Put the champagne on ice … wrap those pigs in a blanket … and get ready to usher in 2022.
Today, as we prepare to say farewell to the year, we have a recap of Senior Editor Tony Sagami’s top 10 stories of 2021.
We wish you health, wealth and happiness in the year to come. Enjoy!
Remember the PalmPilot? It was an innovative, popular pocket computer that everybody wanted. But the final nail in its coffin was the release of Apple’s first iPhone in 2007, which also marked the beginning of the end for BlackBerry.
Modern vehicles are essentially high-tech computers on wheels. And as car manufacturers wait out the semiconductor shortage, potential profits are primed for the taking.
Americans, stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic with nowhere to go, drove an astounding 470 million fewer miles in 2020 than they did in 2019. But the price of gas and other fossil fuels have rebounded and are now surging to multiyear highs.
Farmland has historically beat inflation and is a better inflation hedge than gold … and it does especially well during inflationary periods and beats the pants off stocks and residential real estate.
Since the early 1980s, pension plans have largely been replaced with defined contribution plans, the most popular being the 401(k). The result? The onus of saving for retirement has been shifted from the employer to the employee … you!
The suits in Washington are arguing about how many trillions of our dollars they want to spend on education, climate change, immigration reform and expanding the social safety net. If they want to look at a productive way to spend our money, they should look at what President Dwight D. Eisenhower did 65 years ago.
Investors used to buy and hold assets for decades. But in today’s world, people trade more than ever, wanting bigger and faster gains. This can backfire if you only place capital into today’s hottest names … because some of the biggest stock market profits are coming from companies that are on investors’ back burners.
During a recent Zoom meeting, a colleague in Baltimore said she just put her townhome on the market. Within 24 hours, she received multiple, all-cash offers to purchase it … sight unseen.
The minimum wage has been hotly debated since New Zealand introduced the concept back in 1894. Since then, some 90% of countries have established one. And this month, its effects and how those get measured became a Nobel Prize-winning issue.
Four years ago, my college-age son gave me heart-stopping news. He took half his tuition money and spent it on cryptocurrencies. My kids are smart, and I’ve done my best to ensure they’re financially savvy. So it was out of character for him — instead of investing in his education — to take a flyer on a little-understood technology called blockchain.
Best wishes,
The Weiss Ratings Team