Buying and selling based on a moving average of monthly closes can be an effective strategy for managing the risk of severe loss from major bear markets. In essence, •when the monthly close of the index is above the moving average value, you hold the index, •when the index closes below, you move to cash. A chart of the S&P 500 monthly closes since 1995 shows that a 10- or 12-month simple moving average (SMA) strategy would have ensured participation in most of the upside price movement while dramatically reducing losses.

What makes 2018 remarkably different from the recent past is rising stock market volatility. Since the start of the year, the CBOE Volatility Index (^VIX) has shot higher by around 100%. By comparison, the VIX was -42.5% for the three-year period from January 2015 to December 2017. While rising volatility might put certain people on edge, but it’s not necessarily bad. Here are 3 strategies for managing market volatility.

The qualitative relationship between the growth in the Total Money Supply, credit crises, and recessions has been remarkably clear since 1978 and, as such, the current suppression of the Total Money Supply growth rate, if it is sustained for the rest of the year, portends another credit crisis and housing bust, followed by an economic recession for the U.S. economy.

What do cobalt, uranium, helium, titanium, and fluorspar have in common? According to the U.S. government, these are all minerals that are deemed critical to both the economic and national security of the country. The list of 35 minerals (listed below) includes those that are important for defense, economic, and industrial purposes – and it keys in especially on minerals that are not produced in substantial quantities domestically.

Investors got lulled into a state of inflation complacency [with] persistently low official inflation rates in recent years that depressed bond yields along with risk premiums on all financial assets - but that’s changing in 2018. Five drivers of higher inflation rates are now starting to kick in.

For the majority of Americans, investing has never worked as promised. The problem is that most individuals cannot manage their own money because of ‘short-termism.’ Despite their inherent belief that they are long-term investors, they are consistently swept up in the short-term movements of the market. Fear is a stronger emotion than greed. People sell out, usually at the very bottom, and almost always at a loss. Let’s look at some of the more common trading mistakes to which people are prone.

...The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been collecting data on this workforce cohort since 1964. The government numbers provide some excellent insights on the income history of what we might think of as the private middle-class wage earner.

If you started making twice the amount of money that you do today, how would your spending habits change? Consider if the tables were turned, and you instead were reduced to half of your current income. Where would you likely make cuts to spending? The reality is that the money you have coming in has big implications on how expenses get prioritized – and so it’s interesting to see how people in different income brackets allocate what they have.

Life is like going the wrong way on a moving escalator. Walk and you stay put. Stand still and you go backwards. To get ahead, you have to hustle or, at least, your money has to hustle. You have to make your money make you money and dollar cost averaging as an investment strategy is like steroids for your money. The difference between doing it and not doing it is millions of dollars.

Recent economic data has bond yields jumping a little bit on the worry of higher future inflation. According to many this is the main concern behind the recent volatility in stock and bond markets so let’s see if we can’t put some of this data in perspective so we can better understand the risks to our portfolios.