I had some cash sitting in a checking account due to selling our house in Maskachusetts and becoming a renter here in the Florida Free State (a relocation analysis). If this had happened a few years ago, I might have let the money sit in checking until the day when it is time to get super extra stupid again and buy a house here in Florida (trade “call the landlord and open the door to the maintenance guys one hour later” for “spend a week begging contractors to come over”). But with inflation for the stuff that we might actually buy, e.g., houses, aircraft, etc., running at 20 percent annually, “park it in checking” didn’t seem viable.
I didn’t have enough confidence in the U.S. dollar or the Democrats’ muscular central management of the economy to buy more U.S. stocks. Buying bonds seems literally crazy given that the interest rate is lower than the official inflation rate. Buying TIPS doesn’t seem wise given that they’re pegged to the official inflation rate, which is way lower than the inflation rate for our family. So… that leaves non-U.S. stocks. The euro seems to have some of the same inflation risks as the USD, with governments using the same logic that Americans used from 1961 through 1975 with respect to the Vietnam War (“if we just throw some more cash at fighting this enemy, we cannot be defeated”; the enemy today, of course, is SARS-CoV-2).
But my beloved Sweden has its own currency! And that currency is up quite a bit against the euro (i.e., of course I am late to the party!):
(The dollar has lost roughly 10 percent of its value against Swedish krona as well.)
From Best way to invest in Sweden? (September):
I do think the Swedes will prosper in the long run due to superior mental health, a focus on something other than COVID-19, their kids having an extra year of in-person school compared to kids in U.S. cities, etc. I want to invest in Sweden with a 10-20-year horizon.
I have now put my money where my mouth is. The house sale proceeds are, as of today, in EWD, a high-fee index fund of Swedish stocks that I never could figure out how to buy directly as an American.
However, since I am the world’s dumbest investor, if I have moved money from cash to stock that can only mean one thing going forward: a worldwide stock market crash (or at least a crash in the Swedish market and/or currency!). You have been warned!
In the best tradition of Wall Street, if this investment outperforms, I will claim credit as a farsighted genius, second only to Mileva Marić, who explained the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, and formulated the special and general theories of relativity. If this investment underperforms, I will say that it is my version of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Investing, in which I support a society that had the courage to carry on educating children, working, socializing, breathing without masks, etc. despite recognizing that COVID-19 would kill some people (albeit at a much lower rate than in a lot of countries that were celebrated for their mask and shutdown orders). The Swedes even managed to get through 2020 and 2021 without the marijuana that California and Massachusetts governors/covidcrats deemed “essential” (“Cannabis in Sweden is illegal for all purposes.”).
Readers: What are doing right now for protecting savings from Bidenflation?
Related:
- “Annual inflation hits 30-year high” (The Hill, today): The consumer price index (CPI), which tracks inflation for a range of staple goods and services, rose 0.9 percent last month and 6.2 percent in the 12-month period ending in October, the highest rate in the U.S. in 30 years. Analysts broadly expected the CPI to rise by 0.5 percent last month, up from a gain of 0.4 percent in August, and 5.8 percent over the past year.
It would be hilarious if, for all this time, it’s been elided that Greta Thunberg’s parents are also invested in EWD. Her mother is an “opera singer” and Eurovision contestant who also looks to be very into bodybuilding, fitness and perhaps fake boobery! The ones she’s sporting in the Sun photo look artificially enhanced to me! (I’m no expert!)
Her father is an actor who apparently doesn’t protest her fake boobery (if indeed that’s what they are.)
Well, all of those are relatively unstable careers (particularly during a pandemic where opera sings are concerned) so I assume that whatever (known) wealth they have managed to scrape together is managed well. Amazingly the Reliable Sources are mum regarding their net worth, and that’s as it should be for people who are, after all, doing nothing less than saving our planet.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/147063/greta-thunberg-parents-malena-ernman-svante/
The parents co-wrote “Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family And A Planet In Crisis” along with their other daughter Beata, back in 2020. They have a children’s version of the book currently in print, also, from 2019. I don’t have access to Nielsen BookScan, so who knows really how many copies have been sold?
Together, the family has lots of books and other products available on Amazon. They’re planet-saving tycoons!
https://www.amazon.com/Greta-Thunberg/s?k=Greta+Thunberg
“I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic…I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”
Of course, anyone rational and normal might ask why anyone takes advice or tells their children to listen to an 18 year old kid who has been “…diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, OCD and selective mutism.” But I guess those are features now, not bugs! According to Wikipedia: “While it is largely inherited, the underlying genetics have not been determined conclusively.[14][16]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
Well, if it’s “largely inherited” and we want our children to be like Greta, why don’t we do a little more research and start cultivating it? Screen for it, select for it, do some CRISPR or something, and give everybody her “superpower” ?
https://www.nature.com/articles/5201610
“Thunberg does not view her Asperger’s as an illness, and has instead called it her “superpower.”
That’s not very egalitarian, is it! How come Greta gets to have a “superpower” while everyone else’s kids have to plonk along without it?
Oh well, I guess we’ll never know the source of Greta’s real superpowers. But it wouldn’t surprise Mamma Mia if her ‘fam is also invested in EWD. I’ll bet they have superpowered financial advisors.
Greta’s parents could just buy Swedish stocks directly. They don’t need to pay BlackRock to do it for them via iShares! EWD is for masked Americans cowering in their bunkers.
EWD is not an Index Fund…it’s an ETF that you can buy through any brokerage account. It’s fees are slightly above average, especially for a passively managed ETF.
Seems like a decent choice…if that’s what you believe in.
Oh…as far as ” protecting savings from Bidenflation”. I’m buying more US stocks, because the market has never been higher. Just bought more VTI.
Jim: I agree with you that “the market has never been higher” in nominal dollars. But what if you wanted to buy a basket of Cirrus SR22, beach house, bag of gold coins, car rentals, etc.? Are you sure that the purchasing power of the S&P 500 is actually at an all-time high?
Phil…it is for me at this time. Of course, YMMV.
To more directly answer another of your questions: I have decided to invest my disposable money in a combination of James Bond (and other movie star) wristwatches. There are a lot of surprising wrinkles in the wristwatch collection universe and the valuations are privy to people who pay a lot of attention:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TubJKbNI8i4
Most of it, however, will go toward a new company producing comic books, movie scripts, TV productions and streaming products based on characters who have both heritable and acquired “superhero” powers that result from mental illnesses that were heretofore considered to be “disorders.” At first, Patriarchal #Science and #Medicine was trying to pin down, treat and cure them in their horribly reductionist way – but what a mistake they made!
The first character is “AAS”, who is one of those ‘2SLGBTQQIA+ people’ (as Justin Trudeau puts it) with the power to switch not just biological sexes including all forms of hermaphroditism but also their gender identifications at will. This character relies on his/her/zir/ze’s Aspergers/Autism Superpowers to convince children, governments and adults everywhere to save the planet, wave rainbow flags, and invent new pronouns. It will have incredible powers to “watch you” – but when it travels to its postmodern Fortress of Solitude, that will be none other than Al Gore’s Undisclosed Location in his All-Earth Panopticon.
They will wear a big “AAS” on their chest and cape but will not be wearing any real garments except for the cape and the boots, as their skin will be genetically modified so that it can change colors and alter their appearance like an Israeli military active camouflage system, altering their guise instantaneously at will, including “clear” as a cloaking device, or even a rock, a tree, or the likeness of Gene Simmons.
“Radical Transparency!”
https://www.climatetrace.org/
People doubted Alfred E. Neuman in his day and thought he was a goner. Don’t underestimate this now!
Finally for today – and this is important! – AAS’es “buddy” superhero character is “W” for “Weed” – who helps AAS with logistics and then travels to their locations both beforehand and afterward to make sure everyone who might be freaked out and anxious by AAS’s efforts is both pre-stoned and after-stoned. He has a special Superbong / Endless Waterpipe that projects a variable THC-infused wave that can be tuned, intensified and so localized like the phasers on Star Trek. Need to chill out a whole city block? Just put the Superbong on “Stun.” John Boehner is his alter ego.
I plan on listing what was to be my FL beachfront retirement condo as a FSBO next week on Zillow. Property taxes, HOA fees, and assessments have gotten too costly, but I should triple my investment from 5 years ago. Just spoke to a local real estate attorney that will do the contract and closing for $250.
Shouldn’t you be using your “extra” cash to set up your bolt hole somewhere in Central America?
philg is focusing on the economic fundamentals of a country, but do these still matter? The stock market gains seem to be entirely disconnected from the fundamentals (perhaps the currency rates are still connected, so there may be some value in owning SEK).
Perhaps we are in the golden twenties again, and the bill will come in 2029. I have an idea how to increase the GDP: Every subject of the Biden administration mints a new NFT worth $1000,000 every year. This will increase the GDP from the current $63,543.6 per capita to $1063,543.6 per capita. The stock market gains would finally rest on solid fundamentals!
Anonymous, 1920 were mostly deflationary. https://studyfinance.com/inflation/us/1920/10000/1928/ Crisis of 1929 was driven by large scale real estate speculation (not individual landlord, by large real estate fund done by crony capitalists of that time) and made into crisis by Federal Reserve farther limiting monetary supply.
Today people own stocks because with both expanding monetary supply and real price inflation due to US Democrat economic burden and real worker skill and productivity slipping (which is to some degree alleviated by information technology) stock bound to be worth more n average, following rise of prices of the gods that companies produce.
Rising costs and effects of expanded money supply and inflation can clearly be seen at local religious institutions donations drives: houses of worship need more money for maintenance, in the past donations of those salaried a little exceeded donations from small business owners; now small business owners donate larger amounts due to their proximity to real cash flow while those salaried who once were considered more affluent donate the same as before or less due to the rising cost of living. US economy is moving in direction of third world economies where labor is discounted.
Anonymous: As noted above, in my response to Jim, the U.S. stock market can certainly be manipulated by the U.S. government to any nominal value. I have no doubt that the market in 2024, for example, will be higher than it was in 2020, thus enabling incumbent politicians from both parties to claim success. That doesn’t mean the purchasing power will actually be higher, though, especially if what you want to buy is in Sweden,. Shanghai, or Switzerland.
The S&P was at 3,333 just before coronapanic. It is about 4,660 today. So it is up 40 percent. If you want to buy a used car, a house in our neighborhood in Florida, and a used Cirrus, you’ll find that all of those have gone up in price more than 40 percent (i.e., the stock market is actually down in terms of purchasing power; EWD has done slightly better, but only slightly).
Where is Maskachusetts?
KA: As with COVID-19 itself, Maskachusetts is anywhere that you need or want it to be.
A novice came to Master Greenspun and asked: “What is the nature of Maskachuchetts?” Greenspun replied: “Study the Levenshtein distance and you will understand the nature of Maskachusetts.” The next day the novice reported excitedly: “I studied the Levenshtein distance and finally I understand the nature of Maskachuchetts!” Greenspun hit the novice with a stick and reprimanded him: “Maskachusetts is anywhere that you need or want it to be.” The novice was enlightened.
When the NYSE hit 13,000, 5 million years ago, the analysts all said this boom was going to end in tears when the punch bowl was taken away. The lion kingdom figures there’s a 70% chance of things ending in tears in January, after the santa clause rally & invests based on the odds.
Labor shortages & parts shortages have crushed productivity like it’s 1979. This is 1 area which depends on Biden to take action & like Jimmy Carter, he’s just not hacking it. The earliest someone could come along with the will to unfreeze the economy is 2025, so it can’t go on without some impact.
Depending on risk aversion you can get 20% on stable coins (cryptocurrencies pegged to the dollar). Example: https://app.beefy.finance/#/avax/vault/bankerjoe-usdc.e
The SEC says it wants a cut: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-25/sec-gets-path-to-rein-in-stablecoins-as-u-s-weighs-new-rules
Maybe buy another Cirrus, seems like the used market has gone up 30% in the last year.