Personal Economics 101

Explained so just about anyone can understand. Raymond Dalio is an American billionaire investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. Dalio is the founder of investment firm Bridgewater Associates, one of the world's largest hedge funds. As of January 2018, he is one of the world's 100 wealthiest people, according to Bloomberg.

First, most markets are closed today in honor of President Bush, or "Daddy Bush," as we call him in Texas.  The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: ICE ) and Nasdaq (NASDAQ: NDAQ ), will be closed, while SIFMA recommended that bond markets should close, meaning the 10-year Treasury note could see limited action. CME Group (NASDAQ: CME ) will also shut down trading of futures and options products at 8:30 am ET, though energy and metals futures will have a regular session. The theories being presented for yesterdays "crash" are among these. My sources are Barron's and CNBC . Also some analysis available from Schwab . Personally, from a technical stand point, the market was showing weakness anyway, even with Monday's short-lived rally, and these issues just became reasons to trigger big money movements.  The supposed trade truce between China and the U.S. began to look more like a vague agreement to do nothing concrete. A Sunday night rally in S&P 500 ...

Just hold your horses there buddy. Markets may open slightly lower this morning. But, someone is having a party. As summarized by Barron's last night: Jubilation . Stock indexes worldwide followed up one of their best weeks of trading in seven years with another day of gains. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed a three-month trade war ceasefire at Saturday's dinner meeting, giving investors optimism that it's just the first step in de-escalating a conflict that has weighed heavy on stocks in recent months. But none of the indexes held their opening prices yesterday. By noon they'd given up almost 200 points from the open.  Bad sign or good sign? Time will tell. Maybe it was the big money guys and gals covering their short positions. Hard for us little guys to know. I do know not to get to "jubilant" and go crazy here. While I did move some cash into a dividend paying stock ETF (SCHD), I did not go hog wild. Remember, pi...

Futures markets were up last I checked. The Dow E-Mini was up 400+ at 8:30 CST. the S&P 500 E-Mini was up 44.  Very briefly, from Barron's.  Trump and China Called a Truce in the Trade War. Now What? From Investor's Business Daily: Dow Jones Futures Skyrocket After Trump-Xi Meeting Ends With China Trade War Cease-Fire I wouldn't use the word "skyrocket", but tomorrow should be interesting. My suggestion, don't buy at the open. Wait to see what happens.

How can we solve racism? Quit talking about. Quit making it the most important issue. Not everything is about race.  Sunday morning news: U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to keep their trade war from escalating with a promise to halt the imposition of new tariffs for 90 days as the world’s two largest economies negotiate a lasting agreement. (Maybe that that should have been the lead.) When you get into a trade, start looking for signs right away that you are wrong. If you see them, then get out before your stop is hit. When in doubt, get out. Call someone. Have a voice conversation.  Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered. Don't be greedy.  Government-run (single payer) health care is not good idea. How's the post office and VA doing? How are most government-run programs going? 

When I was in the Air Force during the First Gulf War, George H.W. Bush was my Commander-in-Chief. Rest in peace. He was a good C-in-C. Second only to Ronald Reagan, who took a demoralized military and made us proud to wear our uniforms again. President Bush had four principals he followed as Commander if he had to go to war: 1) It was a last resort, 2) Form an overwhelming collusion, 3) Go to war with overwhelming force, and 4) Have an exit strategy. He stuck to all four. It was called the Powell Doctrine .  In other news this week, markets were up. Investor's Business Daily called it the best weekly raise since March. They changed their market watch from "market in correction" to "confirmed uptrend." This indicator is worth watching, but aren't the only indicators out there.  Index Nov 23 Nov 30 +/- +/- % S&P 500 2,632.56 2,760.17 - 103.71 + 4.93 Nasdaq 6,838.98 7330.54 + 159.03 + 2.32 DOW 24,285.95 25,538.46 + 1252.51 +5.15 ...