Debbie and I have put over 100,000 miles on our Harleys riding across the United States and Canada. My riding days are behind me, but as a devotee, I keep an eye on Harley’s business, as I have for years. If you’re one of my long-time readers, you know Harley was Young Research’s stock of the decade in the 1990s. In June 1998, I and millions of Harley-Davidson fans celebrated the company’s 95tht anniversary. I wrote then: For about $18,000, you can be astride a classic American cruiser, the Harley-Davidson Road King—if you can get one. This summer Debbie and I will ride our Harleys from Key West to Nova Scotia before our trip to Glacier National Park and back to Sturgis, South Dakota, … [Read More...]
Young's World Money Forecast
Since 1978 With a 32 Year Vacation
An Alternative Approach to Investing when Markets are Down
In 2008, when investing seemed like an exercise in futility to many investors, I explained an alternative approach. This approach has worked for me now for over five decades. I learned this method from the teachings of Ben Graham, and have successfully employed it my entire career. Here’s what I wrote: Concentrate on Shares, Not Price... The stocks and funds you own pay you dividends based on the number of shares you own, not on the price of those shares. Unless you are fortunate enough to be Gandalf redux, it is likely that the price of most of the shares you own in 2008 is down hard, to be kind. I sure know I’m in that boat. The number of shares I own, however, is not down. In fact, … [Read More...]
The Fed Has a 100% Error Rate
Much like the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the coronavirus has revealed an overvalued market to investors. The blame for this overvaluation lies with a Federal Reserve that has so distorted interest rates, the view of risk has become clouded. A few years ago, I wrote: In End the Fed, Ron Paul writes, “The essence of the Federal Reserve Act was largely unchanged from when it was first hatched years earlier. With a vote by Congress, the government would confer legal legitimacy on a cartel of the largest bankers and permit them to inflate the money supply at will, providing for themselves and the financial system liquidity in times of need, while insulating themselves against the … [Read More...]
How to Deal with a Crisis You Can’t Predict
Do you consider yourself well-prepared? There’s no predicting some scenarios— the so-called Black Swans. Below is a troubling illustration I wrote some time ago of just how bad facing the unexpected can feel: Knock, Knock It’s 1:30 a.m.—pitch black on your suburban porch. A woman whom you do not recognize is at your front door, while an unfamiliar car idles in your driveway. Peeking out, you talk through a side window to the interloper, who explains that you had called her, and here she is. Your 1911 Handgun You, of course, had not called her, and, as a phone call goes into the police, you—somewhat dazed and alarmed—consider the feasibility of reaching for your 1911 handgun. Not long … [Read More...]
Dividend “Suspensions” Not Dividend Cuts Coming Fast
The liberal electronic and print media will shortly be howling – with cartoon-size bold headlines – about dividend cuts. We just began the second quarter of the year. Third-quarter earnings reports will, thanks to the lying Chinese, be breathtakingly ugly. And the media will be out in full force glomming on to disruption. Words like recession and depression will fill the media channels. Greedy and grasping stockbrokers will be out, in full-scale hyena mode, yelling, "sell, sell, sell." Serious, long-term, compound interest focused mavens will follow my lead by engaging in a quiet, month-long reallocation of assets. Dick Young – a Compound Interest Maven During the month of March, I … [Read More...]
My Three-Week-Long Investing Program
I am ramping it up over the month of April into May. Our Young's Dynamic Maximizers portfolio (a fixed income alternative) is actually up 2.5% YTD, or an annual annualized 7.5%. I find this performance most encouraging. My own largest fixed income holding (individual bonds, while clearly a superior option are not ideal for me as I am on the road and out of touch at annoying times) a full-faith-and-credit-pledge GNMA’s-centric fund is ahead by 3.0%, or an annualized 12.0%. I am happy with this. GLD, one of my gold proxies is ahead by 6.5%, or an annualized 26%. My Swiss currency proxy (I have been investing in Switzerland since the early seventies. Click to the Swiss Way) is up 1.4% YTD. … [Read More...]
Work to Make Money/Invest to Save Money
Originally posted October 17, 2017. With the exception of the large sums of money that I invested in zero-coupon treasuries (Benham Target Funds) in the 1980s and 1990s, I have never invested based on how much money I expected to make. I work to make money. And I save to keep every dime of the money I have worked a lifetime to earn. There was a day when I had darn few of those dimes. Those days made an indelible impression on me, and will so forever. I invest with a rolling 10-year average annual return portfolio target of a balanced 4+%. This modest target is based on the normalized annual portfolio draw I advise for retired investors. Long-term balanced targets include surviving through … [Read More...]
Richard C. Young Explains: How to Invest Like Einstein
Originally posted October 23, 2018. When asked to name the greatest invention in history, Albert Einstein responded, compound interest. Over three decades ago I started our family investment counsel firm focusing on the miracle of compound interest to help retired and soon to be retired investors just like you. My short and quick goal was, as it remains today, safety of principal and a consistent flow of income through investors’ long and peaceful retirements. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, when the wizard Gandalf asked Bilbo Baggins to take part in an adventure, the Hobbit told Gandalf that he viewed adventures as “… nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things! Make you late for … [Read More...]
Coronavirus Snapped the Cord on the Market Elevator
For the past ten years, the stock market has been an elevator that has only gone up. Now the cord has snapped. What floor are you falling from? Here’s how I explained what I call “elevator investing” some years back. I wrote: Elevator Investing Where do you want to be when the cord snaps? I often think of risk management with a simple elevator analogy. In the investment process, I quantify risk first. Then I evaluate potential gains. Just envision, if you were in an elevator and the cord snapped, where would you be better off? Dropping from the second floor or the 10th floor? Makes your palms sweat. You sure would not fare well plummeting from floor 10. Today’s level of risk in the … [Read More...]
Here is Your Family’s Guide to the Coronavirus
I visit Dr. Ward at least once a week when Debbie and I are in Newport for the Summer. -- Dick Young. Dear Patient, As promised, I am sending this email to share some useful information that I have found over the last week. As one of your healthcare providers, it is my intention to provide you with knowledge to keep you calm and healthy. I am lucky enough to have access to information coming out of Wuhan, China where this disease began. The treatments used on the front lines were a combination of western pharmaceuticals along with Chinese Herbal Medicine and shown to be quite effective. Therefore, I have been able to understand this disease through the eyes of Chinese Medicine and gain … [Read More...]
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