John T. Reed’s news blog
Jason Zweig say ‘value investors’ are the only real investors. Index funds beat them all.
Posted by John T. Reed on
Rare column by Jason Zweig in this weekend’s WSJ. . It starts, “I’ve had it. The Wall Street Journal is wrong and has remained wrong for decades about one of the most basic distinctions in finance.” . And what is that? Sounds like Zweig is a Benjamin Graham follower, a “value investor.” His column has the same title as one of Graham’s books: The Intelligent Investor. And he believes that anyone else in the stock market is NOT an “investor” worthy of that name. (One of my books is title Best Practices for The Intelligent Real Estate Investor.. . The...
John T. Reed’s review of The Premonition by Michael Lewis
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I had great expectations for Michel Lewis’s new book: The Premonition. It’s about the pandemic. . I just finished it. . It says government at all levels is congenitally incompetent at managing a pandemic. Risks must be taken. Outcomes are uncertain. Politicians are at the top of the chain of command. All they care about is taking credit for everything good and blaming their opponents for everything bad. It is a disaster. . He identifies a collection of smart people some inside the bureaucracy, most outside in informal groups of people who are good at diagnosing the problem and know...
Columnist says ban all new stores, build housing instead. Or try free markets.
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Jonathan Lansner, a business columnist for the East Bay Times, called for a government ban on building new stores. He wants housing instead. America has what are called free markets. They are Old Testament harsh. If you build an unneeded store, you will have to pay an unpayable mortgage with rent that you could not find. The market punishes vacant building developers. He says cities prefer stores because they “control” sales tax revenue. The average Californian pays $997 a year in sales tax and the average home pays $7,266 in property taxes. The average unneeded vacant store pays $0 in...
Inflation is here. You must protect your life savings.
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• Home prices are soaring. • Car prices and rental rates are soaring. • Gold and silver prices are soaring. • Oil and gas prices are soaring. • Groceries are soaring. • Lumber prices are soaring. • Paper prices are soaring. • In April 2021, the consumer price index went up at an annual rate of 11%. • The year-over-year increase for the 12 months ending in April 2021 was 4.2%, the highest in 13 years..Here is a great graph that shows the problem that the politicians and their media allies are trying to say this graph has no significance..https://www.justfacts.com/images/nationaldebt/debt_gdp-full.png?fbclid=IwAR0SZ9ZXToyyLIAf0KqRtQ08FfmtkaTft9AI3r7BQiF_rAdapTqaL-Ge-_w...
If you have an option to buy a house for less than it is worth, get a lwyer to make sure you exercise it correctly so you do not lose your equity.
Posted by John T. Reed on
A reader just told me he has a lease option that expires tomorrow and he has a great bargain price. The seller says he will renege. That is ILLEGAL. It is also irrelevant. . HOWEVER, the lessee/optionee must exercise the option by tendering the money. I told him to get a lawyer TODAY and make sure he exercises the option according to its terms before the deadline which he said was 5/31/21. . If you do not tender the money because the guy said he would renege, he wins. You have to ignore his words and tender the money. ....