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The Retired Investor: Carbon Market Comes of Age
By Bill Schmick,
03:41PM / Thursday, May 27, 2021
At the beginning of this year, the global price of carbon was $24.05 per ton of CO2. In order to achieve the emissions reduction goals of members of the Paris Agreement, prices need to reach a range of $50-$100 per ton of CO2. That makes buying carbon an attractive investment.   The ongoing concerns about climate change have spawned several emission trading schemes over the last decade. The reasoning is simple: if left unchecked, carbon emissions (among other factors) will have a material impact on our environment and will do severe damage to the global economy.   The ratification of the Kyoto Protocol of 2007, by world governments, effectively addressed the

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The Retired Investor: Gold Regains Its Mojo
By Bill Schmick,
04:45PM / Thursday, May 20, 2021
In inflationary environments, investors historically have hedged their bets by buying gold. However, this time around, the precious metal has languished as investors bought alternative investments. But times are changing.   The primary alternative to buying gold has been cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and Ethereum, two of my 2021 buy recommendations (for those with a strong stomach) have enjoyed spectacular gains in 2021. Bitcoin, at one point in May, had gained almost 100 percent, while Ethereum saw gains of more than 400 percent.   In addition, other commodities held more interest than gold for most investors. In January 2021, I recommended investors focus on some

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@theMarket: Inflation Fears Weigh on Investors
By Bill Schmick,
03:13PM / Friday, May 14, 2021
Most stocks took it on the chin earlier this week. Technology shares lead the rout, but it didn't take long before just about everything else followed tech lower. By the end of the week, it was as if nothing had happened. That's called "chop." Get used to it.   The Consumer Price Index (CPI), which investors use to gauge future inflation, took the lion's share of the blame for the downdraft in equities. Economists had warned that we should expect a higher monthly reading (0.2 percent) for April, but the data came in at 0.8 percent. That computes to a 4.2 percent price gain year-over-year and was almost triple the rate that anyone had

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The Retired Investor: A Labor Shortage Solution
By Bill Schmick,
04:38PM / Thursday, May 13, 2021
The hiring boom that was expected in April 2021 fizzled. Last Friday's nonfarm payrolls report came in at 266,000 jobs gained compared to over a million expected. It was the biggest miss in decades.   Politicians and many corporations were quick to provide a ready scapegoat for that failure. They blamed it on the weekly payments of $300 in federal unemployment aid through September 2021, on top of the regular unemployment benefits paid out by the states. In short, the fault apparently lies with the Biden administration's stimulus package. If the president and the Democrats had not provided these overly generous benefits, more workers would be thrust back into the

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@theMarket: Stocks Make New Highs
By Bill Schmick,
03:46PM / Friday, May 07, 2021
It has been the best quarterly earnings season in a long time. More than 87 percent of companies that have reported thus far have beat earnings estimates. That is a record and investors celebrated.   Last week, I mentioned that this earnings season has been a classic example of a sell-on-the-news. It has been especially so for companies in the technology sector, but not so much for investments in other areas. What, you might ask, does this say about the overall markets?   The most bullish interpretation is that we will continue to move higher making new highs after new highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average made yet another new high yesterday, as did the

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