e. ensuring that your assets, lifestyle, business, etc. isn’t all tied to the same country.

In financial investment terms, diversification means holding multiple assets that have a low correlation to one another.

To use a simple example, Coca Cola and PepsiCo are technically two different companies. But they share similar risks and rewards.

If Coke does well, chances are Pepsi is also doing well, and vice versa. So if you own stock in both Coke and Pepsi, you’re basically invested in the same thing. Your risks and rewards are not diversified.

Now, many people think they’re diversified because they’ve invested in, say, a bank stock and a tech stock-- JP Morgan, and Amazon.

Sure, those two companies certainly have a lower correlation than Coca Cola and Pepsi. But you’re still invested completely in US stocks. And that’s not very diversified.

This is where gold comes in.

Compared to the general stock market, i.e. the S&P 500, gold has a very LOW correlation. In other words, there are years when gold does well, but the stock market does poorly. There are years where stocks are up but gold is down. There are years where they both do well, and years where they both fall.

So, mathematically speaking, gold represents diversification away from the stock market; their risks and rewards are totally different.

Interestingly, though, gold’s diversification doesn’t stop there.

If you look at the price history of gold (again, going back to 1971), it also shows very low correlation to the US economy, i.e. there are periods where the economy shrinks, but gold goes up. There are also periods where the US economy booms, but gold trades sideways.

There’s even a very low correlation between gold and the Federal Reserve, i.e. the gold price moves independently of whether interest rates rise or fall, or whether the Fed balance sheet rises or falls, or whether the Fed expands the money supply.

This diversification is a really interesting benefit of gold, especially right now in such volatile times.

(You might also be surprised that silver represents significant diversification from gold; but more on this another time.)

To your freedom, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com

https://www.sovereignman.com/international-diversification-strategies/a-surprising-benefit-to-owning-gold-especially-now-35455/

The Rise After the Fall

The Rise After the Fall

May 16, 2022 by Ted Lamade

Guest post by Ted Lamade, Managing Director at The Carnegie Institution for Science

Two weeks ago, I was scheduled to attend an annual meeting in Chicago. I caught an early morning flight into O’Hare and arrived at my hotel on Michigan Avenue shortly before noon. Knowing I had a few hours to kill before my first meeting, I decided to walk around the city to see how much it had (or had not) emerged from the Covid-19 lockdowns.

As I walked along the city’s Riverwalk, I shielded myself from the wind on a day that was unseasonably cold, even for the spring in The Windy City. Dodging people along Wacker Drive, I noticed a bookstore around the corner from The Wrigley Building. In order to warm up, but also in an effort to embrace Barton Biggs’ bookstore philosophy, I ducked into the store (Biggs’ bookstore philosophy was simply that whenever he traveled to a new city as Morgan Stanley chief investment strategist, he would visit bookstores due to his belief that which books were selling and how they were positioned on the shelves provided a good indicator of a city’s or country’s current mood/sentiment).

While my visit didn’t lead to any earth shattering conclusions regarding the state of the country or economy, I did notice a book incredibly out of place on one of the shelves – a biography of Vince Lombardi. A book about the legendary Green Bay Packers head coach in a Chicago bookstore? A mile from the home of the Monsters of the Midway? It felt like seeing a jelly donut for sale in a Sweetgreen.

As I flipped through the book, there were several quotes strewn throughout. Two jumped out, not because I hadn’t seen them before, but rather because they seemed to be a bit at odds with one another.

“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”

And

“The greatest accomplishment in life is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall.”

I left the bookstore and headed back to my hotel. As I walked towards Michigan Avenue, once again bracing the cold, I began to question my initial impression. Were these two quotes really at odds with one another? Or, were they if fact inseparable?

If Lombardi were alive today, my guess is he would make the case that the former is actually a direct byproduct of the latter — Winning, in the truest sense of the word, results from rising after you fall.

Then it suddenly dawned on me. In the midst of one of the longest bull markets in history, had we somehow forgotten this along the way?

The last decade and a half has been a period characterized by low interest rates, abundant capital, unlimited support from both the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government, and low commodity prices. As a result, nearly every investable asset has appreciated in value.

If so, the logical question is, has this created a generation or two (or even three) of investors with an elevated opinion of their abilities? It would be hard not to.

The fact is, both millennials and the older Gen Z’ers have now spent the bulk of their careers working and investing in a sustained bull market, which has led to an elevated level of confidence. This confidence is arguably even more pronounced for the younger Gen Z’ers who haven’t even entered the workforce. How could it not be when, as the Wall Street Journal pronounced in an article titled What New Grads Want this past weekend,

“This current class is the most in demand group of college graduates to enter the job market in years and they have expectations to match. Grads are seeking more money, flexibility, and specifics about likely assignments than prior classes.”

More money, flexibility, and specifics? I remember just wanting a job that paid enough to cover the rent for my apartment during the financial crisis

So, why does this matter?

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-rise-after-the-fall/