Archive of entries posted on April 2017

Forecasting Economic Trends and Industry Trends is Futile

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“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” – Niels Bohr Forecasting economic trends is difficult especially trying to predict the performance of equity markets relative to the economic trend. For example, the relationship between equity returns and economic growth for a given country is tenuous at best. To put it another way, just because a country’s …

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Comparing the Performance of Australian vs. Global Stocks

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Australian stocks have rebounded sharply in the past few months as commodity markets have recovered. In terms of equity market performance since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09 thru last year, Australian stocks have under-performed the US market as measured by the S&P 500 index as shown in the chart below: Click to enlarge   …

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West Virginia Coal Employee-Production Gap: Chart

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The number of American workers employed in the coal industry is at a near-record low.According to EIA, the total number of coal workers stood at 65,971 in 2015. This is the lowest figure since the agency started gathering data in 1978. One of the major coal mining states in the US is West Virginia. Coal mining …

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Knowledge is Power: Fizzling Trump Trade, Australian Economy, Canada Real Estate Edition

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Now that he has launched some cruise missiles and dropped the MOAB and really became the President, the real question is: Will he be nominated for the Nobel Peace prize… The Expensive Ingredient of Cheap ETFs (Jason Zweig @WSJ) and see Good tax, bad tax and ETFs (Blackrock) Health care stocks that are good for you (Blackrock) Global S&P …

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