Salient to Investors: There are 4.7 million job openings in the US, the most in more than a decade versus 9.7 million people looking for work. Annual wage increases, around 2%, would be rising much faster if there were a shortage of qualified workers. Peter Cappelli at Wharton School says: The
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Mark Lynch at George Washington University said history shows that in a chaotic, violent civil war such as in Syria, US intervention would have had little effect other than to extend and exacerbate the conflict. David Kilcullen at Caerus Associates said American air power will successfully blunt any
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Steven Spielberg’s Wunderkinder Foundation lost an undisclosed amount – in 2006, about 70 percent of its interest and dividend income came from the Madoff firm. Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick lost an undisclosed amount. Elie Wiesel’s Foundation for Humanity lost substantially all of its assets, $15.2 million. Sandy Koufax and
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: John Rekenthaler at Morningstar said: Over the trailing 12 months, 68% of net sales to mutual funds ended up in passive investing vehicles versus 32% active. Of $134 billion going into active funds, $30 billion is being placed in target-date funds. Low-cost, passive funds keep more of
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Richard Bernstein at Richard Bernstein Advisors found: Over the period from December 31, 1993 to December 31, 2013, the average mutual fund investor underperformed every asset class and category, including cash, except Asian emerging market and Japanese equities. The average investor would have improved performance by simply
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Mitch Tuchman at Rebalance IRA writes: The best strategy for a retirement investor with a 5 to 25 year time horizon in a tax-deferred account uses low-cost index funds allocated across multiple asset classes and re-balanced at least annually. Re-balancing – the discipline to sell assets that
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Zhu Haibin at JPMorgan Chase said property investment will remain the biggest macroeconomic risk in half2 even as a deceleration in investment is less severe than half1. Hua Changchun at Nomura said completed apartments must come to market sooner or later, and potential buyers will continue to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: TransUnion said as much as 20% of home equity lines of credit are at increased risk of default as they switch from interest-only to include principal, causing monthly payments to rise more than 50%. Ezra Becker at TransUnion said more than half of the outstanding HELOCs have
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: David Bloom at HSBC said to sell emerging market currencies, including the Rand, Ruble and Mexican and Colombian Peso, on increasing signs of US growth supporting the US dollar . Bloom said a mass investor exodus depends on what happens to volatility on long-term US rates moving up – if long
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Matthew Ledvina at Anaford said Fatca and the Swiss bank disclosure program has intensified the search for US nationals beyond all measure. The US is the only OECD country that taxes its citizens abroad. Almost 9,000 Americans living overseas have surrendered their passports over the past 5
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