With a promise like the one above from the likes of our nation’s central banker, why waste time picking through the economic flotsam in search of spoilers? Please indulge me as I lay before you a scenario that may test the efficacy of that pledge.
Blog
The Bitcoin Boondoggle
Guest post by Lane Miller, Martin Capital Management
To call Bitcoin a boondoggle is, admittedly, hyperbole. The crypto-currency has spurred a fascinating exploration into the relevance of “blockchain”[1] technology for reorganizing financial services.
A currency untethered from central bankers is precisely what proponents of gold have advocated for decades. Conveniently, computer code is far easier to transport than metal. The blockchain could sideline whole departments of global banks as financial settlement could be near-instantaneous and immutable. There are potential benefits to the progeny of the Bitcoin revolution. “Investing” in Bitcoin itself, however, is a very different matter.
Blaise Pascal and the Great Asymmetry
Blaise Pascal, the brilliant seventeenth-century French philosopher and mathematician, became a devout Christian in his later years. As one of the original probability theorists, he rationally explained the pious life using mathematics rather than simple faith. He argued that if heaven and hell exist as discrete outcomes in the afterlife and that the probability of each was arbitrarily assigned to be 50 percent, one must still choose the virtuous lifeHis rationale rested on the difference in the severity of the outcomes: He reasoned that an eternity of heavenly bliss was infinitely preferable to one of never-ending damnation. That, in a nutshell, is Pascal’s Wager.[1]
The Equilibrium Delusion
Economics is a discipline for quiet times. The profession, it turns out, … has no grip on understanding how the abnormal grows out of the normal and what happens next, its practitioners like weather forecasters who don’t understand storms.
–Will Hutton, journalist The Observer, London
Reversing Trends at the RVIA?
Toward the end of our July 16 post, “The Future of America’s Economy…,” we suggested readers “watch for the June shipment numbers to be released by the RVIA (Recreational Vehicle Industry Association). If a disturbing trend should develop…” Continue reading “Reversing Trends at the RVIA?”
The Future of America’s Economy…
… Looks A Lot like Elkhart, Indiana, proclaimed the Wall Street Journal on April 13, 2018 in a feature story about the RV manufacturing hub. It is with some authority that I commend Bob Davis’ reporting as anything but fake news. Thorough and perceptive, Davis captured well not only a defining swath of life in Elkhart, my home town, but perhaps a message to a much broader audience.
Moving the Needle on a Portfolio
Rudi Dornbusch, the late MIT economist, coined what is today known as “Dornbusch’s Law:” Crises take longer to arrive than you can possibly imagine, but when they do come, they happen faster than you can possibly imagine.” It may well apply to what could happen to portfolios today. Recent headlines evoke the specter of the 1930s: an incipient trade war between the US, Europe and China, the scapegoating of minorities, families separated and interned, shifting alliances and uncertainty about the role of the United States in the world. To be sure, there are also major differences. The global superpowers are not currently looking to upset the prevailing world order through war, for instance. Continue reading “Moving the Needle on a Portfolio”
Black-Scholes, Volatility, & Risky Tales
The Black-Scholes option pricing model is one of the most famous equations in finance. With it mathematics replaced intuition as the means of pricing options. The knowable inputs in the equation are the stock or index price, the exercise price, the time to expiration and the risk-free rate (which is currently so low that its omission from the formula will not materially alter the results except for very long dated options). Continue reading “Black-Scholes, Volatility, & Risky Tales”
The Data of Dating & Staying Ahead of the Curve
Occasionally you will see a long-term chart of the S&P with vertical lines indicating expansion peaks and recession troughs. The blue-shaded rectangles in the graph below indicate the official dating of the beginnings and ends of recessions since 2000. Such dates are determined retroactively by the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee. Continue reading “The Data of Dating & Staying Ahead of the Curve”