Alchanati Campbell & Associates
Dear Reader,
What does the future hold? Will it glitter with success and fulfillment? Will it be what I expect and plan for? Or will I be in the same place, or worst off from where I started. Having achieved nothing and having gone nowhere. Where will I be in 10 years? Who will I be in 10 years? Every action made today changes the outcome of your future. Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes and denies us the present by promising the future. There are billions of ways to live a life; each person dead had theirs, and each person alive still has theirs. There is no right or wrong way to live, there’s just your way. Focus on the now and worry about future tasks later. Life is a game of negotiating boundaries. Live beyond your physical, mental, cultural and emotional means. Defy the system and stray from the path. Don’t follow the crowd and be so good that they can’t ignore you. The Market. Same-store sales grew only 4.8% year-over-year while online sales jumped 42% year-over-year. Theresa May resigned as Prime Minister of the British Conservative Party. Prime Minister Scott Morrison won a third term in office as Australia’s leader. People who buy property in Florida may value the tax-free income more than they worry about climate risk. No market can go up forever, and it always “eventually” makes a pullback. When we rush or move quickly, we stop being present and forget what we experience. So much of society is based upon narrowing people’s minds as much as possible. Family is ranked first for the domain of life that is most important for well-being. Steeply falling rates like the 2-year and 10-year are a worrying sign for stock investors, but they are great for fixed income investors. Bond interest rates and prices move inversely. Lower rates = higher bond prices. The Yen and Swiss Franc as “safe-haven” currencies. When there is market uncertainty and volatility, investors are looking for safer, less risky investments. For Japan’s Yen, when there is global turbulence, Japanese traders bring all of their money overseas back to Japan, which will stimulate the Japanese economy. For the Swiss Franc, the Switzerland economy is very stable and secure. The Swiss government does not evolve itself with global affairs or other global risks. The Swiss franc carries the strongest safe-haven attributes. Both nations also have trade surpluses (they export more than they import). The Fed Minutes. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) holds eight meetings per year. The FOMC changes the fed funds rate which they target to be 2.25%-2.50%. If the rate is raised, expect slower growth. At the most recent meeting, the FOMC said they would be keeping rates unchanged because they see a sustained expansion of economic activity and strong labor market conditions. Markets are convinced that the trade war, the slowing down of global growth, and the pressures of the upcoming 2020 elections will force the Fed to reduce rates by the end of the year. Maturity Extension Program. The maturity extension program is a program that the Federal Reserve implements with their quantitative easing. It’s the gradual decrease in longer-term yields; selling or redeeming shorter-term Treasuries and using the proceeds to buy longer-term Treasuries. By reducing the supply of longer-term Treasuries in the market, it will put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates which will create a broad easing in financial market conditions that will provide additional support for an economic recovery in the future. This program lowers home mortgage, corporate bonds, and other loan interest rates as well. Our Climate. Trees are one of the world’s oldest and best carbon-capture technologies; they absorb carbon dioxide from the air, store the carbon in wood, and release oxygen. Sea ice has diminished by 40% in 40 years. Nature, through its ecological and evolutionary processes, sustains the quality of the air, fresh water, and soils on which humanity depends. Nature also distributes fresh water, regulates climate, provides pollination and pest control, and reduces the impact of natural hazards. If we save nature, we save ourselves. If you have healthy habitats, we have healthy wildlife populations with clean water. Satellites and AI will soon track carbon emissions by the world’s largest energy producers. Australia’s property market is expected to lose $571 billion in value by 2030 due to climate change and extreme weather and will continue to lose value in the coming decades if emissions remain high. By 2030, one in 19 Australian property owners face the prospect of insurance premiums that will be effectively unaffordable. Previous severe droughts have reduced Australia’s GDP by around 1%. Book Summary. “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse. Siddhartha had one single goal- to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure, and sorrow- to let the self die. No longer to be self, to experience the peace of an emptied heart, to experience pure thought- that was the goal. He killed his senses, he killed his memory, he slipped out of his self in a thousand different forms. What is meditation? What is the abandonment of the body? What is fasting? What is the holding of the breath? It is a flight of self; it is a temporary escape from the torment of self. It is a temporary palliative against the pain and folly of life. Opinions mean nothing. Through thought alone feelings become knowledge and are not lost but become real and begin to mature. The reason why I do not know about myself and anything about myself is due to one thing- I was afraid of myself. Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them. One can beg, buy, be presented with and find love in the streets, but it can never be stolen. Everyone takes, everyone gives. Life is like that. Everyone gives what he has. One cannot have pleasure without giving it. If he made a profit, he accepted it calmly; if he suffered a loss, he laughed and said, “Oh well, this transaction has gone badly”. Lived the life of the world without belonging to it. Keep Climbing, The Alchanati Campbell and Associates Team |
AuthorWHAT'S UP FRIDAY? is a weekly newsletter that will give you a summary of "What's up?" on Wall Street, in the US and around the World written by The Alchanati Campbell and Associates Team. What makes us unique is we focus on long-term knowledge; knowledge that will still be useful to you 10 years from now. Archives
July 2020
Categories |