22 October 2018
Question: According to MSN: Money, what are seven (7) times you don’t need life insurance?
Japan’s dying shareholders bury growth hopes as heirs flood market with stock – Pg. 1
– Investors should expect decades of selling pressure on Japanese stocks from the most implacable bears in the market: the recently deceased
– The relentless sell-off, which threatens to intensify until 2040 as the huge, wealthy baby boom generation expires, arises from an estimate that about 80% of inherited shares are immediately sold by heirs
A global trading system under fire – Pg. 7
– The US, for years the dominant power in the world trading system, and its upstart Chinese challenger are at battle stations
– If the need is clear then so is the obvious vehicle for de-escalating the conflict – the World Trade Organization
– The WTO was created in 1995 but its founding treaty, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, dates from 1947. The Geneva-based organization, which now has 164 member countries – China joined only in 2001 – set the basic global rule book for trade and the arbitration of conflicts
– …several factors inhibit the organization playing a mediating role in the US-China antagonism. One is the rapid escalation by Mr Trump of a long established American uneasiness about the WTO dispute settlement, ….
– Second, the U Sand other advanced economies say the WTO’s rule book is out of date
– The US says WTO rules do not sufficiently limit Beijing from intervening to subsidize Chinese industry, support state-owned enterprises and discriminate against foreign investors, including the forced transfer of technology
– Major rule changes would require new negotiations, precisely the task that WTO members have struggled to complete for nearly a quarter of a century. One possible model is a “plurilateral” agreement, which brings together a smaller group of countries willing to make a deal among themselves. Such deals already exist, including one on government procurement between nearly 20 countries as well as the EU
– …Chinese officials insist any deal must be balanced, with the US addressing its own agricultural subsidies. Beijing is still sensitive about the liberalization it had to undertake as a condition of acceding to the WTO
Rebooting careers at any age with an MBA – Pg. 11
– The average age of students across the leading full-time MBA courses in the Financial Times’ global business school ranking has been at about 28 for most of the two decades that the list has been compiled.
– The average age of students on the full-time MBA course at Cass has risen from 29 in 2008, when the oldest student was 39, to 32 this year
– (Prof Note: I continue to believe university administrators and professors at business schools miss the mark! Students in business schools, in my opinion, are there to learn to make $$$ NOT become smarter, i.e. pursue a Ph.D. As such, why not publish the historical balance sheets and income statements (and cash flow) of professors and administrators? If they cannot make $$$ for themselves, how can they possible teach other’s to make money? Hold Universities accountable! Hold Professors accountable!)
Treasury investors cheer first real return in a decade as Fed rate rises boost yields on short-term debt – Pg. 13
– Federal Reserve interest rate increases have catapulted the yield of three-month Treasury bills – the global finance industry’s closest proxy for hard cash – above all three main measures of US inflation for the first time since the early days of the global financial crisis
– This means that investors can get a real, inflation-adjusted return from cash for the first time in a decade. Treasury yields have also risen well above the S&P 500’s dividend yield, undercutting the post-crisis argument that for many investors “there is no alternative” to investing in equities – a thesis often abbreviated to “Tina”
Answer: (1) You’ve found a better deal; (2) It’s time to cash out your whole life policy; (3) You’ve gone through a divorce; (4) You need long-term-care insurance; (5) Your children are grown; (6) You’re self-insured; (7) You need a smaller policy