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How Closing a Bank Account Affects Your Credit Score. ... While closing a savings or checking account won't affect your credit score, closing a credit card account can. Credit card accounts are regularly reported to the credit bureaus and factor into your credit score.
A Magnificent Six replay of the Nifty Fifty in the making?yeah
“The regulatory environment next year is going to be brutal for these [six] companies."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/19/tech-stocks-markets/
I hope so.
And I don't read the Bezos Post.
I hope so.yeah
“The regulatory environment next year is going to be brutal for these [six] companies."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/19/tech-stocks-markets/
It doesn't take much effort to find articles attributing the recent performance of the S&P, or the NASDAQ, to the monopolists.The value of companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft is made up primarily of “intangibles”. That term can cover all sorts of things, and is often taken to refer to some special aspect of the firm in question, such as accumulated R&D, tacit knowledge or ‘goodwill’ associated with brands.
R&D is at most a small part of the story. The leading tech companies spend $10 – 20 billion a year each on R&D https://spendmenot.com/top-rd-spenders/, a tiny fraction of market valuations of $1 trillion or more. And feelings towards most of these companies are the opposite of goodwill – more like resentful dependence in most cases.
A simpler explanation is that the main intangible asset held by these companies is monopoly power, arising from network effects, intellectual property, control over natural resources and good old-fashioned predatory conduct.
In this context, the crucial point about intangibles isn’t that they aren’t physical, it’s that they can’t be reproduced by anyone else. No one can sell a Windows or Apple operating system, even if they were willing to invest the effort required to reverse-engineer it. While there are competitors for the Google’s search engine (I recommend DuckDuckGo), there are huge barriers to entry, notably including the fact that the product is ‘free’ or rather supported by advertising for which all consumers pay whether they use Google or not.
Which is to say, it does not appear to be a prelude to a rebound in the underlying economy.The S&P’s new highs are a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing about the hardship of millions of people on food stamps, or the millions about to be fired from service jobs, or the homeless, or the people who are just huddled at home waiting for the vaccine . . .
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. Just look the stocks that have brought us to these levels — they’re not the recovery plays. In fact, they are the opposite. They are stocks that tend to do well, because of what we call secular consideration [not] classic recovery stocks.
The winners in this market are the companies that are most divorced from the underlying economy.
(Italic text emphasis added.)A reserve-currency issuer should play an outsize role in global trade, which encourages partners to draw up contracts in its currency. A historical role as a global creditor helps to expand use of the currency and encourage its accumulation in reserves. A history of monetary stability matters, too, as do deep and open financial markets. America exhibits these attributes less than it used to. Its share of global output and trade has fallen, and today China is the world’s leading exporter. America long ago ceased to be a net creditor to the rest of the world—its net international investment position is deeply negative. Soaring public debt and dysfunctional government sow doubt in corners of the financial world that the dollar is a smart long-run bet.
Challengers have for decades failed to knock the greenback from its perch. Part of the explanation is surely that America is not as weak relative to its rivals as often assumed. American politics are dysfunctional, but an often-fractious euro area and authoritarian China inspire still less confidence. The euro’s members and China are saddled with their own debt problems and potential crisis points. The euro has faced several existential crises in its short life, and China’s financial system is far more closed and opaque than the rich-world norm.
The global role of the dollar does not depend on America’s export prowess and creditworthiness alone, but is bound up in the geopolitical order it has built. Its greatest threat is not the appeal of the euro or yuan, but America’s flagging commitment to the alliances and institutions that fostered peace and globalization for more than 70 years. Though still unlikely, a collapse in this order looks ever less far-fetched. Even before the pandemic, President Donald Trump’s economic nationalism had undercut openness and alienated allies. Covid-19 has further strained global co-operation. The IMF thinks world trade could fall by 12% this year.
Though America’s economic role in the world has diminished a little, it is still exceptional. An American-led reconstruction of global trade could secure the dollar’s dominance for years to come. A more fractious and hostile world, instead, could spell the end of the dollar’s privileged position—and of much else besides.
In 2011, then-President Barack Obama attended an intimate dinner in Silicon Valley. At one point, he turned to the man on his left. What would it take, Obama asked Steve Jobs, for Apple to manufacture its iPhones in the United States instead of China? Jobs was unequivocal: “Those jobs aren’t coming back.” Jobs’s prognostication has become almost an article of faith among policymakers and corporate leaders throughout the United States. Yet China’s recent weaponization of supply chains and information networks exposes the grave dangers of the American deindustrialization that Jobs accepted as inevitable.
Since March alone, China has threatened to withhold medical equipment from the United States and Europe during the coronavirus pandemic; launched the biggest cyberattack against Australia in the country’s history; hacked U.S. firms to acquire secrets related to the coronavirus vaccine; and engaged in massive disinformation campaigns on a global scale. China even hacked the Vatican. These incidents reflect the power China wields through its control of supply chains and information hardware. They show the peril of ceding control of vast swaths of the world’s manufacturing to a regime that builds at home, and exports abroad, a model of governance that is fundamentally in conflict with American values and democracies everywhere. And they pale in comparison to what China will have the capacity to do as its confrontation with the United States sharpens.
In this new cold war, a deindustrialized United States is a disarmed United States—a country that is precariously vulnerable to coercion, espionage, and foreign interference. Preserving American preeminence will require reconstituting a national manufacturing arrangement that is both safe and reliable—particularly in critical high-tech sectors. If the United States is to secure its supply chains and information networks against Chinese attacks, it needs to reindustrialize. The question today is not whether America’s manufacturing jobs can return, but whether America can afford not to bring them back.
The United States’ industrial overdependence on China poses two profound national security threats. The first is about access to the supply of critical goods.
The second risk of U.S. industrial dependence on China is about the integrity of powerful dual-use commercial technology products: civilian goods such as information platforms, social network technology, facial recognition systems, cellphones, and computers that also have powerful military or intelligence implications.
The United States’ slow drift toward deindustrialization is not a threat to Democrats or a threat to Republicans—it’s a threat to the United States. Addressing it will require an American solution that transcends party lines. It will require an extensive collaborative effort between the government and private sector to take inventory of the products salient to national security—determining which high-tech and vital goods must be produced domestically, which can safely be sourced from allies and friendly democracies, and which can still be imported from the global market, including from authoritarian states like China. Carrying out this strategy and operationalizing it will take time and substantial resources.
Reconstituting America’s domestic production capacity will be contingent on procuring a reliable, abundant supply of key natural resources at a low cost, building up a large talent pool of skilled industrial workers, and making substantial investments in fostering hotbeds of innovation.
Full disclosure: I have a small position in MCSMX.For starters, the goal of reopening factories won’t be economically sustainable if the United States can’t ensure cost-effective access to natural resources and raw materials those factories need to produce finished, manufactured products. China has made acquiring premium access to resources such as zinc, cobalt, and titanium a national priority. By making investments and loans worth hundreds of billions of dollars across the developing world—particularly in Africa—it has established a model of trading technology and infrastructure for resources. In one such case, China struck a deal with a Congolese mining consortium, Sicomines, to secure access to critical minerals for electronics like copper and cobalt in exchange for investing in essential infrastructure projects like hospitals and highways.
To compete, the United States and its allies will need to play a shrewd game of macroeconomic chess, offering their own funding for infrastructure and development, but without the predatory debt-trap qualities that often accompany Chinese funding. Many African countries have interlocked their economic futures with China because they see little alternative—if Chinese loans once came with few strings attached, they now often require adherence to a variety of CCP norms. Last month, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee offered one idea: an International Digital Infrastructure Corporation that would offer these countries the financial incentive and support to buy and install American-made hardware. Providing that alternative—assistance and financing that authentically empower recipient governments and benefit the local population—could shift the economic orientations of nations that would prefer to be less entwined with an expansionist authoritarian power. It could also serve as a powerful tool to supply U.S. and allied manufacturers with critical raw materials needed for the production of strategic hardware.
Here’s another version of Roach’s views on the dollar.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/european-rescue-fund-weakens-dollar-hegemony-by-stephen-s-roach-2020-07#comments
“ An overvalued US dollar is ripe for a sharp decline, owing to America’s rapidly worsening macroeconomic imbalances and a government that is abdicating all semblance of global – or even domestic – leadership. And the European Union's approval of a joint rescue fund is likely to accelerate the euro's rise.”
“ My prediction of a 35% drop in the broad dollar index is premised on the belief that this is just the beginning of a long-overdue realignment between the world’s two major currencies.”
“ Whereas the International Monetary Fund expects the US current-account deficit to hit 2.6% of GDP in 2020, the EU is expected to run a current-account surplus of 2.7% of GDP – a differential of 5.3 percentage points. ”
Note - also check out the comment..Quite a few make the case that the EU euro will not be the new reserve Currency.
https://documents.pimco.com/Viewer/GetFile.aspx?Id=nHUY2SUo9QOxF3VWEzGBYoDrLWRlnZLA5zHxp1cfhF99lmPE3dql3s4MG01b7orgpuKsxaOYW9k%2BvPlglzR9q8crYaDxCBk5G6m5o3k8L6ABM9YHRWZSkC36DoaNYIUORHRsHGxzcH9IpEPtCwo1FXQLZJNS719ScVKY0K4Jxn9KA1WdYUVMKlzM7X69N1UGLeQvdH6mP1SUn3R8GCG0hsjSotDrjdpz1YkguqOasY8%3DEffective August 3rd, 2020, the PIMCO Income Fund (the “Fund”) is making a change to its daily distribution rate. Over the course of the month this change will lead to a monthly distribution rate change from $0.0555/share to $0.0400/share (Institutional Class).1
The recent sudden drop in yields across fixed income markets has left investors around the world
searching for yield.
We recognize the importance of income to our investors, but we also aim to balance this with the
desire to preserve capital. In this environment, we believe it is critical to seek to generate income in a
diversified and prudent manner
Article:Despite the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, the gap between the present value of liabilities and assets at U.S. state pensions is measured in trillions of dollars. To make matters worse, pensions are now faced with the reality that standard diversification — including extremely low-yielding bonds — may no longer serve as an effective hedge for equity risk.
While I was at CalPERS, concerns arose in 2016 about the effectiveness of standard portfolio diversification as prescribed by Modern Portfolio Theory. We began to recognize that management of portfolio risk and equity tail risk, in particular, was the key driver of long-term compound returns. Subsequently, we began to explore alternatives to standard diversification, including tail-risk hedging. At present, the need to rethink basic portfolio construction and risk mitigation is even greater — as rising hope in Modern Monetary Theory to support financial markets is possibly misplaced.
At the most recent peak in the U.S. equity market in February 2020, the average funded ratio for state pension funds was only 72 percent (ranging from 33 percent to 108 percent). That status undoubtedly has worsened with the recent turmoil in financial markets due to the global pandemic. How much further will it decline and to what extent pension contributions must be raised — at the worst possible time — remains to be seen if the economy is thrown into a prolonged recession.
(Sturgeon Capital)This Website has been set up in connection with the private offering and sale of the shares of AFRICAN LIONS FUND ...
As a Private Fund the Fund is suitable for private investors only and any invitation to subscribe for fund interests may be made on a private basis only. ...
the requirements considered necessary for the protection of investors that apply to public funds in the BVI [British Virgin Islands] do not apply to private funds. An investment in a private fund may present a greater risk to an investor than an investment in a public fund in the BVI. Each prospective investor is solely responsible for determining whether the Fund is suitable for its investment needs.
[T]here shall [not] be any sale of any investments or commitments in connection with this website in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful, including the United Kingdom and the United States.
...
The regulated services provided by Sturgeon Capital are only accessible to Eligible Counterparties or Professional clients as defined in COBS 3.5 & COBS 3.6 or in the case of Fund investors COBS 4.12 of the Financial Conduct Authority handbook. ... the same levels of protection afforded to Retail Clients would not be available to prospective clients of the firm.
The fund's Prospectus Supplement dated August 17, 2020 reads in part: "Additionally, in the fourth quarter of 2020, the Fund will change its primary benchmark to a custom market-cap weighted blend of the MSCI ACWI Energy Index and the MSCI ACWI Utilities Index to better reflect how Wellington intends to position the Fund within the energy industry (as currently described in the Prospectus and Summary Prospectus)."
I believe this needs to be corrected. The alluded to description of how Wellington manages this fund does not appear in the Summary Prospectus. It does appear in the Statutory Prospectus, p. 11 (pdf p. 16). So the August 17, 2020 Supplement (to both the Summary and Statutory Prospectuses) should be corrected to reference the description only in the Statutory Prospectus.
That prospectus reads in part: "Wellington Management uses a bottom up approach, in which stocks are chosen based on the advisor's fundamental analysis and its assessment of valuation. Although oil and gas price expectations are considered, company-specific factors such as the quality of the companies' assets, internal reinvestment opportunities, investment plans to capitalize on those opportunities, and quality of management are key inputs in the decision-making process."
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