Lots of people thought last year was tough.
There were lots of great things too.
Here is a quick video highlighting some of the amazing breakthroughs achieved in science and technology.
Fun to watch … Lot's of innovative ideas.
via Yahoo News.
Business
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Which U.S. Markets Did Best In 2015?
There is always something working in the Markets. It still surprises me how often it changes.
A look at the recent winners and losers (based on year-end performance) shows the volatility and varied nature of this list.
Who would have guessed the big winners this year would be the French and German markets, along with the U.S. Dollar.
The chart below shows the top-and-bottom performing markets for the year. The data is color coded based on sector. The first column shows 2015 performance, followed by six columns of the most recent prior yearly market performances.
Click the image to jump to the full chart.
Table Key:
Note: The S&P 500 Index is shown in black to highlight its performance vs other markets that offer an equity portfolio full diversification.
Click this link to view weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly views of this data.
So, how did the U.S market compare to other markets around the world? Here is an interactive chart showing how the S&P 500 out-performed this past year.
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Which U.S. Markets Did Best In 2015?
There is always something working in the Markets. It still surprises me how often it changes.
A look at the recent winners and losers (based on year-end performance) shows the volatility and varied nature of this list.
Who would have guessed the big winners this year would be the French and German markets, along with the U.S. Dollar.
The chart below shows the top-and-bottom performing markets for the year. The data is color coded based on sector. The first column shows 2015 performance, followed by six columns of the most recent prior yearly market performances.
Click the image to jump to the full chart.
Table Key:
Note: The S&P 500 Index is shown in black to highlight its performance vs other markets that offer an equity portfolio full diversification.
Click this link to view weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly views of this data.
So, how did the U.S market compare to other markets around the world? Here is an interactive chart showing how the S&P 500 out-performed this past year.
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Graduation Time
This was an interesting week. It started with a quick trip to Washington, DC to visit my older son and his fiancé. For dinner, I thought they were taking me to the "Tipped Cow" (which sounded good). Instead, we went to a Laotian restaurant (called "Thip Khao") which serves lots of vegetables and mixes their colors.
In addition, I had hand surgery. While not pleasant, it should result in my ability to hold things – and to use my hand again (which I consider favorable).
Finally, I went to Auburn, Alabama for my younger son's college graduation. I am very proud of him. His grades got continually better, the longer he was there … and he's been there a long time.
Graduation marks the end of one level in the beginning of a new level. In this case, there is a ceremony with caps and gowns, a procession, and everyone knows what it means.
In business, graduations take many forms. It could be a promotion, a product release, or the launch of a fund.
In any case, the strategies and skills that got you to this point only represent the strategies and skills they got you to this point. It often takes a different set of strategies or skills to excel at what comes next.
In that vein, We just finished our annual planning session for 2016.
Onwards.
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Graduation Time
This was an interesting week. It started with a quick trip to Washington, DC to visit my older son and his fiancé. For dinner, I thought they were taking me to the "Tipped Cow" (which sounded good). Instead, we went to a Laotian restaurant (called "Thip Khao") which serves lots of vegetables and mixes their colors.
In addition, I had hand surgery. While not pleasant, it should result in my ability to hold things – and to use my hand again (which I consider favorable).
Finally, I went to Auburn, Alabama for my younger son's college graduation. I am very proud of him. His grades got continually better, the longer he was there … and he's been there a long time.
Graduation marks the end of one level in the beginning of a new level. In this case, there is a ceremony with caps and gowns, a procession, and everyone knows what it means.
In business, graduations take many forms. It could be a promotion, a product release, or the launch of a fund.
In any case, the strategies and skills that got you to this point only represent the strategies and skills they got you to this point. It often takes a different set of strategies or skills to excel at what comes next.
In that vein, We just finished our annual planning session for 2016.
Onwards.
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Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading
Google is good for a lot of things. Watching the auto-complete choices is often fun. According to this, PDF might be the fourth most popular religion.
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- How Machines Learn (And You Win). (HBR)
- How an F Student Became America’s Most Prolific Inventor. (Bloomberg)
- Forget Humans vs. Machines: It’s a Humans + Machines Future. (Singularity)
- The 5 Biggest Rip-Offs Consumers Face Today. (Fortune)
- Why It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s. (The Atlantic)
- Goldman Sachs Bought a $21 Million Stake in HFT Network Company. (Bloomberg)
- U.S. System Designed to Prevent Financial Crisis ‘Likely to Fail,’ Say Experts. (MarketWatch)
- Wall Street is Under Attack from Hackers. (Business Insider)
- Short Interest: Dispelling Another Market Myth. (See It Market)
- Stop Listening to These Clowns: Economists’ Bad Ideas Have Been Damaging Our Economy for Years. (Salon)
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Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading
Google is good for a lot of things. Watching the auto-complete choices is often fun. According to this, PDF might be the fourth most popular religion.
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- How Machines Learn (And You Win). (HBR)
- How an F Student Became America’s Most Prolific Inventor. (Bloomberg)
- Forget Humans vs. Machines: It’s a Humans + Machines Future. (Singularity)
- The 5 Biggest Rip-Offs Consumers Face Today. (Fortune)
- Why It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s. (The Atlantic)
- Goldman Sachs Bought a $21 Million Stake in HFT Network Company. (Bloomberg)
- U.S. System Designed to Prevent Financial Crisis ‘Likely to Fail,’ Say Experts. (MarketWatch)
- Wall Street is Under Attack from Hackers. (Business Insider)
- Short Interest: Dispelling Another Market Myth. (See It Market)
- Stop Listening to These Clowns: Economists’ Bad Ideas Have Been Damaging Our Economy for Years. (Salon)
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Nearly 20% of 25- to 34-Year-Old Men Live With Their Parents
Deutsche Bank research found that nearly 20% of men between the ages of 25 and 34 live at home.
As a point of comparison, about 12% of women this age are living at home.
Ultimately, you can see this dynamic one of two ways: either the number of young people living at home is a bullish force for the housing market going forward, or this is indicative of a lost generation that has suffered the ill-effects of a deep recession, massive student loan debts, and a general proclivity for incompetence.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. But, it is so easy for my generation to hate on Millennials.
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Nearly 20% of 25- to 34-Year-Old Men Live With Their Parents
Deutsche Bank research found that nearly 20% of men between the ages of 25 and 34 live at home.
As a point of comparison, about 12% of women this age are living at home.
Ultimately, you can see this dynamic one of two ways: either the number of young people living at home is a bullish force for the housing market going forward, or this is indicative of a lost generation that has suffered the ill-effects of a deep recession, massive student loan debts, and a general proclivity for incompetence.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. But, it is so easy for my generation to hate on Millennials.
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Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading
Just like Ben Carson theorized …
via Bizarro.com.
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
- How to Scale Things That Don't Scale. (Buffer)
- Fifty years of Moore’s Law. (Timeline)
- Singularity or Civil War? The Future of Artificial Intelligence. (Breitbart)
- How to Never Get Angry: 3 New Secrets From Neuroscience. (Time)
- The Dark Side of Empathy. How caring for one person can foster baseless aggression towards another (The Atlantic)
- The 40 Most Exciting Innovations of the Year – Tech Insider. (TechInsider)
- Skype Co-Founders Prep Self-Driving Robot Package Delivery. (USAToday)
- Google Says It Could Make Drone Deliveries Happen by 2017. (MarketWatch)
- The Psychology of Risk and Reward. (Farnam Street)
- The Stock Market is a 'Dangerous Casino' That's Disconnected from the Real Economy. (Business Insider)
