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College Graduates Fare Well in Jobs Market, Even Through Recession

A remarkably stark employment picture in the below New York Times graphic below – the recovery and early stages of the new Knowledge Economy has not been kind to non-college graduates at all.

From the related article:

The number of college-educated workers with jobs has risen by 9.1 percent since the beginning of the recession. Those with a high school diploma and no further education are practically a mirror image, with employment down 9 percent on net. For workers without even a high school diploma, employment levels have fallen 14.1 percent.

What’s Wrong with the Financial Services Industry?

According to Barry Ritholtz, the big problems that plague the financial service industry are the following:

• Simplicity does not pay well: Investing should be relatively simple: Buy broad asset classes, hold them over long periods of time, rebalance periodically, get off the tracks when the locomotive is bearing down on you. The problem is its easier in theory than is reality to execute. And, it is difficult to charge excessive fees for these services.

• Confusion is not a bug, its a feature: Thus, the massive choice, the nonstop noise, confusing claims, contradictory experts all work to make this much a more complex exercise than it need be. This is by design.

• Too much money attracts the wrong kinds of people: Let’s face it, the volume of cash that passes through the Financial Services Industry is enormous. Few who enters finance does so for altruistic reasons. There is a difference between normal greed (human nature) and outright criminality. This is why strong regulators and enforcement cops are required.

• Incentives are misaligned: Too many people lack the patience to get rich slowly. Hence, not only do the wrong people work in finance, and some of the right people exercise bad judgment.

• Too many people have a hand in your pocket: The list of people nicking you as an investor is enormous. Insiders (CEO/CFO/Boards of Directors) transfer wealth from shareholders to themselves, with the blessing of corrupted Compensation Consultants. 401(k)s are disastrous. NYSE and NASDAQ Exchanges have been paid to allow a HFT tax on every other investor. FASB and Accountants have doen an awful job, allowing corporations to mislead investors with junk balance statements. The Media’s job is to sell advertising, not provide you with intelligent advice. The Regulators have been captured.

Source: The Big Picture

12 Misguided Commandments of Gold Bugs

Gold prices have fallen approximately 10% over the past week. Prices tumbled 9% on Monday, the biggest one-day loss in 30 years.

Barry Ritholtz of Fusion IQ recently shared his 12 commandments of gold bulls which he says are completely bogus.

Here are his twelve (misguided) gold bug commandments in his own words:

1. Gold is a Currency: This is rule number 1. It is not a decorative or industrial metal, it is a permanent store of value, as dictated by Greeks in Lydia around 700 B.C. And, it shall be ever thus.

2. The price of gold cannot fall, it can only be manipulated lower: When gold’s price falls, it is an unnatural act. It can only occur as the result of an international cabal of Central Bankers and politicians. Its a conspiracy, and we know who the guilty parties are.

3. If the price of gold is rising, it is doing so despite enormous and desperate efforts by manipulators to prevent the rise: This is the corollary to the prior Rule of Gold manipulation. Gold runs up despite the overwhelming opposition to it.

4. The world MUST return to the Gold Standard one day: It is inevitable that we will return to a Gold Standard. We all know this to be true. When we compare the size of the money supply to past amounts when there was a Gold Standard, we can derive prices of Gold in the $7,000, $10,000 even $15,000. Hence, we know its cheap even at $2,000.

5. Central Bankers are printing money relentlessly, and this can only drive Gold prices higher: NOTE: You must ignore, for the moment, that Gold has not gone higher for the past 2 years as Central Banks around the world have ramped up QE. This only means that ultimately, Gold will go much much higher.

6. Gold works whether the economy is good or bad: When we have a red hot economy, Gold is your hedge against inflation. When we have a bad economy, Gold is a safe harbor against collapse. It is a one way trade that never fails!

7. Gold will survive after the world economy crumbles: Gold is the ultimate currency, as it has a value that will survive even after the whole world tumbles around you. Get yourself some gold coins and a Glock and you will be just fine when the whole world goes to shit. We welcome the era envisioned in the movie Mad Max.

8. Never admit that Gold is essentially a sucker’s bet: Never discuss how in the last century, gold has run up only be to trounced in repeated massive sell offs (always blame rule #2 for this). Do not discuss how this has happened in 1915-20, 1941, 1947, 1951-66, 1974-76 1981, 1983-85, 1987-2000 and 2008.

9. Gold is a rejection of government, and their control of fiat money and finance: There are no printing presses that produce gold, it is finite, natural and God created. How much we scrape out of the ground each year is limited, and the only variable to the old equation. (Just ignore Man’s natural tendency to organize into to City-States over the past 12,000 years).

10. All Gold discussions must contain ominous macro forecasts: Your description of why Gold is going higher must consist of spurious correlations, unprovable predictions, and a guarded expectation of bad things in the future. Avoid empirical data at all costs.

11. Gold is always rallying in one currency or another: Sure, it may be down 30% in Dollars, the reserve currency it is priced in, but you can always find a currency falling faster than it does and claim you own it in that denomination. Last week, it was up in Japanese Yen. This week, it is up in Zimbabwe dollars.

12. China & India know the value of Gold; the Western world does not: The massive buying of gold by consumers in Chindia reflects the culture, intelligence and investing savvy of the people in these countries. The West doesn’t get it, and it is their loss.

Bonus rule: Never admit Gold might be falling because it trades on human emotions and psychology and has no intrinsic value whatsoever.

People trust the big banks least

A New York Times article titled “The Least-Trusted Banks in America” cites a Forrester Research study that found customers of the biggest banks in the US don’t believe their financial institution does what’s best for them, but instead does what’s best for their bottom line.

Source: The Financial Brand

Education Still Matters If You Want a Decent Paying Job

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Data: BLS, FactSet, J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Source: Census Bureau, J.P. Morgan Asset Management; Unemployment rates shown are for civilians aged 25 and older.

Source: JPM Morgan Guide to Markets, Q2 2013

LPL Runs Afoul of Regulators Unusually Often

A New York Times article published last Friday tells the story of the 4th largest brokerage firm in America and its frequent run-ins with regulators.

Here are some key excerpts:

LPL Financial, has 13,300 brokers, 6,500 offices, 4.3 million customers — and a growing list of problems with regulators.

State and federal authorities have censured the company and its brokers with unusual frequency.

LPL brokers have been penalized for selling complex investments to unsophisticated investors, for speculative trading in customer accounts, and, in a few cases, for outright stealing from clients.

“LPL is on our radar screen more than any other firm,” said Lynne Egan, who oversees securities regulation in Montana.

Since the financial crisis hit in 2008, prominent firms like Merrill, which long catered to individual investors, have lost brokers and customers. Many investors have turned instead to independent brokerage firms like LPL. Unlike employees of the industry giants, LPL brokers are essentially contractors. They get LPL e-mail addresses and come under LPL compliance but pay for office space and staff.

LPL’s most serious case in Montana was resolved in 2009, when Donald Chouinard, an LPL broker in Kalispell, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for operating a Ponzi scheme. LPL paid Mr. Chouinard’s clients $1.3 million, and Ms. Egan’s office a $150,000 fine.

William F. Galvin, the Massachusetts secretary of the commonwealth, came to a $2.5 million settlement with LPL in February for selling the same product to investors in his state. Mr. Galvin said LPL had failed to properly examine who the products were being sold to, and had pushed the investments without mentioning that they provided big commissions to LPL and its brokers.

“What we really saw was a complete lack of supervision,” Mr. Galvin said.

2012 IRA Contribution Reminder

Here’s an important reminder if you have an individual retirement account (IRA) or are considering opening an IRA.

2012 contributions to your IRA accounts can still be made up through April 15, 2013.

IRA Contribution Limits for 2012*

Traditional/IRA Rollover: $5,000 ($6,000 if you are 50 years old or older)
Roth IRA: $5,000 ($6,000 if you are 50 years old or older)
SIMPLE IRA: $11,500 ($14,000 if you are 50 years old or older)
SEP IRA: $50,000

*Note: The maximum contribution limit is affected by your taxable compensation for the year. Refer to IRS Publication 590 for full details.

Money Lessons From “Downton Abbey”

We’re big fans of “Downton Abbey”, the television show that follows an aristocratic British family in the early decades of the 20th century.

Over the three seasons that the show has graced PBS’ “Masterpiece”, a number of money lessons have been showcased — mostly what NOT to do!

For example, don’t bet the family fortune on a railroad thousands of miles away (i.e., massive lack of diversification). A professional advisor working in concert with the Earl of Grantham probably would have prevented him from concentrating so much capital in a Canadian railway!

Downton’s money lessons include financial and estate-planning disasters, bad investments, messy trusts, and inadequate business succession plans.

Here are some key takeaways and tie-ins:

Spell out control and ownership when passing the baton of a family company
(the generational transfer of Downton Abbey from Robert to Matthew)
Use trusts to protect the family fortune
(to protect Robert Crawley’s from his own poor decisions)
Make a will before giving birth
(think of Matthew Crawley’s untimely demise)
Set up a medical directive
(the terrible struggle of how to handle Sybil in childbirth)

We can’t wait for more Dowton Abbey and money lessons in season four!

Dow at All-Time High: What Has Changed?

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The Dow climbed to 14253.77 on Tuesday to set a new all-time high. The economic landscape has changed a great deal since the previous record was set in October 2007:

GDP Growth: Then +2.5%; Now +1.6%
Unemployed: Then 6.7 million; Now 13.2 million
Food Stamp users: Then 26.9 million; Now 47.69 million
Fed’s Balance Sheet: Then $0.89 trillion; Now $3.01 trillion
Debt as a Percentage of GDP: Then ~38%; Now 74.2%
Total US Debt: Then $9.008 trillion; Now $16.43 trillion
Consumer Confidence: Then 99.5; Now 69.6
VIX: Then 17.5%; Now 14%
10 Year Treasury Yield: Then 4.64%; Now 1.89%
Gold: Then $748; Now $1583
NYSE Average daily volume: Then 1.3 billion shares; Now 545 million shares

Source: WSJ

Guide to Car Buying and Leasing

Our friends at the The Big Picture have published an excellent and very up-to-date guide to buying and leasing a car.

Here’s an overview of how to expertly navigate this process while saving time and money.

1) Set Up Your Online Shopping Identify:

Get a Google Voice account (its free) then get a LeeMail account (its free). These are the only numbers/addresses you use until you decide which car you are getting from which dealer.

2) Do your homework: Before you ever step foot on a dealer’s lot, you need to figure out a few things:

a) What kind of transport? Are you looking for a minivan, convertible, truck, coupe, SUV, etc.
b) The range of competitive vehicles for that car type
c) Your actual budget (including your “bottom line” monthly price)
d) Buy or Lease? (see #3)

3) Buy or lease? Most people should own, not lease cars. Its better not to pay for just the most expensive years of a depreciating asset.

The exception is if you can lease with pre-tax dollars — if you own (or are senior enough in) a company, than a lease may be a great deal. But without that tax advantage, the numbers favor owning.

4) Know Your Price Range and Approximate Cost of Cars: All of the cars I mentioned have extensive websites where you can build and price vehicles. You end up with MSRP.

5) Understand Factors Which Impact Pricing: The cost of any given car is a function of its retail price (MSRP), specific programs dealers are running, financing, what is hot or not, and other factors.

6) Be aware of the sales routine: If you followed steps 1-5, you know the approximate cost of the car, plus the options you want, and how that prices it.

7) Understand the buying/leasing math: The purchase math is simple: Negotiated cost of car plus financing expenses.

8) Use Online Salespersons: I asked several dealers for quotes on cars. If they ignored my request for an emailed quote and called, I held that against them. Different dealers have differing demands for specific cars. Some of the deals were very competitive .

9) Go to Competing Dealerships: Don’t be afraid to cast a wide net.

10) Use a car buying service: That was the suggestion for people who are too busy or intimidated or who simply dont want to be bothered. Leading suggestions: USAA, Credit Unions, and (mulitple recommendations) CostCo.

Check out TBP’s full guide at http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/02/guide-leasing-buying/

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