A recent survey conducted by UBS found that only 23% of women globally take charge of long-term financial-planning decisions. And it isn’t a generational problem: 56% of women aged 20 to 34 defer to their spouse compared with 54% of women over 51 years of age.
A report from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority suggests that women’s financial understanding is going in the wrong direction, too. Baby boomer and Generation X women revealed higher levels of financial literacy than millennial women based on a five-question quiz.
Initially, it was puzzling to understand why highly socially conscious NBA basketball players were being unusually silent and staying on the sidelines regarding the controversy of freedom of speech inside the People’s Republic of China and the human rights of the Hong Kong protesters. Especially, their silence was puzzling when one considers how vocal and visible a stance a number of NBA players took regarding Colin Kaepernick’s freedom of speech and his right to kneel during the pre-game playing of National of Anthem.
In 1992, an aide to then Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton once commented “it’s the economy, stupid”. Well, in the case of the socially conscious NBA players being surprisingly quiet, it appears that it is not the economy, but “it’s the money…stupid”.
NBA teams’ total players’ salaries are capped and directly tied to a percentage of the league’s revenues. If NBA’s top line revenues are impacted by the current controversy in China, then there is a high probability the revenue pie will shrink. And conversely, the salary cap for players salaries will shrink proportionally if Chinese corporations decide to end their lucrative multi year partnerships, which are worth billions of dollars to the NBA.
Additionally, many top NBA players such as James Hardin, Stephen Curry, and LeBron James, to name a few, spend time in China during the off season meeting basketball fans and getting paid. They spend time in the second largest economy signing endorsement deals, promoting themselves and the sport of basketball, and subsequently, promoting the NBA. And, it appears that ‘…for the love of money…’ the players do not want to rock the boat and jeopardize the Chinese golden goose that supplements their million dollar paydays.
Thus, the otherwise socially conscious NBA players have been “radio silent”. They have yielded on the issue of Hong Kong protesters human rights and the Houston Rockets GM’s tweet supporting the protesters that sparked the current brouhaha. Although a few players and coaches have offered tepid apologies to China for someone in the NBA fraternity expressing their freedom of speech, the majority of players have been mute.
Fortunately for Colin Kaepernick, there was not an autocratic Communist government threatening the bank accounts and freedom of speech of the otherwise socially conscious NBA players.
The Oracle of Omaha says the U.S. economy has plenty of runway left before the next recession. “Right now, there’s no question: It’s feeling strong. I mean, if we’re in the sixth inning, we have our sluggers coming to bat right now,” Buffett said in an interview with Becky Quick on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Thursday morning.
Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio was recently on CNBC warning American investors and public pension funds who invest in stocks of Peoples Republic of China businesses listed on U.S. stock exchanges to beware. Like Enron and Worldcom, the companies could potentially be fraudulent enterprises, or like they say in Texas, “big hat, no cattle” entities. Essentially, these Chinese “public” companies are not regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) like their American counterparts. And, these listed companies are not currently required to abide by U.S. or Western generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP) standards.
The SEC exists to protect U.S. investors from the shenanigans of public companies. Yet, trillions of dollars of U.S. capital from American investors and pension funds are invested and continue to flow into these highly risky non transparent companies that are not regulated by the SEC.
If there was ever a time for investors or buyers of stocks to beware, it would relate to investments in Chinese stocks. Even the large cap highly own stocks of Chinese companies such as Alibaba (BABA), Tencent (TCEHY), Nio (NIO) and Baidau (BIDU), pose major potential risks to U.S. investors since no independent accounting firm has audited their financial reports or filings to assess their veracity.
Just like the quarterly and annual numbers of gross domestic economic product provided by the Chinese Communist government are viewed as works of fiction by most Western economist, Chinese companies’ financials should be reviewed with similar, if not , more scrutiny and skepticism.
CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer has commented on many occasions to viewers that he personally avoids and would not recommend his viewers to invest in Chinese companies stocks. He cites their lack of financial transparency and unknown corporate governance as reasons to avoid all but the largest of these stocks.
Finally, Senator Marco Rubio and Hayman Capital Management founder Kyle Bass, have been sounding the alarm for years about the threat potentially posed to the U.S. financial markets and to the retirement pension plans of millions of Americans by these listed foreign companies. Senator Rubio, along with a bi-partisan group of Senators, have been both sounding the alarm and proposing that all companies listed on major U.S. security exchanges be required to follow the same reporting standards and independent audit requirements followed by U.S. public companies. And, those foreign companies found not in compliance with SEC regulations for public companies should be de-listed from American security exchanges.
“Like the NBA, we welcome the Chinese censors into our homes and our hearts. We too love money more than freedom and democracy. Xi doesn’t look like Winnie the Pooh at all. Long live the Great Communist Party of China! May this autumn’s sorghum harvest be bountiful! We good now China?”
For the past twenty to thirty years, thousands of American and Western European international corporations have had to compromise abiding by Western democratic values and rights, those same values and rights that made them successful, to conduct business inside China and access the enormous Chinese domestic market.
From all appearances, these corporations have sought bottom line profit and top line revenue growth by doing business in China above basic human values of freedom of speech and the rule of law.
For decades, corporations have literally bent over backwards and several have performed ‘unnatural acts’ to appease the Chinese autocratic government officials. These corporations have overlooked draconian censorship, brutal repression, forced labor and re-education of minority ethnicities, and outright fraud to chase monetary gain in China.
No American or Western European corporation appears immune to seeking profit over values to conduct business in China. Google, one of America’s largest technology companies, appeared to ignore its own corporate values and offered a version of its search engine and services that conformed to the Communist autocratic government’s oppressive censorship policies. Only after Google employees threatened to strike and the American media shined light on the deal did Google abandon the effort.
Now, thanks to the NBA desire to expand in China and a team’s general manager’s tweet supporting the Hong Kong protestors, Chinese harsh censorship and irrational response by global norms to core American values and rights, freedom of speech and rule of law, are finally getting the media and public attention it deserves. With billions of dollars and international market growth at stake, NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, is attempting to tightly walk a fine line between living by Western core values of freedom of speech while simultaneously preserving access to the lucrative Chinese domestic markets.
What lessons Americans should learns from the current controversy is that the Chinese Communist autocratic government ruthlessly censors speech, curbs individual freedom, runs roughshod over the Western standard rule of law and represses any entity, individual or corporate, that challenges or threatens its legitimacy or core principles.
Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s now-deleted tweet in support of the Hong Kong protests and the response to it have already earned more attention than dozens of other stories in recent years documenting questionable relationships between U.S. companies and Beijing, writes Jake Novak.
— Read on www.cnbc.com/2019/10/08/chinas-reaction-to-the-nba-is-the-wake-up-call-the-world-needed.html
Effective investors often share these 6 traits. These traits are useful for those who prefer to control their investing with a hands-on approach.
1. They start investing early. It’s math: The more years investors begin to invest, the more money they may be able to earn through the power of compounding. Starting early means a longer investment time horizon. And, a longer time horizon allows you to invest in assets that have more growth potential over time.
2. They prioritize their goals. With clear goals and a clear time frame, investors can prioritize. That helps develop asset allocation because an investor has time horizons around those goals.
3. They save consistently.. Consistently save a portion of their income generally reach their goals faster. Those who make contributions to their retirement savings every year, as opposed to those who skip some years, can accumulate more and are more likely to reach their goals.
4. They’re comfortable taking risk. Successful investors know that for the potential to grow their assets faster than inflation, they’ll have to invest in assets with a higher than expected return, such as stocks, which carry higher levels of risk.
5. They diversify. Investors spread their money among different asset classes — stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, and others — and also diversify within those asset classes. That might mean, for example, owning stock of U.S. companies, as well as companies in other countries.
6. They’re tax-wise. Taxes should never be the sole driver of an investment decision, but making tax-wise investment decisions can help maximize after-tax returns. For example, investors might choose to move money from taxable accounts into assets with lower or no tax obligation, such as municipal bonds.
Selling calls against stocks you own is a low-risk strategy. You can pocket cash by selling call options against stocks you own. The strategy can be a great way to earn a little extra cash even if your stocks remain flat or head south.
Covered-call writing and cash-secured put selling can be used in conjunction with dividend growth investing to generate even more income in a portfolio.
By lowering our long-term cost basis, the rate of success will increase substantially compared to buying stock outright at market.
Conservative option selling strategies, known as covered-call writing and selling cash-secured puts on a monthly basis.
Dividend growth investing is by far the best opportunities which can help investors live off their dividends.
By selling options on stocks we’d like to own, we target annualized returns exceeding the 10% level in order to get sufficient premium while receiving a substantial discount if the shares are put to us by expiration. This helps not only reduce our cost basis, but we can benefit from a high IV rank which measures historical volatility against current volatility.
Selling covered calls combines upside potential, premium and corporate dividends we may receive along the way.
Some basics about options. Calls grant the owner the right to buy a stock at a preset price, called the strike price, up to a certain date. The cost of the option is called the premium, and it generally moves up and down with the price of the underlying stock. Options can last anywhere from minutes to months before they expire. One option contract controls 100 shares of stock.
A call is “in the money” if the market price of the stock is above the strike price. If the stock trades below the strike price, the option is said to be “out of the money.” If you sell calls against stocks or ETFs you own, you’ll immediately collect the premium, which you keep no matter what happens to the stock. Sell calls consistently and you’ll generate a steady income stream.
The main drawback of this strategy is that it caps your potential gains in a stock. If your shares get called away, you could miss out on profits in a fastrising market. Nothing would stop you from buying the stock again at themarket price and selling another call. But you may owe capital gains taxes on the shares you sold. Option premiums are taxable as ordinary income.
That could be costly if you’re in the top federal tax bracket of 43.4%. And, of course, the premium you earn from selling a call may offer little consolation if the stock tanks.
The most challenging issue may be figuring out which calls to sell. One simple way to use the strategy:
Sell actively traded call options
Expiring in four to six weeks
Strike prices that are 5% to 10% above the market price of the stock
Premium of one percent to three percent.
The individual premiums may not amount to much—maybe one to two percent per share for a $50 stock. But selling calls like this every few weeks could lift your annual income by five to eight percentage points a year. The more volatile the stock, the greater the premium you’ll pick up with each sale (though you’ll face more risk that the stock will be called).
Keep in mind, you may have to give up the stock if the market bounces higher before your call contract expires. But aside from taxes you may owe on the sale, tha
Chinese companies do not deserve to be listed on U.S. stock exchanges if they don’t adhere to the same standards as every American company, said hedge fund manager and Hayman Capital Management founder Kyle Bass.
With about $1 trillion of American capital moving into China by 2021 and around $2 trillion worth of Chinese entities listed in the U.S., Bass said the U.S. needs to crack down on the “insane” nature of U.S.-China business standards.
“Imagine what kind of fraud is behind these companies,” Bass told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Monday. “All of the U.S. money that goes into Chinese companies, it goes into companies that don’t operate under a rule of law.”
