COVID-19 effectively put a halt to most elective surgeries. As the nation gets vaccinated, however, medical authorities have given the all-clear to a resume those surgeries. But will patients come back? The answer to that question is important to the nation’s hospitals, whose bottom line has suffered as much as, or even more than, most of their patients. Last year, hospitals were forced to shut down surgery in order to create capacity for skyrocketing cases of the coronavirus. But even after beds opened up again (as a result of the reduction in new, serious Covid-19 cases), most patients are still…
Insights & Advice
The Retired Investor
A highway of opportunity
Most Americans seem excited and hopeful about the prospects for the Biden Administration’s infrastructure plan. Local politicians as well as their construction buddies are salivating at the possible promise of getting their share of this multi-trillion-dollar prize. But looking beyond the pork barrel, we might want to consider how innovation and technology could help America regain its first-class status in infrastructure. As of 2019, the United States is ranked 13th in the quality of its infrastructure, after countries like Singapore, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom among others. Of course, it may not be a fair comparison since the U.S….
Water is becoming a rare commodity
America is running out of water. During the next 50 years, the nation could see its fresh water supply reduced by one third. But if you think that’s a problem for the next generation, you are wrong. This year alone, as many as 83 out of 204 U.S. water basins could begin to feel the brunt of these shortages. And don’t think these shortages will only affect those regions that we would expect to be dry. The central and southern Great Plains, the Southwest and central Rocky Mountain states, as well as the South, Midwest, and parts of California are…
Will infrastructure spending boost clean energy stocks?
Renewable energy stocks were all the rage last year. This year, however, not so much, with clean energy funds taking hits of between 25-50%. Will President Biden’s proposed $3 trillion infrastructure bill breathe new life into this sector? President Biden ran on a platform that included the build out of an infrastructure plan that would “achieve net-zero emissions, economy-wide, by no later than 2050.” By the time of his November election last year, investors had bid up the clean energy sector, which includes everything from electric cars and clean water to solar and wind power, by over 200% in some…
Cannabis catalysts coming soon
Last week, a bipartisan slate of U.S. Senate co-sponsors introduced the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act (the SAFE Act) that would allow the cannabis industry to tap the federal banking system. If passed, this could be a game changer for marijuana companies. The SAFE Act has already been passed by the House back in September 2019 but was never brought up for a hearing, much less a vote, in the Senate. The bill’s author, Congressman Ed Perlmutter, a Colorado Democrat, has introduced several versions of this bill many times over the last eight years. During that time, the legalization…
Food scarcity in a nation of obesity
Thirty-three percent of adults are obese, while ten percent of households with children are facing a food crisis. This is happening at the same time, in the same place—America. How can this be? During the height of the pandemic, the media featured long lines of hungry Americans queuing up at food banks and other community centers to feed their families. That was a shocking sight to me. In the supposed wealthiest country in the world. Digging deeper, I discovered that millions of Americans were facing food insecurity even before the coronavirus. The pandemic simply made a bad situation worse. What…
The coming economic boom
The nation should have a lot to celebrate in the coming months. Most economists are busily raising their forecasts for growth for the remainder of the year. If their forecasts are accurate, Americans can expect a booming economy this year and into 2022. The arguments for growth are straightforward. The number of Americans that are being vaccinated is now higher than the number of new coronavirus cases. By the end of May 2021, if government forecasts are correct, almost everyone in the U.S. that wants a vaccination should have one. As a result, we can expect to see a re-opening…
Supply chain chaos
Americans are used to purchasing products, either on credit or cash, and having them delivered within a week, at the latest. Repairing those products (such as appliances) may take a little longer but not by much. The pandemic has changed all that. Now, I am not talking about empty shelves instead of toilet paper. That was last year’s problem. No, it’s about things like accessories, parts, and even some large appliances. Take my nine-year-old refrigerator, for example. The water dispenser on the outside door doesn’t work. This has been going on for a year and the part needed to fix…
Higher interest rates clobber stocks
In the grand scheme of things, a small, upward blip in the yield of the U.S. ten-year Treasury bond should be of little concern to equity investors. But sometimes, when the conditions are ripe, even the tiniest spark can cause a conflagration within a speculative stock market. As readers are aware, interest rates have been trading at historically low levels for some time. The onset of the Coronavirus forced our Federal Reserve Bank to pin them even lower. Essentially, it is why the stock market has been having such a great run. Investors have been conditioned to just assume that,…
SPAC Attack
One of the hottest trends on Wall Street today is special purpose acquisition companies or SPACS. There is hardly a day that goes by without an announcement of a new SPAC, or the acquisition and merger of a private company by one. It works like this. Although they are called “companies,” SPACs have no commercial operations, no sales, profits, or losses. All they have is a pile of cash. They received that money from investors in an initial public offering (IPO) with the promise that they would invest that money down the road into a private company with good prospects….
Clubhouse comes of age
The latest entrant into the social media orbit is an audio-only chat app called Clubhouse. The internet company had a $1 billion valuation even before it had a business plan. That is even more surprising, since membership is by invitation only. On January 24, 2021, the company announced its latest $100 million fundraising effort and, for the first time, presented a rough sketch of how it plans to start generating sales. Its founders, Paul Davidson and Rohan Seth, are hoping to offer paid subscriptions, ticketed events, and other schemes to turn the site profitable. You need to know an existing…
Gambling, the vice we love
The pandemic has altered the behavior patterns of many Americans. It has also forced states to reexamine their thinking in several areas, especially in taxation and spending. One of the biggest winners in this process appears to be gambling. Clearly, with most of the nation’s leisure activities shut down, more and more Americans are looking for something to occupy their time. At the same time, thanks to massive losses in tax revenues, states are scrambling for ways to make ends meet. Sports and other forms of online gambling are an easy answer to shoring up state budgets, while satisfying the…
The Business of Space
Space! It holds the promise of riches beyond our wildest dreams—solar systems bursting with precious resources ripe for the taking. Just the idea of such prizes has set off a frenzied rush by global business entrepreneurs to claim stakes in this new frontier. The private sector has increasingly pushed aside governments and their contractors in a frenzied bid to develop commercial space exploration. At the same time, using all their cost-cutting prowess to reduce the cost of putting people and objects into orbit, and that is only the first step. This year, for example, there are three separate missions to…
Make way for the retail investor!
By now, you may have realized that this is not your father’s stock market, nor will it ever be again. An entirely new army of investors have arrived on the scene with different attitudes, values, and beliefs. You can either get on this train or be left behind. Back in the day, burnt by the Financial Crisis of more than a decade ago, many investors decided to forsake the stock market, embracing bonds instead. Over that time, Americans amassed more than $3 trillion in savings and 94% of that money went into bonds. Those bond buyers have had a good…
The Reflation Trade
Over the past six months, an increasing number of investors have come to believe that a rise in the inflation rate is inevitable. That appears to be a sound bet from where I sit, even though the present data doesn’t support that wager. The argument for increased inflation centers around money. The world is awash in the stuff. Central banks have been printing money for years to stimulate their economies. Last year’s pandemic only opened the monetary flood gates even further. And the trend is not over. During the next few months, here in the U.S., the Biden Administration is…
Brexit at last
After four years of squabbling, and nine months of last-ditch negotiations, the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Community (EU) have come to a compromise agreement. The deal is much more an economic partnership than a true parting of the ways. The new economic system covers large areas of bilateral trade, including autos, industrial materials, manufacturing, the pharmaceutical sector, as well as professional services. It also allows the UK freedom to set new standards in areas like the environment and labor laws, as long as any changes do not overstep European standards by too much. The idea is to maintain…