I have no experience piloting airplanes, and admit there have been several times as a passenger that I have been afraid of turbulence. What helps me stay calm in turbulent flights is remembering descriptions I heard from at least one pilot interview on how insignificant most turbulence is compared with how high the plane is […]
Although recent protests have drawn more international news cameras than usual, international wealth management clients have compared opening an investment account Hong Kong to having one in Switzerland, Singapore, or South Florida (Miami) for decades if not since the World Wars. While Hong Kong vs Singapore may be the most overdone comparison in Asia, this […]
It is widely repeated in the investment community that the biggest difference in whether you earn high or low rates of return as a long-term investor is not your choice of an individual stock or bond, but how much you allocated overall to stocks vs bonds. The more you put in stocks, the more likely […]
While there is a lot of merit to simply investing in a broadly diversified portfolio of low cost index funds, market cap weighted index funds have some features (or flaws, depending how you see it) that drive me to alternatives. One key example is this recent WSJ story highlighting how US index funds are about […]
68% of shareholders want to replace Mark Zuckerberg as chairman of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB), but Mark Zuckerberg still holds the majority of voting shares (source: Facebook March 2019 Quarterly Report, page 54). As much talk as there is about Facebook’s role IN democracy, this is a reminder that the corporate structure of Facebook IS […]
I have long argued that the S&P 500 is an overrated, overused stock market index benchmark, while also admitting it is still one of the best constructed and balanced benchmarks globally. By comparison, the flagship benchmarks of Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and other countries tend to be far more lopsided with industry concentrations in […]
While I am often asked “is now a good time to invest?” in both booming and declining economic times, I have recently been asked more and more about whether the economy is due for its first global recession since 2008-2009, and how to invest in preparation for the next recession. I recently wrote a short […]
Perhaps second to the absolute question of how to make money in the markets, I am next most often asked if and how it is possible to “beat the market”. When asking “how to beat the market”, one also needs to answer two parts of that question: “what do you mean by ‘the market’?”, and […]
The main reason to buy a stock is to get significantly more money out of it than you put into it. By “significantly more”, the profit you make from a stock should not only be more than interest you would have earned putting the same money into a bank deposit or bond, but also compensate […]
Here is a table listing some of the best performing and worst performing country stock markets as of the beginning of December 2018, with the first two columns showing 2018 year-to-date and 3-year total returns by country respectively. The next two columns show Price/Earnings ratios and historical earnings growth statistics by country. I chose to […]