In this week's Off The Cuff podcast, Chris and Dan Amerman discuss:
- Over-Complacency
- The market has basically ignored the Brussels attacks
- The Great Retirement Con
- Why long-term investment returns will be elusive from here
- Good-bye Future Gains
- Future profits have already been pulled into today's stock prices
- Disappearing Dividends
- The largest source of wealth creation is nowhere to be found
This week Chris and Dan begin by observing how the financial markets reacted to this week's terrorist attacks in Brussels pretty much exactly the opposite the way they used to (and should) respond to such developments. They opine how today's markets have become overly-complacent on the willingness of the central banks to ride to the rescue — turning any such "bad" news as terrorist attacks into "good" news for those counting on the next injection of monetary stimulus.
They then dive deeply into the bizzarro logic underlying the fiction we're being sold regarding our national entitlement programs. Not only are they absurdly underfunded, but the tactics the Federal Reserve has deployed since 2008 are sabotaging the ability of long-term investors to build wealth going forward.
The run-up in stocks has served to pull a tremendous amount of future earnings value into today's stock prices. Meaning: even if we avoid a major correction in the markets, mathematically, stock prices have no where to go over the next decade-plus.
by nate