CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: #Market: Nicola Sturgeon is no-nuke.

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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"Wikimedia Commons."

CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: #Ukraine: The price of wheat and famine

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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Ank Kumar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Korn Ferry: In the UK, a Battle over Suiting Up

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Returning office workers are challenging the country’s tradition of business attire. 

Read more here.

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: Defense Industry Bulls

By SIMON CONSTABLE

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WWI Biplane

State Archives of North Carolina Raleigh, NC, 

Set 72157674181623046, ID 29792394261, 

Original title WWI 55.B1.F14.3

Forbes: Xi Lays Bare China’s Economic Delusion

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Chinese premier Xi Jingping says he wants economic growth in the communist country to outpace that of the U.S.

The problem is that China’s official economic statistics have long been aspirational rather than actual.  Read more here.

Shanghai

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Forbes: San Francisco’s Fin Tech Biz Seems To Have A Gender Problem

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Female applicants will likely find the odds massively stacked against them when they look for a job in that booming industry. Read more here.

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Forbes: Europe Faces Higher Recession Risks Than U.S.A.

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Europe's reliance on imported energy is just part of the story. Read more here.

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Forbes: Even More Defense Spending To Come After The Mid-Term Vote, Report

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

If you think defense spending is booming now, just wait until next year. Read more here.

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Forbes: Bears Winning -- Sentiment Stinks

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

The bears seem to have taken over the market these past few weeks and that should make bullish contrarian investors happy. Read more here.

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: #Ukraine: Commodities unstable

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: #Ukraine: Food security risks from Scotland to France to the Horn of Africa

 By  SIMON CONSTABLE

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Time Magazine: What Elon Musk Can Do In His New Role at Twitter—and What He Can't

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

One of corporate America’s most notable loudmouths has acquired the largest stake in the home of online loudmouths: Twitter, the microblogging platform. Of course, the person in question is multi-billionaire Elon Musk, the wealthiest person on Earth, worth a staggering $288 billion. The day after his news-making investment, Twitter announced that Musk would also be joining its board of directors. Now, questions remain about what his role will actually look like. Here’s more about what his stake in Twitter could mean, and what his position on the board would have the ability to potentially do. Read more here.

Elon Musk

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: The Teapot Dome scandal 100 years later; Nicola Sturgeon in command of the mandates

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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Teapot Dome Oil Field Wyoming

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WSJ: Financial Flashback Teapot Dome Scandal of 1922

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Exclusively in print.

CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: #Ukraine: Germany speaks of rationing; US speaks of recession

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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Forbes: Ukraine War Sends Inflation Soaring Across Europe

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The war exacerbates already problematic supply chain disruptions. Read more here.

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Forbes: Gold Prices Drop As Investors See Hope For Peace In Ukraine

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

But alone hope for peace in Ukraine would be an unwise investment strategy. Read more here.

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Forbes: White House Plans To Target Stock Buybacks Will Send Executive Pay Even Higher

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The same plans could also hurt individual investors in the pocketbook. Read more here.

The White House

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Forbes: Oil Market Shows Optimistic Outlook For Energy Crisis

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy markets into a tizzy late last month. Most people felt the pinch at pump as gasoline prices soared.

But it looks like the wallet-emptying energy price surge could be over sooner than many think. At least that’s what the futures markets and some basic economics seem to suggest. Read more here.

Destroyed Russian tank in Mariupol

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Forbes: 3 Reasons Investors Should Worry That The Ukraine War Is Far From Over

By SIMON CONSTABLE

"Things seem to be heading in the right direction, but a lot of scenarios including some bad ones, remain plausible," a new report states. Read more here.

Destroyed Russian Tank Mariupol

Mvs.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: Ukraine -- Commodities rising. Simon Constable @RealConstable

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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Walter Baxter / Shell filling station at Jedburgh

CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: Commodities go to war @RealConstable; Time Magazine

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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Financial Analysts Journal: Targeting Retirement Security with a Dynamic Asset Allocation Strategy

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Rule-based dynamic changes to asset allocation to attain desired income levels improve performance relative to traditional static asset allocation models or age-based target-date funds. Read more here.

CFA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Financial Analysts Journal: Levered and Inverse Exchange-Traded Products -- Blessing or Curse?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Inverse and levered ETPs are neither effective hedging tools nor useful as buy-and-hold investments. They are effective only when used for short-term bets on the direction of an asset. They are ill understood and inherently unstable. Read more here.

Crowds Gathering Outside NYSE 

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Financial Analysts Journal: Risk Management and Optimal Combination of Equity Market Factors

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Combining factors in a multi-factor portfolio using forecast risk management can add substantially to investment returns. Backtesting showed such a strategy run over 54 years would have made annualized returns of 10.79%, vs. 7.77% for a similar non-risk-managed portfolio. Read more here.

NYSE

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Financial Analysts Journal: Retirement Income Sufficiency through Personalised Glidepaths

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Retiree income can be maximised by shifting focus from targeting wealth at retirement to income sufficiency through retirement with the use of personalised glidepaths instead of approaches that use demographic averages. Read more here.

Balon Greyjoy, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Financial Analysts Journal: Enhanced Portfolio Optimization

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Managers can improve the performance of the mean–variance approach by using enhanced portfolio optimization (EPO). EPO accounts for the noise in investors’ estimates of risk–return and, as a result, increases risk-adjusted performance. Read more here.

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via Wikimedia Commons

Financial Analysts Journal: Factor Exposure Variation and Mutual Fund Performance

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Mutual fund managers who frequently change exposure to investment factors (market, size, book-to-market, and momentum) perform significantly worse than those who make fewer changes. Read more here.

Katrina.Tuliao, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Financial Analysts Journal: Boosting the Equity Momentum Factor in Credit

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Investors can double alpha in the credit markets by using simple equity momentum strategies enhanced by applying machine learning with boosted regression trees. Read more here.

forextime.com, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Financial Analysts Journal: Should Mutual Fund Investors Time Volatility?

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Investors in actively managed US equity mutual funds should decrease/increase their investment as fund volatility decreases/increases. This strategy significantly improves investment performance compared with a buy-and-hold approach. Read more here.

The original uploader was RMajouji at English Wikipedia., CC BY 2.5, 

via Wikimedia Commons

Financial Analysts Journal: Chinese and Global ADRs -- The US Investor Experience

By SIMON CONSTABLE 

American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) have outperformed US stocks, with ADRs of Chinese companies doing particularly well. Read more here.

Artico2, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Financial Analysts Journal: Decarbonizing Everything

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Different climate risk metrics lead to portfolios with different carbon and risk–return profiles. Analyzing the merits and applicability of various climate data can help investors manage climate risk and improve risk-adjusted returns. Read more here.

Rob Young from United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0,

 via Wikimedia Commons

Financial Analysts Journal: Active Trading in ETFs -- The Role of High-Frequency Algorithmic Trading

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

High-frequency algorithmic trading adds to ETF market stability by reducing the discrepancy between fund prices and net asset values (NAVs). Read more here.

Migpc, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

"Featured in EMEA Tribune" On Ukraine

By SIMON CONSTABLE

 Sanctions will only increase Putin’s control over his people

“The issue is that sanctions often prompt a country’s population to rally around the flag. … Put another way, a siege mentality takes over with people banding together to weather the economic storm.” — Simon Constable,

Read more here.

 

Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine

President.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0, 

via Wikimedia Commons

Time Magazine: Putin’s War in Ukraine Will Make Your Next Car Even More Expensive

By SMON CONSTABLE

Many Americans got a case of sticker shock when they went to buy a new car last year. That might have been bad enough on its own, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means there’s more of the same to come, experts say.

“New vehicle prices will be pushed up even higher and there doesn’t appear to be any relief in sight,” says Garrett Nelson, North American Auto industry analyst at CFRA. “All the momentum is to the upside.” Read more here.

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: #Ukraine -- Commodities skyrocket. @RealConstable @Time

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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First Oil Well in Saudi Arabia 

Unknown authorUnknown author, 

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Time Magazine: How Sanctions on Russia Will Hurt—and Help—the World's Economies

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Barring a near-miracle, sooner or later, sanctions will cripple Russia's economy. To most economists, that seems like an open and shut case.

What's more nuanced, however, is how those same bans on trading with Russia will send ripples through the rest of the global economy. While forecasting anything is complicated, it's trickier still when there's a war. Still, experts say the effect across the world will be uneven—creating some surprising winners and losers. Read more here.

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WSJ Financial Flashback -- March 2002

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Available exclusively in the print edition

WSJ: What to Know About Commodities

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

After years in the investing wilderness, commodities are hot again. And it looks as if the rally may continue for at least the foreseeable future, some analysts say. And the surge is now attracting investors of all types—from veterans to neophytes. The latter would do well to understand some of the basics in how commodity investing works. Read more here.

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: The equity markets stabilize. @RealConstable

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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Time Magazine: Why Markets Bounced Back So Quickly After the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Just a few days turned the tide of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—for the world and for Wall Street, but in completely different ways. Read more here.

Russian Tank

Hargi23, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes: Goldman-- Fed To Hike Rates 11 Times By End Of 2023

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Get ready for some serious increases in the cost of borrowing money.

Red hot wage inflation and an exceptionally tight labor market will lead the Federal Reserve to raise its benchmark interest rate by 11 times by the end of next year, according to a new report from Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs. Read more here.

Pete unseth, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes: Ukraine Crisis-- Fertilizer Shortage To Boost Plant Food Stocks

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

The war in Ukraine looks set to have global consequences particularly in the farm patch. There could also be profits to be made for investors. Read more here.

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Citywire: How a commercial real estate deal happens at Cadre

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Theoretically, investing in commercial real estate should be simple – buy a property, renovate it, lease it, and sell the building. In practice, commercial real estate investing is far more complicated. Read more here.

Photo by Étienne Beauregard-Riverin on Unsplash

Seems appropriate right now...

This scene from the Italian Job movie (2003) seems appropriate right now...

Forbes: Ukraine Crisis - Initial Indications Show Bitcoin Is Failing As A Safe-Haven Asset

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Gold rose to the occasion. Read more here.

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Forbes: Ukraine Crisis Dilemma — A Total Blockade Of Russia’s Banks Would Hurt Europe

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Banning Russia from the SWIFT payment system would hurt Europe. Read more here.

The Kremlin

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: #Ukraine: Commodities spike.@RealConstable

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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Kyiv, Ukraine

Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash