Most investors assume that the only thing that matters is whether they’re right or wrong...[but] being right or wrong all the time is more about ego than making money. Risk only matters when there are consequences attached to your actions. To understand true risk, investors need to ask themselves: “What are the consequences if I am right or wrong?” Word count: 674

Market-related predictions have become a quadrennial tradition, but that doesn't mean that they're worth the ink that's spilled on them. In terms of broader trends, politics in general - and elections in particular - have minimal predictive value with respect to subsequent market (and economic) activity. Nonetheless, we'll take some time to consider what both the historical - and the more recent data might be telling us about this year's election. Word count: 787

The following infographic highlights 9 relatively recent “black swan” events that will have a lasting impact on how investors approach markets.

Several analysts in favour of gold are predicting a spike to come in the precious metal’s price. They base this prediction on several arguments but, as far as I’m concerned, their arguments won’t be enough to push gold up toward new heights. There are two other elements that need to come into play, and we’re starting to see them.

The next six months could be the most conflicted period that most of us have ever experienced, so, I'm suggesting that we enter it open-eyed, cautious, and conservative in managing our money and financial affairs at least through the spring.

...Until now a full picture of global debt was missing. The October 2016 Fiscal Monitor has, for the first time, put a number on the size of debt covering virtually the whole world and the picture is not pretty.

Janet Yellen and her merry band of money printers are oblivious to the dangerous speculation and valuation excesses that their policies have implanted throughout the financial system. No wonder the Trump voters want to throw the bums out. It is none too soon.

Value investing sounds easy enough until you try it in practice and realize that cheap securities can always get cheaper and the market is not always accommodating in how and when it recognizes value over time. It’s the old line that value investing is simple, but never easy.

The complete and total collapse of Deutsche Bank would be an event many times more significant for the global financial system than the collapse of Lehman Brothers was. Global leaders simply cannot afford for such a thing to happen, but without serious intervention it appears that is precisely where we are heading.

We desperately need to repair and replace a vast part of our national infrastructure but where do we get the money? Well, the U.S. has spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to fix Iraq and Afghanistan and God knows how many more hundreds of billions of dollars over the years on other projects around the world so what if we renewed the focus on our own needs?. [In this article I identify our infrastructure shortfalls and present a way to pay for the needed projects which, combined with my proposed specific massive tax reform, could reposition the country to be the most powerfully competitive nation in the world.