It’s not unusual these days to celebrate the birthdays of friends and relatives who are entering the decade of octogenarians. In point of fact, a baby born in this country today is fully expected to reach the age of eighty, and while it is definitely a pleasing milestone birthday, it is less of an “achievement” than it was half or even a quarter of a century ago.

When it comes to the matter of debt—be it Government, corporate, or consumer—one can read endless tomes on the subject regarding both its value and its risks. Countries, empires and dynasties have risen and fallen on account of the wise and the not-so-wise use of borrowing…

The scene of the newly elected Pope Leo XIV standing on the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica, his arms outstretched toward the throngs below in Saint Peter’s Square, was both emotionally stirring and spiritually inspiring.

Michael Lewis has just published another book—this one in collaboration with six other writers, each of whom is renowned as an author. The title: WHO IS GOVERNMENT?  and the subtitle: The Untold Story of Public Service were intriguing.

The globalization of economies—that of the U.S. as well as most of the rest of the world—began in earnest in the early 1980s when China was entering the global trading sphere. But as early as the 1920s, American companies had already started building manufacturing plants in Europe—both General Motors and Ford Motor Company were in Germany…

For more than a few decades, increases in college tuition have significantly outpaced the rate of inflation in this country. Today, approximately 70% of undergraduate students are entering the job market with some level of debt in the form of a student loan, often as much as $40,000.

The stock market is one, among a number, of leading indicators of the U.S. economy. Other such indicators include: new orders for both nondefense capital goods and also for consumer goods; consumer confidence; building permits for new homes; retail sales; and initial claims for unemployment insurance. The strength or weakness of those pillars of the economy are harbingers of future growth or decline in the GDP.

It is apt today, as we await with anticipation the decision next week regarding a possible reduction in the level of the Fed Funds’ rate, to replace “the Walrus” with “Jerome Powell,” the current chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the Fed).

This blog was inspired by the results of the recent democratic election in Mexico. The outcome of the election was not surprising, given that the candidate Claudia Sheinbaum is a protégée of the outgoing and highly popular president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. However, it did represent the first time in the country’s two hundred years of independence, a period during which it has had sixty presidents, that a woman has been elected to the presidency. Of the three largest North American countries (out of a total of 23), Mexico is the second to elect a woman as leader. Canada elected Kim Campbell in 1993 for a short-lived term of but a few months. As we all know, the United States has yet to elect a women as president.

Normally, I prefer to discuss the economy or to tell other people's stories, but this time is a little bit different. This time I have news to share with you that I think is very exciting and I hope you will too. Here is the press release for my new book, being released next month.  

In my column on the stock market a year ago, I referenced the above long-quoted observation that I had come to know from my earliest days as a neophyte on Wall Street. That epigram, commonly called the “January Barometer,” refers to the year’s direction of the S&P500 stock index. The measure has been uncannily accurate, correctly forecasting nearly 90% of the time since 1950. It worked in spades last year, and with a strong stock market now behind us in January this year, one could anticipate that 2024 might well be another positive year for stock market returns.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Albert Bourla, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Pfizer. The event took place at the Bruce Museum—a Connecticut-based museum of both science and art—an appropriate setting to hear from a man of science, who had recently published a book, Moonshot, with the subtitle: Inside Pfizer’s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible. 

I’m an early riser—sometimes an exceedingly early riser—and it is in those pre-dawn hours that I have found a new and pleasurable pastime. It’s best enjoyed in an environment of solitude because it takes a certain amount of concentration.

An unpretentious coastal town off US Route I-95, in the southwest corner of the smallest state in the country, with a year-round population of about 20,000—it’s not likely that you’ve heard of the place unless you’re a New Englander.

Friends are the flowers in the garden of life—they come in many varieties and they blossom when the conditions are right. Some take their time to show their colors, while others burst into bloom as if by magic. Occasionally, there are those who hibernate, but when they re-emerge, they are the same flower.

One day, when I was seven years old and had just learned how to do long subtraction, I took a piece of lined paper and wrote the number 2000 at the top of the page. Beneath it, I wrote the number 1948, put a minus sign to the left of it, a line under it, and did the subtraction. The result was fifty-two. That was how I discovered, to my horror, that I would be fifty-two years old at the beginning of the next century.

In 1980, shortly after being hired at Citicorp Investment Management, Inc. (CIMI was how we referred to ourselves), I was introduced to Bob Davis, a full-blooded Texan, who ran the company’s investment office in Houston. We had important things in common—primarily, our youth (we were both thirty-two at the time) our passion for the world of investing, and our endless drive.

Americans are among the most generous people in the world. Charities Aid Foundation, a UK-based charity compiling data from 140 countries, creates an annual country-by-country index of charitable giving. It is constructed from three forms of activity: donating money, volunteering time, and helping strangers. In 2022, the United States ranked #3, closely behind Indonesia and Kenya, two countries where religion plays a strong role in the culture of giving.

Three months ago, at the end of December, President Biden signed into law a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package that covered the gamut from defense appropriations, to funding for Ukraine’s military in its war with Russia, to emergency disaster assistance for the west and southwest areas of the country impacted by natural disasters. Buried deep inside that 4000 page document was also a two-year extension of a number of telehealth provisions for Medicare patients. Some may react by saying, “That’s great.” However, I say, “Why was that extension for only two years? Why not forever?”

Some of the greatest scandals in the world of investments have involved insider trading, which is taking advantage of significant non-public information to reap personal profits from stock transactions. Anyone who has worked in the financial industry can appreciate and understand the validity of both the letter and the spirit of the regulations surrounding inside information.

It may seem like an understatement to say that 2022 was an unpleasant year in the stock market when the total return on the S&P500 was a negative 18.1%, but as down markets go, there have been far worse. Remember 2008 when the index declined a whopping 36.5%?

It’s been well over a dozen years since the last sustained “bear market” in this country, defined as a twenty percent correction in stock prices from a recent high. The COVID-related crash in March of 2020 was technically a bear market, but its duration was so short and the subsequent bull market so strong, that it created little to none of the anxiety associated with a traditional bear market.

It’s of value to remember the quote from the great American statesman, Senator John McCain, who, in 2015 upon returning from a visit to Ukraine, said, “Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country.”