#3
I think the Chinese recognize ( but will not admit) that their vaccine is only 50% effective against delta; it may be even worse against Omicron.
While we all think Omicron is milder, I do not have data on it's relative virulence vs delta in unvaccinated, or ineffectively vaccinated people ( will find some).
Hong Kong ( apparently only 30% of old people are vaccinated) is having a bad time with covid, with seven day average death rates currently as high as 35/1,000,000. At it's worse, last summer USA death rate was 10/1,000,000 ( that was Delta. Omicron peak was 8.
They hope with draconian measure they can stop deaths and hospitalizations unlike USA where both just kept on trucking.
I don't think many people in China have died yet or at least the Chinese haven't said many people have died)
If you are still interested in China investments, look at Krane ETFs. they have a long article on avoiding ADRs and buying only shares listed in Hong Kong or China directly. While the ADRs may stop trading, shares overseas will not, although they could fall in value, as capital in ADRs disappears.

I apologize to anyone who feels this thread is not investment related, and I don't know what category it was started in, but as this is a much more reasonable audience to have this discussion with ( compared to Twitter or FB) I would appreciate it if we could continue. I do think unless the conflict ends quickly ( which is unlikely unless Pootin is "disappeared") it could push the world into a recession, because of commodity prices and supply chain disruptions. There are also implications for emerging markets, climate change, and big tech, all of which have to confront the potential "end of globalization"
@Old_Joe
In international relations, there really is no "legal agreement" that is enforceable. Treaties are supposedly not to be broken, but the Russians track record since 1917 is abysmal.
Many people ( including my peace loving Connecticut farm girl Mother) believed we should have used military force against the Russian blockade in 1948, considering Russia did not have a functional atomic bomb until 1949. Taking the airlift way out convinced Stalin that the West was war weary and would not fight to protect democracies in the west. Thus started the Cold War.
Our obligations to Ukraine stem from the Budapest Memorandum, which convinced them it was safe to give up their extensive nuclear arsenal. To convince them to do so, US and NATO agreed to protect them from future Russian aggression. While the language does not specifically say NATO will use military force, it clearly commits us to an obligatory defense of Ukraine in today's circumstances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1082124528/ukraine-russia-putin-invasion
"But they were told at the time that the United States and Western powers — so certainly at least the United States and Great Britain — take their political commitments really seriously. This is a document signed at the highest level by the heads of state. So the implication was Ukraine would not be left to stand alone and face a threat should it come under one.
So they had this faith that the West would stand by them, or certainly the United States, the signatories, and Great Britain, would stand up for Ukraine should it come under threat."
In great power politics, intent and projection count, as do standing up to your commitments. While Biden has done a great job unifying NATO and using sanctions to destroy the Russian economy, this will probably not be enough to force Pootin to peace talks. He apparently is willing to destroy Ukraine. A continued war only makes sense if Pootin believes Russia can withdraw economically from the world, confiscate any property of Western firms that refuse to do business with him, and rely on it's energy and commodity resources ( and China) to outlast the West's ability to isolate him. So far it looks as this is his game plan.
From what I have read, most people think the West's united response has given the Chinese significant pause concerning Taiwan. But all it may have done is convince China that the West will not fight to defend Taiwan, and as long as China's economy and foreign reserves are isolated enough from western sanctions they can eventually go ahead. This may take another decade. Hopefully in that time the US can become "chip independent" and eliminate the need for 50% of our chips coming from Taiwan. But this doe little to alleviate our dependence on Chinese sources for rare earths etc.
There is a large amount of insightful military analysis of the Russian debacle so far on the internet. Logistics are their weak spot and may prove to be their downfall.
I recommend reading Maj General Mike Ryan( Australian) @Warinthefuture or mickryan.com.au
https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-look-at-russian-army-logistics/
It gets into the weeds about the track gauges of the European vs Russian railroads.

Except the last part of the transcript,

Now, for shorter term, more call it tactically-oriented investors , volatility can actually breed opportunities, including the ability to use periodic rebalancing, to take advantage of market swings, frankly, in both directions. In the midst of all this volatility, there has also been a clear leadership trend, other than the obvious, maybe, the energy sector, and that leadership trend is high quality. I believe the days of the so-called low quality, high risk trade are mostly in the rear view mirror. Now ,for longer term, more strategically-oriented investors, we do believe it’s not a time to take on a high amount of risk but apply the long-term disciplines of not only rebalancing, but diversification.

March 16th is when the Fed meets to raise the rate by 0.25%. Let's see how the market reacts.

The unfortunate equation here is that Europe with a population of 500M is unwilling to die for Ukraine with a population of less than 50M. An attack on a NATO country would dramatically change the game and would be defacto WW3

Golden Dragon China ETF PGJ is focused on the US-listed Chinese companies that is being affected by several issues:
1. Potential US delisting. The SEC has now started to list companies that face high delisting risks. This issue has been simmering for a while but is getting hot again.
2. Russia-Ukraine war has sensitized investors to risks in Chinese stocks if China-Taiwan issue flares up, or Russia relies/leans on China to escape some Western sanctions.
3. Covid-19 is spreading again in China and some cities have reimposed partial restrictions. The old Chinese policy of zero-tolerance for Covid-19 is also not working.
These issue have been mentioned within several threads, but this thread is started to collect related information in one place. There are several China funds, but PGJ may uniquely capture multiple China risks in one fund. It peaked in mid-February 2021 when many US speculative stocks also peaked.
PGJ at ETF.db https://etfdb.com/etf/PGJ/#etf-ticker-profile
PGJ at Stockcharts (2-yr, reset if defaults to 1-yr; bottom panels show $VXEEM (that is EM "VIX"), $SPX) https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=PGJ&p=D&yr=2&mn=0&dy=0&id=p52602404535
News1 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-tech-rout-deepens-amid-020459036.html
News2 https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/14/asia-markets-russia-ukraine-war-covid-omicron-wave-in-china-currencies-oil.html

Thanks @Sven. All is well other than being perpetually mired in 15-30 degree temperatures with treacherous ice & snow still covering the landscape of northern Michigan. I’m of the view we who post regularly are an inquisitive and independent thinking bunch. ISTM, however, there are many “lurkers” who rarely if ever post and who are therefore more interested in seeking answers. You can get a rough idea by the number of “views” that appear next to each thread. So I try to be cognizant of a larger community, to be as accurate and circumspect as I can be, and to not mislead anyone.
Haven’t found a good way to link full Barron’s or WSJ. articles. Always best to get the info right from the source of course.. However, by Googling a few key words from a posted quotation, it is sometimes possible to pull up the entire article online with enough perseverance. What I have done in the past is clip passages on my Fire device from Kindle based WSJ / Barron’s subscriptions; than email them to myself; than do another cut and paste from my computer to the board. Actually a time consuming process involving two different devices.
Thanks for the link. Saunders is excellent. Remember her from the old Rukeyser show. Unlike me, she hasn’t aged much. I haven’t yet seen anything bad that Schwab puts out. Will view the linked video.
Regards
PS - @Sven said: “Also MFO helped me to pick few great funds that I wouldn’t know about.”
Yes. About half of my funds were first mentioned on either Fund Alarm or MFO over the couple decades I’ve participated in those forums. And a select handful I own were first mentioned at MFO within the last year. Very grateful.

Barron’s ran the numbers for the items the government CPI omits
That 7.9% inflation figure that everyone is touting is comprehensive.
Excluding food and energy, the Y/Y figure is 6.4%.
I gave the link for the BLS data in an earlier post: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t01.htm
Food is rising at exactly the same rate, 7.9%, as the overall inflation rate. Sure, the meats, poultry, fish and eggs subcategory is rising faster than that, but nearly all other food subcategories are rising at a slower rate. If Barron's is suggesting that the other food items are not "necessary items", it sounds like it is rigging its numbers.

Thanks @Sven
Forsyth’s more concerned with trying to draw wry and interesting parallels between today and 1974 than in building a substantive case. He notes early on that just as President Gerald Ford was becoming concerned enough to hold a high level conference on how to fight inflation in 1974 the economy was sliding into recession. But it took several more months for that to be confirmed. By inference, I think, he thinks the heightened efforts to control inflation now (mainly by hiking interest rates) will have the same effect that similar efforts to control inflation did in 1974. It is a sketchy case. He’s not into deep analysis.
He cites newsletter writer Stephanie Pomboy, who seems to me to be a perpetual bear. Pomboy maintains that high oil prices along with rising interest rates are a precursor to recession based on past cycles. He cites the JP Morgan data re the “probabilities” of recession based on how stocks, investment grade bonds and junk are trading. He calculates workers have lost 2.6% of buying power after wages / inflation are figured in. He cites declining consumer confidence sentiment and much higher inflation expectations as measured by U of M polling data. And he cites the Atlanta Fed’s forecast of an anemic 0.5% annual growth rate which he calls “just above stall speed.” Several of the preceding are bearish indicators. There’s more. But I can’t summarize the entire article here.
I would never invest based on Forsyth’s column (or any single mfo post). I realize a lot of people come here looking for answers on how to invest or for reassurance they’re on the right path. Nothing gleaned from the Forsyth column would satisfy that quest for answers.

Cape Cod where unless you can run your internet off your phone ( hard to do with movies etc) yo have one choice Comcast.
Verizon shows DSL speeds of around 3Mb in Cape Cod. I've managed to watch television on 1Mb DSL, so in theory you should have enough speed. But I agree, it's not something to use unless there are no alternatives. Xfinity/Comcast seems to have 300Mb (lowest speed) for $29.99 first year, $59.99 2nd year. Plus taxes that's likely the $65 you're hearing about.
For that money, I'm getting a "free" landline with Verizon FiOS (not an option available to you) as well as internet.
Consumer Reports just put up a page (for subscribers) describing various streaming services, including what they cost, and what they lack:
https://www.consumerreports.org/streaming-video/guide-to-streaming-video-services-a4517732799/
Excerpts of that piece can be found at the link below. It includes the writeups of DirecTV Stream, Fubo TV, Hulu + Live TV, Sling, and YouTube TV. It omits other services covered in the full CR piece including Acorn, Amazon Prime, AMC+, AppleTV+, BritBox, CNN+, Criterion, Discovery+, Disney+, etc.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/shopping/video-streaming-services-that-let-you-cut-cable-tv/ar-AAV05N6?ocid=msedgntp
FWIW, I use Sling Blue. $35, streams to up to three devices simultaneously. As opposed to Orange, has more news, less sports, no Disney. It doesn't include CBS or ABC, but in my market it includes the local NBC and Fox affiliates. For the rest, if you're near local broadcast stations, it integrates with AirTV2, a device that will pick up local channels and stream it through your intranet to the Sling app. $49 promo. Once positioned for optimal reception, one doesn't have to worry about getting those rabbit ears near the TV to work well. Doesn't help if you can't pick up local channels, though.
To tie this back to Dish, Sling is owned by Dish. And since DISH is in the S&P 500, there's a good chance that if you own a broad-based index fund, you own a piece of the company.

"Electric vehicles can be charged at power draws comparable to various household appliances. Most electric vehicles charging at home on a 240-volt level 2 charger will draw about 7,200 watts or less. For comparison, a typical electric furnace draws about 10,000 watts and a water heater uses 4,500 watts."
Energy.gov
As Puddnhead mentioned though charging up semi-tractors is a whole different game.

Between marcom babble, poorly informed writers, and sometimes well intentioned attempts at "simplification", some of what's written about annuities winds up as confusing and contradictory as it is enlightening.
Basic annuities (ignoring bells and whistles), while not as simple as bank accounts, are not as complex as they may seem. There is what annuitization means, and then a few parameters to think about.
Annuitization is where you give an insurance company a lump sum and in exchange it promises to pay you a stream of checks. When you choose to annuitize, when the checks start after that, and how long those checks keep coming - those are some of the basic parameters.
One often (not always) buys an annuity with a lump sum. That is called a "single premium" annuity.
Buying an annuity with a lump sum and waiting to annuitize is to buy a single premium deferred annuity (SPDA). See Investopedia:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/single-premium-deferred-annuity.asp
Until you annuitize (give the money to the insurer in exchange for that promised income stream), an annuity is like a nondeductible IRA. Tax sheltered, growing in value. This is called the "accumulation phase".
If you wait before annuitizing, i.e. if there is an accumulation phase, the annuity is said to be deferred. Otherwise the annuity is immediate.
One you annuitize (exchange the money in the annuity for a promised income stream), you can start getting checks immediately, or you may postpone the income stream. That's deferred income.
Annuitization may be deferrred and income (post-annuitization) may be deferred. People are so used to the idea that when one annuitizes one starts getting checks at once that they tend to conflate the two types of deferral.
Regarding Partnership for Long Term Care policies: one can find official state sites (each state runs its own program), but I do not believe there is any official national site. The AALTCI site looks solid. Recognize though that this is a website of an insurance trade group with a mandate of promoting all types of long term care coverage.

The national trade association for professionals dedicated to serving the long-term care planning needs of individuals, businesses and organizations.... Request a free, no-obligation cost comparison from an Association member today.

Your state doesn't have an official Partnership site because yours is one of the few states that hasn't legislated to implement Partnership plans. The most recent bill (not passed) was proposed by the 2019-2020 legislature, not the current one.
Sample official state sites include New York (I'm disappointed to read that no new policies are currently being written), Kansas, and South Dakota.

I found JPM logic for recession too simplistic. Its strategist NP said that the average decline of SP500 in recessions has been 26%. Recently, SP500 was off 13% from peak, so the chance of recession is 100*13/26 or 50%. So, its formula for the chance of recession is 100X/26, where X = %drop of SP500 from recent peak, and no other considerations, economic or geopolitical. For bonds, similar formula were applied to spreads. I thought JPM had better brains than that.

“We live on Cape Cod where unless you can run your internet off your phone ( hard to do with movies etc) yo have one choice Comcast.”
I’ve had Starlink for about 18 months and it’s terrific internet at $99 monthly plus a one-time $500 for the equipment. From there you can subscribe to any number of internet TV packages as low as $40 - and on up to the moon. Also some free content.
BTW - Before getting Starlink I relied for internet on 4G from Visible (owned by Verizon) which had dropped their data caps. By running the 4G streaming feed first into a MacBook (than to a TV) I actually managed to stream movies off of 4G. Less than ideal, but did work reasonably well with the buffering. (Would not work for live TV)
Just a thought …..

We live on Cape Cod where unless you can run your internet off your phone ( hard to do with movies etc) yo have one choice Comcast.
The recently jacked up prices $30 a month just because they could. We have the basic package for $ 120 ( Little sports, no CNN) to essentially watch local broadcast TV NBC CBS etc, because the nearest station is 80 mile away in Boston.
I am going to try Sling again for news but in the past when we recorded NBC news they dropped episodes. Rumor is internet only at Comcast costs $65, so we would have $60 to spend on other stuff and still come out ahead.
Who says America has a competitive market?

Could be true, and I hope it is that this is a "catastrophic error" on Putin's part that will lead to his downfall, but could also be a grave misunderstanding of Russian culture and how entrenched totalitarian regimes and their leaders can be. Stalin if I recall stuck around for quite a while:
https://vox.com/22961563/putin-russia-ukraine-coup-revolution-invasion
https://nytimes.com/2022/03/13/world/europe/russia-exiles-putin-ukraine-war.html

Investech is a pretty good analysis of overall market, with a great track record of avoiding large downdrafts.
However, Stack's model portfolio is all in equity ETFs, not true commodity funds. Currently he has 4% in XLE( energy), 4% in XLB( Basic materials), 6% XLI ( industrials) and 5% GDX ( Gold miners). XLE trades closest to an underlying commodity, I guess wit GDX second.
However the correlations with the SP500 for all of these ETFs are pretty high. Last one year, only XLE was negative. Three years GDX the lowest still has R of .46.
Commodity ETFs like DBC, DBA and GCC all have very low correlations to SP500. Always under .3 and for the last year close to zero.
I certainly agree there are busts in Commodity cycles, but when the are at the bottom of a cycle, a small percentage is a great diversifier, especially at the valuations of the SP500 we have now.

I've been watching Fidelity Canada, too: FICDX. TRAMX is still up YTD but is faltering. Insurance companies (FSPCX) are among those I love to hate. But you found a good one, there! MFC is trading at about fair value at the moment. Hefty dividend. YTD up +5.34%.

PK tw today, slightly upbeat:
Thinking about the macroeconomics of the Putin shock. In the '70s oil price shocks were associated with severe recessions. But did they *cause* those recessions? A classic study including some people you may have heard of said no 1/:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNvNsXoX0AcHSeP?format=png&name=small
The price of oil in 2022 dollars. The '70s spikes were followed by big recessions. But the 2010-11 spike wasn't, nor were the '85 collapse and 2015 collapses followed by booms 2/:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNvOjo3XEAEYS8t?format=png&name=900x900
The difference was monetary policy: the Fed squeezed hard after '73 and '79, but didn't overreact to later fluctuations 3/:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNvO1djXoAYA8_w?format=png&name=900x900
This time, unfortunately, we're coming into this with inflation already elevated. But longer-term inflation expectations still seem anchored 4/:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNvPrDrXsAUq6Hg?format=jpg&name=medium
I favor gradual rate hikes, because the US economy does look somewhat overheated. But the Fed should resist demands that it slam hard on the brakes. We do not have to have a Putin recession 5/
plus 2 comments:
Another difference is the renewable option: today we have a few more choices then the '70s, not sure we'll use them, but some might.
... a good point. Not only do we have renewables, but they are generally a lot cheaper to implement than even the pre-invasion oil/gas prices.

Below are extensive excerpts from a current article in The Economist. The article focuses on the parallels with the Soviet Union under Stalin. I've seriously abridged the article to include some of the more serious points that it makes.
Of those points, I think that this is one of the most important: "American army doctrine says that to face down an insurgency—in this case, one backed by NATO—occupiers need 20 to 25 soldiers per 1,000 people; Russia has a little over four."

When Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, he dreamed of restoring the glory of the Russian empire. He has ended up restoring the terror of Josef Stalin. That is not only because he has unleashed the most violent act of unprovoked aggression in Europe since 1939, but also because, as a result, he is turning himself into a dictator at home.
Consider how the war was planned. Russia’s president thought Ukraine would rapidly collapse, so he did not prepare his people for the invasion or his soldiers for their mission. After two terrible weeks on the battlefield, he is still denying that he is waging what may become Europe’s biggest war since 1945. He has shut down almost the entire independent media, threatened journalists with up to 15 years in jail if they do not parrot official falsehoods, and had anti-war protesters arrested in their thousands.
And to gauge Mr Putin’s paranoia, imagine how the war ends. Russia has more firepower than Ukraine. It is still making progress, especially in the south. It may yet capture the capital, Kyiv. And yet, even if the war drags on for months, it is hard to see Mr Putin as the victor.
Suppose that Russia manages to impose a new government. Ukrainians are now united against the invader. Mr Putin’s puppet could not rule without an occupation, but Russia does not have the money or the troops to garrison even half of Ukraine. American army doctrine says that to face down an insurgency—in this case, one backed by NATO—occupiers need 20 to 25 soldiers per 1,000 people; Russia has a little over four.
The truth is sinking in that, by attacking Ukraine, Mr Putin has committed a catastrophic error. He has wrecked the reputation of Russia’s supposedly formidable armed forces, which have proved tactically inept against a smaller, worse-armed but motivated opponent. Russia has lost mountains of equipment and endured thousands of casualties, almost as many in two weeks as America has suffered in Iraq since it invaded in 2003.
And, as Stalin did, Mr Putin is destroying the bourgeoisie, the great motor of Russia’s modernisation. Instead of being sent to the gulag, they are fleeing to cities like Istanbul, in Turkey, and Yerevan, in Armenia. Those who choose to stay are being muzzled by restrictions on free speech and free association. They will be battered by high inflation and economic dislocation. In just two weeks, they have lost their country.

Doesn’t take a genius to notice that it is more fun to be 25 than 75.