Forbes: ObamaCare's Marie Antoinette Moment

By SIMON CONSTABLE

ObamaCare could be facing a Marie Antoinette moment. In case you didn’t know, she was the Queen of France who reputedly said of the starving peasants, “let them eat cake.” That was of course, just like telling someone who is hungry and broke, why don’t you just eat at the Harvard Club like the rest of us?

Marie Antoinette was later beheaded during the terror of the 1790s.

Her comment, which she may or may not have made, seems reminiscent of news earlier this month about the so-called Affordable Care Act. In November, one healthcare insurer warned that it may pull out of the ACA exchanges after 2016, citing low enrollment and poor economics.

There appears to be nothing stopping such a move, which may or may not be ok depending on how you look at the problem. Read more here.

Marie-Antoinette

After Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty , 

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Fortune: Here's What Happened to the Great Thanksgiving Pumpkin Shortage of 2015

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It was the pie crisis that wasn’t, at least not yet.

In early October, crop experts warned that a poor pumpkin harvest threatened to ruin Thanksgiving for lovers of one of the holiday’s most famous offerings. And those warnings turned into a national story. One news source screamed, “Pumpkins for Halloween, but shortage looms for Thanksgiving pies.”

Read more here.

U.S. News: These Stocks Will Be Winners This Holiday Season

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The holiday season could be good for investors this year as consumers seem to have found their spending mojo. But it pays to understand where the dollars will likely flow so that investors can target stocks that should outperform analysts' expectations.

"The improving condition of the U.S. consumer implies a fairly brisk holiday shopping season ahead," says Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at professional services firm RSM.

Read more here.

OZY: Building Blocks for A Cheaper Housing Market

By SIMON CONSTABLE

In the mid-1970s, my grandfather retired after decades with the Admiralty, the U.K.’s equivalent of the U.S. Navy, and bought the first home he ever owned — paying 100 percent cash for it. Not bad for a man who spent most of his life getting by on a government salary. These days, the idea that an average working person in Britain or the U.S. could accomplish such a thing seems ludicrous, a truly impossible dream.

Read more here.

Forbes: Should UnitedHealth Be Allowed To Walk Away From ObamaCare?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Well fancy that!

UnitedHealth Group is warning that it may pull out of the Obamacare (a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act) exchanges after 2016. Why? Because enrollment has been low and the people who have enrolled have tended to use a lot of healthcare, which of course costs United lots of money.

If this doesn’t strike you as unseemly then let me explain. With great privilege comes great responsibility. Noblesse oblige, if you like. The greater the privilege  the greater the responsibility.

Read more here.

TheStreet: Why Age Discrimination Hurts Your Mom the Most

By SIMON CONSTABLE

As if women in corporate life didn't already face enough obstacles, new research shows the challenges get worse with age. 

The authors of a National Bureau of Economic Research paper, who examined 40,000 job applications in cities from New York to Chicago and Los Angeles, found "considerably stronger evidence of discrimination against older women than older men" in fields from sales to teaching, administration and security services. 

Read more here.

OZY: The Hidden Costs of Border Control

By SIMON CONSTABLE

After Friday’s atrocious attacks in Paris, messages of condemnation and condolence were soon joined by a drumbeat of calls for Europe to reintroduce internal border controls. Combined with the deaths of Charlie Hebdo magazine staff earlier this year, it’s easy to see why politicians would want to reintroduce some passport controls, at least to know who is inside which country. No one in their right mind wants a repeat of anything like those events if they can possibly be prevented. The problem is, financially, it would slow the beleaguered European economy, which is still struggling to find robust growth.

Read more here.

Forbes: How To Be The Worst Boss Possible -- Part 3

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Part three of a continuing series, which outlines how you too can achieve the heights of awfulness in management ineptitude. See Part one here and part two here.

Hiring is one of those things that you have to do, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it well. In fact, if you hire badly (either by your natural ability or through studied effort) you can quickly lower performance of your company and demoralize your staff at the same time.

Read more here.

U.S. News: 4 Facts Investors Should Know About Bonds

By SIMON CONSTABLE

If you listen to investment pundits, or read them with any frequency, you'll hear a consistent mantra: Bonds, particularly treasuries, are a losing proposition, at least in the current investment environment. Unfortunately, the analysis behind such a view isn't a valid reason for you to avoid them in your portfolio. That's whether or not you believe interest rates will fall or rise. 

"Bonds provide much more protection than most people realize," says Peter Tchir, managing director of macro income strategy at Brean Capital in Darien, Connecticut. Read more here.

Photo by Michael Longmire on Unsplash

TheStreet: Investors Pull $50B From Emerging Markets, Outpacing '08 Crisis

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Bearishness about emerging market economies in general, and China in particular, has reached an unprecedented level, according to a fund manager who has specialized in the sector for more than three decades.

"More than $50 billion has been withdrawn from emerging markets in the first nine months of this year, which is more than in the 2008 financial crisis," says Allan Conway, head of emerging market equities at Schroders, and portfolio manager of the $1.3 billion Schroder Emerging Market Equity Fund (SEMNX)

Read more here.  

TheStreet: Why Bubble Phobia Is Bad For Your Investing Health

NEW YORK -- Has the investing world completely succumbed to bubble phobia? 

Maybe the housing crash and the dotcom bust have addled our brains, but hardly a month goes by without someone warning of a bubble. Is the market for Treasuries in a bubble? What about Silicon Valley startups and junk debt? Is there, perhaps, a bubble in everything? 

The problem with that perspective (or rather, the good news) is that financial bubbles just aren't that common, and if you see them everywhere you may be hallucinating. 
Read more here.

OZY: How Good Is the Biggest Trade Deal In History?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Already bustling with activity, the enormous ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles will likely be bursting at the seams within the next five years as more and more brightly colored containers get loaded and unloaded. Together, they’re already the ninth-busiest port in the world — and a similar scene looks set to be replicated up and down the coast in the ports of Oakland, Tacoma, Seattle and Vancouver.

The boost will be driven by the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal pushed heavily by the Obama administration that will cover trade between a dozen countries, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Japan. While an agreement was announced last month, its details only recently emerged and all of the countries involved still need to ratify the agreement. Still, it’s clear that, at first, the benefits will go to the ports. “The longshoremen, who are already well paid, will have a lot more hours and more overtime pay,” says Natasha Boyden, an independent shipping analyst. 

Read more here.

U.S. News: Four Things to Know About Real Estate Investments

By SIMON CONSTABLE

If you own your home, should you buy real estate securities? It's a reasonable question because for many people, their home is a large portion of their overall wealth. 

A family with $500,000 in savings, including stocks and bonds, and a home valued at $300,000 would seem to be heavily invested in real estate. But that's probably not the best way to look at things – although your home may act as a store of wealth, history has shown it likely won't do much better than keep up with inflation. It probably won't beat the returns you'd get from the stock market. 

Here's why and how at least some real estate securities have a place in your investment portfolio.

Read more here.

TheStreet: How Social Media Boosts Trading -- Without Helping Traders

By SIMON CONSTABLE

NEW YORK -- Just as YouTube prompted a deluge of cat videos, so social media seems to stimulate more trading in the financial markets. But unlike the cat videos, it isn't all laughs: The phenomenon seems to leave traders worse off than before.

In other words, social media boosts the quantity of trades but not the quality.

Read more here.

OZY: How England's Worst King Spawned Capitalism

By SIMON CONSTABLE

“What’s that smell?” I asked my dad as we approached Rievaulx Abbey on a visit to Yorkshire, England. “It’s wild garlic,” he said — which I’d later learn was a surprising crop to find so far north, though the story behind the monastery would prove even more surprising.

The monastery was established in 1132 by Cistercian monks from France’s Clairvaux Abbey and remained in operation until the 1500s. But it plays a part in a uniquely English story — one that begins, as many do, with church and crown but ends with the Industrial Revolution. Read more here.

Photo by Tom Podmore on Unsplash

WSJ: What Is the Interest Coverage Ratio?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

What is the interest coverage ratio, and why might it matter for investors? 

The interest coverage ratio is a measure of how affordable a company’s debt is given the company’s earnings. Or put another way, how much cushion there is for a firm to withstand hiccups in the business and still make its debt payments—an important consideration for investors.

Read more here.

WSJ: Money-Fund Flows Are a Risk Meter

By SIMON CONSTABLE

When investors start piling into money-market funds, it is a remarkably accurate indicator that credit markets are getting dicey, according to new research conducted by a pair of finance professors.

The study says the money-fund indicator can be just as accurate as more-wonky indicators of market risk, such as credit-default-swap spreads, which show the cost of insuring corporate debt against default.

Read more here.

Forbes: How To Be The Worst Boss Possible -- Part 2

By SIMON CONSTABLE
Part two of a continuing series, which outlines how you too can become a truly awful manager instead of just mediocre. (Why write such a series? It’s fun.)
Some people believe they aren’t cut out to be a terrible manager. Please be assured that some gentle mind training will get you there faster than your employees would ever wish for. Here’s how:

Photo by Boston Public Library on Unsplash

Fortune: How the Fed's 'schizophrenia' could be holding back the economy

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The Federal Reserve’s latest proposal to limit the need for big bank bailouts has some claiming it could curtail something the Fed wants and economy needs: More lending.

The new rule, announced last week, would force the big banks to raise long-term debt that could be turned into equity if the banks needed addition capital to absorb lending losses. The Fed estimated that the rule would cost the nation’s eight largest banks $1.5 billion in additional financing expenses a year. That may sound like a lot, but it only equals roughly 2% of the combined profits of the banks, and they will have years before they have to fully comply with the law.

Read more here.

TheStreet: Why Now May Be the Time for a Dose of Pharmaceutical Stock

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Maybe it's time to give your portfolio a dose of pharmaceutical stocks.

The sector has taken a beating lately with the NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Indexdown around 10% in the three months through Friday, while the  Market Vectors Pharmaceutical exchange-traded fund  (PPH) , which tracks the sector, was off 13% in the same period. The S&P 500 Index was down 1% over that time span.

At least part of the selloff was a media circus that erupted when one company raised the price of an HIV drug by 5,000% and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton weighed in on the topic. What it means is that the sector is getting a lot of unwanted (and perhaps in some cases, unwarranted) attention, which adds to concerns about government interference in the industry. That, in turn, is making the stockholders nervous. Read more here.

U.S. News: Why Investing in Brazil Will Remain Difficult

By SIMON CONSTABLE

For the last few years, Charles de Gaulle's quip that "Brazil is the country of the future, and always will be," seemed like an anachronism as the Latin American economy seemed to blossom. But it didn't last long. 

Unfortunately for Brazilians, de Gaulle's witticism now seems on target once again. And things may deteriorate even further before they get better. For investors, that will likely mean staying away from Brazilian stocks until the second half of next year. 

How bad is it? Pretty awful. Brazil is beset by an economic crisis and a huge political controversy that is threatening its president. Read more here.

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

OZY: When Emerging Markets Don't...Emerge

By SIMON CONSTABLE

There’s nothing like the expectant feeling of hope in the air, and we got a sense of that after a Tunisian street vendor set himself alight and ignited the so-called Jasmine Revolution and then the Arab Spring. Many around the world watched, wishing for better things. And we recently had reason to celebrate when an alliance of civil society groups in Tunisia won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to build democracy there with a newly adopted constitution. That’s to be applauded. But for another important issue — economic development — things don’t look so rosy. Read more here.

WSJ: Alzheimer’s Link Leads to More Financial Planning

By SIMON CONSTABLE

People whose families have a history of Alzheimer’s disease are much more likely to seek expert financial advice and are more likely to delay retirement, compared with people for whom Alzheimer’s isn’t an issue, says a forthcoming study from professors at the University of Utah.

Cost concerns arising from Alzheimer’s disease, which can require years of institutionalized care, are pushing individuals to plan more, according to the study, which was sponsored by the National Institute on Aging. Read more here.

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash