What's up Relationships and Happiness?

Dear Reader,

​Happiness. The world is so angry, it’s getting harder to enjoy the little pleasures in life. Satisfaction is a rarity because we always want more. Happiness is like privacy: hard to have. What makes you happy? Life begins and ends with happiness, but with happiness of two kinds. The first joyful and excitable, and the second calm and resigned. We are always in a rush and most strive for perfection. Little disturbances, troubles, delays, occurrences, change our mood to a negative one. When we don’t get what we want, when we compare ourselves to others, when we have high expectations... it all puts pressure on our happiness. Our subjective well-being depends not on our absolute material well-being, not even where we stand relative to others, but on where we think we stand. One secret to happiness is to ignore comparisons with people who are more successful than you are: always compare downwards, not upwards. Happy people don’t put other people down. People are happier when they do generous things and live among generous people. Expect less and appreciate more. Enjoy every day as it comes. Who is rich? One who is satisfied with what they have. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy person. Know that no one is ever satisfied with where they are. 

The Market. "Sell in May and go away". Trump threatens to tariff Mexico over immigration. Denmark homeowners have negative interest rates on their loans for all maturities through to five years. The US 10-year Treasury yield dropped to a new 52-week low. When long-term Treasury yields fall too low, they can encourage growth because they make it cheap to borrow money, but it is a sign a recession is in the future. Traders are pricing in a 42% chance the Feds will cut rates by 25 points and a 26% chance they will cut rates by 50 points by December. Today’s earners on average are likely to be worse off than their parents. Renault and Fiat Chrysler are discussing a merger. Economists Dan Hanson and Tom Orlik conclude that global GDP will take a $600 billion hit in 2021 because of the trade war. Key risks facing the US economy: recent economic data on manufacturing, capital spending, and durable goods orders have been disappointing, volatility is on the rise, and corporate profits have a speculative future. The Consumer Confidence Index rose to a 6-month high in May. Amsterdam bans gas and diesel vehicles by 2030, joining 6 other cities. Crude oil is down due to inventories being high and escalating global demand threats from the trade war.

Relationships and Happiness. Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Good relationships don’t just protect our bodies, they protect our brains. Social connections are really good for us, and loneliness kills. It’s the quality of your close relationships that matters.People who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to the community, are happier, they’re physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected. People feel connected when they are understood and appreciated. People want to be recognized. It reminds them they exist. The divorce rate is higher in couples where partners do not resonate or fail to engage and respond to requests of attention. The biggest predictor of your happiness and fulfillment overall in life is love. About half of our level of happiness is based on genes. 40% of people’s happiness comes from the choices they make. Happiness and positive emotions have been found to be associated with successful life outcomes.

American Household Stats. When asked about their overall well-being, 75% of US adults said they were “doing okay” or “living comfortably”- up 12% from 2013. 66% of graduates with a bachelor’s degree or more believed that their educational investment had paid off financially. More than half of young adults who attended college took on some debt. 25% of Americans have no retirement savings or pension. Households experiencing lower-adjusted returns tend to be less financially literate. More literate households experience approximately 0.4% higher yearly returns compared to the least literate.

Americans’ Levels of Concern about Personal Finance. 1. Not having enough money for retirement. 2. Not being able to pay medical costs in the event of a serious illness or accident. 3.Not being able to pay medical costs for normal healthcare. 4. Not being able to maintain the standard of living you enjoy. 5. Not having enough money to pay for children’s college. 6. Not having enough to pay for normal monthly bills. 7. Not being able to pay your rent, mortgage or other housing costs. 8. Not being able to make the minimum payments on your credit cards.

Frontier Markets. These markets are stock exchanges and currency markets that are too small or underdeveloped to be classified as emerging markets. There are around 30 frontier markets (mostly in the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe). Frontier markets have a combined market value of $715 billion. Frontier markets outperformed emerging markets last year and they are less correlated with the rest of the world’s markets due to their geographic diversity.

Preferred Stocks. Preferred stocks have characteristics of both equity and debt. They typically offer a dividend that’s safer than the dividends of a company’s common stock, but not as safe as the interest payments on a company’s bonds. Preferred are essentially a way to capture higher yields than corporate bonds, but with higher risk if the company faces hard times.

Municipal Bonds. Investors have pumped $150 billion into bonds this year. Many investors see taxable municipals as an attractive late-cycle asset class. General taxable domestic bonds returned 5.25% year-to-date and general tax-exempt municipal debt returned 4.70% year-to-date. Book Summary. “What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast” by Laura Vanderkam. We all want to be successful but changing how we spend the entire 168 hours we all have each week seems daunting. Changing what we do before breakfast? That sounds doable. Crafting new habits is never easy. These are the highest-value activities: nurturing your career, nurturing your family beyond basic personal care, and nurturing yourself.Successful people have priorities they want to tackle or things they like to do with their lives, and early mornings are the time when they have the most control of their schedules. People who are serious about exercise did it in the mornings. Tasks that require self-discipline are simply easier to do while the day is young. Diets are broken in the evening, not the morning. Part of spending your time better is knowing exactly how you’re spending it now. After you know how you’re spending your time, ask yourself what a great morning would look like for you. Then map out a morning schedule. If you’re thinking about things you’re looking forward to, that makes it easy to get out of bed. When you plan enjoyable things ahead of time, you magnify the pleasure. Life is better if you’ve got a reason to get out of bed.
 
Keep Climbing,


The Alchanati Campbell and Associates Team