Young's World Money Forecast

I have always been passionate about dividends, and if you learn to understand their power, you will be too. I even told readers in 2002 to take a blood oath to buy only dividend payers. Alarmed? While I was joking about the blood oath, I was very serious about the power of dividends in an investment portfolio, and I still am. Here’s what I wrote: As to dividends, not long ago, Fortune ran a nice piece, “Reap the Dividends.” Fortune wrote, “According to Ibbotson Associates (I love their work), if you had invested $100 in the S&P 500 in 1926 and continually reinvested the dividends, that stake would be worth $247,352 today. Without dividends that same $100 would now be worth just … [Read More...]

Since the end of 2019, gold prices have been on a breakout trajectory. Now, in response to rising tensions with Iran, things are getting very interesting. The news that the United States had bombed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani increased the perception of risk in the Middle East, and drove the price of gold even higher. I have always suggested to investors that they maintain a gold component in their portfolios, not as a road to riches, but as an insurance policy against inflation, disaster, and war. Typically when every other assets’ price is falling, gold’s is rising. Here’s how I explained it back in 1986: Throughout history gold has been the money of last resort. Every … [Read More...]

At the turn of the century, the most popular Christmas gifts among America’s young teens were Pokemon playing cards and merchandise. Now, 20 years later, the hottest gift for Christmas is Apple’s AirPods. The pro version of the small wireless headphones cost $249 (before taxes). Shortly after the kids opened their gifts on Christmas 1999, I was writing about a new technology I thought would be significant in the coming years: Bluetooth. Through inference reading and analysis, I had determined that Bluetooth could be a major innovation in technology. As it turns out, it is the very technology that allows Apple’s AirPods and billions of other devices to communicate.   I wrote back … [Read More...]

If you are beginning your investment adventure, one of the first questions you may ask yourself is, “how do I diversify my investment portfolio?” Perhaps preceded by, “should I diversify?” While the answers to how you diversify are many, the answer to whether or not you should diversify is easy; yes, absolutely. Diversification can lower your risk and raise your returns at the same time. And diversifying can prevent you from feeling the full effects of a downturn in the prices of any single class of assets. Witness the Raw Power of Diversification Diversification isn’t only a tool to minimize losses when assets fall in value; it has the power to increase your return while lowering risk. … [Read More...]

In the past, I've explained to investors that they need to find investments that fit their needs. You must measure your needs against what I referred to as a “complete understanding of where we are in terms of both the economic and monetary cycles.” I wrote: I am not looking for the investment markets to do anything for me. I long ago positioned myself to wade through any form of financial market dislocation. I always evaluate risk before potential returns. I invest with a complete understanding of where we are in terms of both the economic and monetary cycles. Where I would invest new money at the start of a cycle is quite different from where I would invest in the latter stages of a … [Read More...]

In the 21st Century, investors have been subjected to a roller coaster ride. From the dot com crash to the housing bubble, the financial crisis, and the Trump Bump, the market has proven volatile. Be wary of these violent market swings. It is easy to become complacent in bull markets, but if recent bear markets are any guide, that complacency is dangerous. More than anything else, to beat that danger you need a consistent approach. I wrote in February 2010: Consistency through cash flow—that is the goal at our family investment management company and that is my primary goal for you in these strategy reports. Clients of our family management company are most often soon-to-be-retired … [Read More...]

The mutual fund industry has been facing headwinds for years. First, the industry became too big. So dominant were the biggest funds, they couldn’t invest without moving the market themselves. The next problem for mutual funds was the advent of the ETF. ETFs hollowed out the high-fee actively managed equity fund industry. I wrote about these problems here in November of 2006: I write often that the majority of mutual funds offer no compelling reason for investment. Here’s a double shocker for you. Of the top-ten largest equity mutual funds, seven come from one family. How could one management company capture so many places in the top-ten-size race? Must have pretty spectacular … [Read More...]

Election years have historically been good to stock market investors. It is now one year away from Election 2020, and market participants are hanging on every word from the candidates. Here’s what I wrote about election year markets back in November 1991: Remember Tom Mix? All the great old black and white Western movies of the 1950s, like Tom Mix, featured patented three-part bank robberies that went something like this: Scene 1: The bank is robbed. Bad guys ride out in a cloud of dust and the chase is on. Scene 2: Bad guys split—one-half to an arroyo or cottonwood grove; one-half to a box canyon. The posse rides by and misses them. Scene 3: After a short and quite harmless wait, the … [Read More...]