TheStreet: What Does 2017 Have in Store? 3 Market Metrics That Will Tell You

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Will 2017 bring investors good returns? History indicates that's likely, but as with all things related to the stock market, nothing is a certainty.

In the first place, a new U.S. president will take office, which generally signals gains for the S&P 500 and the exchange-traded fund that tracks it, the SPDR S&P 500. Read more here.

Forbes: A Vast Fraud In 1870s London Has Much To Teach Us

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Back in the 19th century some American scoundrels mounted a vast fraud on "The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street," as the Bank of England is known. They passed off millions of dollars of fake financial instruments as real to the country's central bank. The rough equivalent now would be to successfully pull off an enormous financial heist on the Federal Reserve. The period in which this happened was also one of great financial innovation and that matter should be notable to investors now. Nicolas Booth ably recounts the tale in his recently published book, Thieves Of Threadneedle Street. Read more here.

U.S. News: Will the Trump Administration Sink Crude Oil Prices Again?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Should oil patch investors be worried that recent gains will soon be undone? Certainly, there is a case to be made, but on balance the major slide from mid-2014 through February is likely over.

The two major issues in the energy market are the recent agreement by OPEC and the desire by the incoming Trump administration to attain energy independence for the U.S. Read more here.

TheStreet: Don't Let Rising Rates Scare You Away From Bonds

By SIMON CONSTABLE

High-quality bonds have taken a beating lately, but they still make sense for the long-term investor. On top of that, the market indicates there is less risk of default now than there was a few months ago.

Here's what happened and why such investments still make sense:

WABC John Batchelor Show: Jobs and Dreams

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Talking with the great John Batchelor about economics and America's forgotten workers.

U.S. News: Key Indicators Show a Robust Economy in 2017

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Great news – the U.S. economy should speed up next year.

If all goes according to plan, that will mean better raises for those with jobs, and more opportunities for those looking for work. There are a couple of potential bumps in the road, but so far they don't point to an imminent problem. Read more here.

Forbes: 6 Reasons Trump Should Abolish Corporate Income Tax

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Corporate taxes are back in the news again this time with Apple Inc. appealing the E.U. tax demand for $14 billion (see report from Reuters.) At issue is the rate of corporate income tax Apple pays in Ireland."Apple's Irish tax bill implied a tax rate of 0.005 percent in 2014," according to European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, the Reuters report states.

Whether the actual rate it pays is that low isn't the major issue. What we do know is that big companies, like Apple, do what they can within the law to avoid paying taxes. In some cases, no taxes are paid, which will no doubt outrage many people.

It shouldn't. The bigger outrage is that we have corporate income tax at all.

The truth is that abolishing it should be at the top of the agenda for president-elect Donald Trump. When that happens we'll all be better off. Here are some reasons why:

Photo by Pepi Stojanovski on Unsplash

TheStreet: What a Stronger Dollar Means for Investments: Good, Bad and Ugly

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The greenback is back.

The U.S currency has climbed 4.1% this year against a basket of global currencies, and nearly four times that much against the British pound alone.

U.S stock markets, in the meantime, have made double-digit gains across the board, but that masks individual winners and losers. Coming out ahead are the consumers who drive the U.S. economy and can get more bank for their buck, as well as the import companies that sell to them. Exporters, on the other hand, may see sales suffer as overseas customers find American-made goods more costly. Read more here.

Photo by Vladimir Solomianyi on Unsplash

TheStreet: Who Picked Trump? Mrs. White, in the Kitchen, Sorting Bills: The Economy, Stupid

By SIMON CONSTABLE

What swung the election to Trump?
The way some people are talking, it's resembling a game of Clue.

• Was it Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin with the propaganda? The CIA seems to suggest such.

• Was it Roger Ailes (formerly) at Fox News with an agenda? Outgoing president Obama says so.

• Or was it Dr. Evil in a secret underground lair with a diabolical cat?

You get the idea.
The problem is that there are simpler explanations that don't require a conspiracy. Read more here.

w:Cluedo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes: Theme For 2016 -- Hypocrisy In Economics

By SIMON CONSTABLE

A standout theme of the year has been hypocrisy when it comes to economics and economic-related matters. Read more here.

Adam Smith, Founder of Economics

Scottish National Gallery , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

U.S. News: What Italy's Big Vote Means for Investors

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Now, more than ever, Italy looks like a big, fat mess for investors.

On Dec. 4, Italian voters roundly rejected constitutional reform. The immediate impact was the resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

He had promised to do so if the result went against him. That means at least one campaign promise has been kept. Still, the move creates other issues. Read more here.

Photo by Emma Fabbri on Unsplash

Video: America's Forgotten Workers

By SIMON CONSTABLE

ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan explains.

America's Forgotten Workers from Constable Confidential on Vimeo.

Photo by Gabriel on Unsplash

Video: Was The Election A Cry For Help?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Michael McKinley explains.


Was The Election A Cry For Help? from Constable Confidential on Vimeo.

Forbes Video: Grow Your Business With SnapChat? Maybe So.

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Once upon a time, getting your product to market meant placing ads in newspapers, magazines, or on TV. That can still be helpful, but only in as much as that is where people are consuming their media. 

There is also SnapChat, which according to one social media expert can be useful in growing your business as well.

Socialfly co-founder & co-CEO, Courtney Spritzer explains the benefits of the service in this video. She clearly knows more about it than I do, so watch, listen, and learn.

Forbes Video: Why You Should Read Shakespeare Now.

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It's a cliche to say it, but I will anyway: "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Still, there is much truth in it. 

The reason is that people are the same throughout the ages. They end up having the same weaknesses. Some are power-hungry. Others are vengeful. Occasionally, people are treacherous. You get the idea. That was true 3,000 years ago, and it is true today.

William Shakespeare, possibly the greatest playwright ever, captured such characters and how they behave in various scenarios. His plays are as relevant today as they were when he wrote them, possibly more so. 

That's why you should read some of them. Or failing that, maybe watch a movie, go to the theater, or listen to a recording of the plays. Documentary maker Michael McKinley explains his thoughts in this video.

Forbes video: Why Inflation Is Going Higher

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Even before the financial crisis, pundits expressed their concern that devil-may-care bank lending, and loose monetary policy would result in inflation. Despite the same repeated calls that such an event was imminent, the inflation didn't really show up in the government's main statistic -- the Consumer Price Index. 

That phenomenon of very low levels of recorded inflation is now coming to an end. Soon it will start to edge higher. It won't be 1970s style high, just that there will be more inflation than we've seen in a long while. That's according to Lakshman Achuthan, co-founder of the Economic Cycle Research Institute. He explains his thoughts in this video.

U.S. News: Why the Dollar Will Surge Further in 2017

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Hold onto your hat. The dollar surge, which started in April, looks set to continue next year.

The trade-weighted dollar index versus major currencies recently hit 95, having rallied from 88 at the end of April, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

There are plenty of reasons to believe that the recent move is the start of something a lot bigger. Read more here.

Forbes: Unskilled Manufacturing Jobs Aren't Coming Back -- They Never Existed

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Whenever I hear of the need to bring back unskilled manufacturing jobs to the U.S., I want to scream. It happened to me late November. Somehow I managed to stay calm.

Don't misunderstand me. It's not that I hate manufacturing jobs. Rather, what riles me is this pernicious idea that such jobs are unskilled. They aren't and they likely never have been. Read more here.

Photo by carlos aranda on Unsplash

WSJ: When Will Investors Stop Dumping Japanese Stocks?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

What a difference a year makes. 

Individual investors have soured on Japan in a big way since December 2015, pulling $12.7 billion from mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that specialize in Japanese stocks, according to research firm Morningstar Inc. Only one month, January, saw an inflow in the period through October.

The outflow might not seem to be much in dollar terms, but it amounts to more than a quarter of the total $44.3 billion of assets held in such funds a year ago. Read more here.

WSJ: What Is a ‘Moat’ and Why Does It Matter?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Medieval castles were surrounded by moats to keep attackers at bay. 

Now comes the 21st-century version. 

Today, the term “moat” is used in the business world to describe companies with a sustainable competitive advantage that allows them to keep competitors at bay. Read more here.

Caerphilly Castle and Moat 

by David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes Video: What's Wrong With Canada?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Photo by chris robert on Unsplash

During the election campaign some celebrities promised to flee the Untied States if Donald Trump won. Now that he has, some of those people seem not to have fulfilled their promise. Still, that might be explainable.

The day after the election I sat down with Canadian documentary maker Michael McKinley. Despite the awful weather, and the fact that many people in New York weren't happy with the election result, Mckinley says he's staying in the U.S..

Why? He lays out why the United States is a whole lot better for people in the creative business, such as film making. In short, the free market in the U.S. beats how the Canadian's do things. He explains in this video.

    

TheStreet: 5 Financially Themed Gifts for the Holidays

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It's that time of the year again when thoughts invariably turn to holiday gifts. In what has become an annual tradition, I have compiled a list of financially-themed items to suit all budgets, from less than $10 to more than $8,000. Read more here.

U.S. News: Why Fund Investors Are Dumping Junk Debt

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Junk bonds took a little tumble recently. Should investors be worried?

There's no immediate cause for concern, but longer term a lot rests on how the oil market performs.

Here's the skinny:

TheStreet: Cuba Fund Surges 17% on Castro's Death

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Cuba's longstanding dictator Fidel Castro barely got one foot in the grave and already investors are getting excited.

The Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund  (CUBA), a closed-end fund known as the "Cuba Fund" because of its ticker, surged as much as 17% intraday on Monday following the Cuban dictator's death on Friday. More than 1.8 million shares of the fund had changed hands by Monday afternoon compared with normal daily volume of about 22,000. Read more here.

Photo by Mr. Söbau on Unsplash

RealMoney: Cuba Fund Surges as Fidel Castro's Death Spurs Speculation

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Cuba's longstanding dictator Fidel Castro barely got one foot in the grave and already investors are getting excited.

The Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund Inc., a closed-end fund known as  (CUBA) that holds stocks poised to benefit from a normalization of U.S. relations with the island nation, surged 11% Monday, the most in almost two years. Less than an hour into the session 1.4 million shares of the fund had changed hands, compared with normal daily volume of about 22,000. 

The news of Castro's death broke Friday, fueling speculation that relations between the former Soviet ally and the U.S. might continue to thaw under his brother, Raul Castro. President Barack Obama announced plans in December 2014 to chart a new course of policy toward Cuba, and he visited Havana in March of this year. The country has suffered under one-party socialist rule and a brutal economic embargo by the U.S. Read more here.

Forbes Video: Has Twitter Jumped The Shark?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Socialfly co-founder & co-CEO Courtney Spritzer gives her insights on the short form blogging platform in this video.

U.S. News: Wall Street Predictions for 2017

By SIMON CONSTABLE

What happens to the markets in 2017?

The outlook for stocks is positive, but which sectors of the market do better or worse partially depends how what policies the President-elect Donald Trump implements.

First, the economy looks set to speed up next year, to 2.3 percent growth versus 1.5 percent this year, according to estimates from PNC Financial Services Group. Faster growth is very important because it should lead to better company earnings. Read more here.

Barron's: Corn Prices Look Ready to Pop

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The prolonged bear market in corn could soon end. the grain’s price has been mired in a multiyear slump, trading as low as $3.16 a bushel in August, down from more than $8 in the middle of 2012. 

The bullish case is pretty straightforward: Supply may be reaching a peak while demand is still growing.

Traders wishing to benefit from a run-up may want to consider buying active-month corn futures on the CME and rolling them forward to later-dated ones as each contract nears expiration. Alternatively, it might be worth considering the Teucrium Corn exchange-traded fund (ticker: CORN), which holds corn futures. 

Increases in supply have been dramatic in the last decade, but there are no obvious ways for that to continue with prices so low. Global production hit 1.03 billion metric tons in the current growing season, up from 716 million tons a decade ago, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Read more here.

Photo by Katherine Volkovski on Unsplash

Forbes Video: The Election's Craziest Social Media Moments

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Yes, the election was crazy, but maybe social media was more so. Socialfly co-founder & co-CEO, Courtney Spritzer shares her thoughts in this video.

U.S. News: Inflation Is Going to Rise; Here's How to Protect Yourself

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Something ugly is set to make a comeback: inflation.

It won't be like that seen in the 1970s when lava lamps and polyester suits only added to the hideous economic malaise.

This time it will be subdued in comparison, but still higher than it has been in recent years. Read more here.

Constable Confidential: 2016 NYFWA Annual Follies Address

By SIMON CONSTABLE



2016 Follies Address from Constable Confidential on Vimeo.

John Batchelor Show: Trump As “Brexit Plus, Plus, Plus” + Retraining American Workers.

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Forbes Video: No, A Global Recession Isn't Imminent

By SIMON CONSTABLE
Many were shocked by Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House. Still, there is no need for hysteria. Unfortunately, some people couldn’t contain themselves.
Notably, there have been claims that the result of the vote will be instant economic disaster, not just for the U.S., but for the entire world.

Fortunately, things are rarely so simple. When assertions seem extreme, it is often best to ask a level-headed expert. I picked one of the best in the business: Lakshman Achuthan, co-founder of the Economic Cycle Research Institute.Read more here.

U.S. News: Why Knowledge is More Important Than the Name of Your College

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Does it make sense to pay big money to attend a fancy college? Maybe not. But as with so many things, the devil is in the details.

First, here's a reminder of how much a top name college can cost. Tuition for an undergraduate degree at Harvard University is $43,280 for the current school year. Plus, there are some hefty fees and the cost of housing, eating, books and other things. The total comes to as much as $72,100, according to Harvard's website.

Of course, the degree program will take four years, and tuition costs will likely increase if history is anything to go by. So figure on around $300,000 when all is said and done; in other words, the price of a nice house. Read more here.

Photo by Pickawood on Unsplash

WSJ: ETFs That Hold Commodities Could Cause Trouble

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Could exchange-traded funds that hold physical commodities exacerbate price spikes or drops?

The potential is there, some experts say, and in fact may have happened already.

Unlike other investments that track the price of materials, physically backed ETFs are structured in a way that could change the underlying supply-and-demand dynamics in what are often thin markets. Read more here.

Photo by Peter F on Unsplash

WSJ: What Is ‘Illiquidity Premium’?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Even with an expected Federal Reserve interest-rate increase, more bond-market investors may be coming around to the idea that rates will stay around historic lows longer than they thought. That raises a question about what to do now: Where can investors find better yields for their portfolios, without sacrificing quality? Read more here.

TheStreet: Higher Hiring: How Weed Can Lure Retirees Back to the Workforce

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Could more use of medical marijuana help increase the supply of older workers?

Maybe so. But that matter is clouded by more than a haze of blue smoke.

Here's what you need to know. Read more here.

Forbes: What Trump And Clinton Both Get Wrong On Trade

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have at least one thing in common.

Neither have addressed the real issue with free trade: The deplorable treatment of displaced workers. Read more here.

Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, 

CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikime

Forbes Video: Do You Take Enough Risks? Probably Not

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Should you play in the traffic? Probably not. That’s not risky, it’s stupid. Likewise, going mountaineering without being physically fit, or without the right equipment/training is idiotic.

But not all risks are created equal. Some are worth taking. In fact, if you aren’t taking some risks then you aren’t likely to realize your true potential. While that may be obvious to many people on an intellectual level, fewer and fewer people seem willing to take risks.

Jon Levy, author of ‘The 2 AM Principal‘ explains his thoughts on what constitutes good risks to take and what are bad risks. He discusses the matter in this video.

Forbes: Paper, The Technology That Refuses To Die

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Technology has become synonymous with the latest devices from Apple Inc. and the radical changes brought about by social media companies such as Facebook. But it doesn't have to be restricted to the inventions of the digital age.

That's something author Mark Kurlansky takes on in his recently published book Paper: Paging Through History. In short, it's a book about an invention that is ancient and one that refuses to die. Just because it dates back far into human history doesn't make it irrelevant. Read more here.

U.S. News: What Rising Government Bond Rates Mean for Your Money

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The cost of borrowing money is going up and sooner or later, it's likely to filter through to more expensive home loans.

Here's what you need to know to navigate the changes coming soon – and perhaps even profit. Read more here.

TheStreet: Don't Relax Yet-- Brexit Hasn't Finished Beating Up the British Pound

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Once it was the bedrock of the world's financial system. Now, it's the weakling. 

The big question is what's next for the British pound sterling, which has lost 17% of its value since the country voted to leave the European Union in June. It's now worth about $1.22. Read more here.

Photo by Edson Rosas on Unsplash

TheStreet: How a 'Bad Moon Rising' Could Break Gold's Breathtaking Fall

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Ouch! Gold prices hit the skids recently.

The question is simple: Is this a normal pullback, or is something bigger afoot?

The answer depends on how much global turmoil you see on the horizon, given Britain's decision to leave the European Union, slowing growth in China and Donald Trump's noncommittal stance on accepting the results of the U.S. presidential election. Read more here.

TheStreet: Did Government Dithering Cause Secular Stagnation?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The secular stagnation meme just got torpedoed.

Exceptionally high uncertainty over government policies around the globe is responsible for the period of sluggish growth we've seen since the financial crisis, according to new research which appears to refute the ideas of a former Treasury chief.

"The elevated levels of global policy uncertainty in the past five years compared even to the crisis years of 2008-09 is remarkable," states the October-dated paper titled "An Index of Global Economic Policy Uncertainty" by Steven Davis, professor of international business and economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Read more here.

U.S. News: Investors Have to Be Careful With Real Estate

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The housing market isn't getting red hot any time soon. So instead of just throwing money at anything related to real estate, investors wanting exposure to the housing sector will need to be careful how they put their cash to work.

The matter stems from a change in attitude from the largest generation of U.S. residents – those 75 million people born between 1981 and 1997, a.k.a. the millennials, according to the Pew Research Center.

Housing and economic growth were once synonymous. From the end of World War II up until the financial crisis of 2008-09 there wasn't a single recovery that didn't involve housing playing a major role. Then things changed, and how. Read more here.