I'm Back!

Back from nearly a two week trip of client visits, a bit of vacation and some investment research.  A few quick observations.  I'll try to go into more of what I've learned/experienced in the future.

-I was in eight cities in twelve days. Six in Florida, plus Boston and Providence, RI.   The one constant in each was the amount of building and remodeling I saw in each.  Most of the cities I was in had long ago sloughed off the last vestiges of the Great Recession.

-The United States is still the choice country for immigration.  This is as equally true among both rich and poor.  The rich desperately want to come here, especially from the developing world because they fear the confiscatory policies of their governments.

-English may be the official language of the country but you'd be hard pressed to believe that when you get beyond the interior.  This was as true in Boston as Miami.

-Hard not to find Florida,  a state where there's no state income tax and no inheritance tax,  financially compelling especially when you live in Illinois and you come home to headlines like this and this.  This last winter up here makes that argument even more interesting.

-Much being made today of Michael Lewis' "60 Minutes" interview covering his new book "Flash Boys" and how the stock market is rigged via high frequency trading {HFT}.  Didn't see the interview and have only read cursory reviews of it and what might be in the book.  The nearest I can figure out from what I've seen is that proprietors of HFT may garner a millisecond advantage over other traders and make perhaps a penny or two per share.  This may not be fair to other investors but I'd make two points if the assertion is correct.  The first is that longer term investors probably don't care.  The second is that when I started in the business market insiders routinely traded on news that today would have them be considered insiders.  Back then all of this was legal and it meant that traders back in the day could have information days to weeks before the rest of us knew what it was.   That advantage today is gone.  Also when I started in the business stocks traded in spreads of 1/8s to 1/4s and an investor buying say 500 shares of IBM through his broker was probably forking over $250 in commissions for the privilege of doing so.  This meant that investor started out at best after his transaction 63 to 75 cents in the hole versus maybe 2 to 3 cents today.  The real issue with HFT is its capacity to cause another market crash and so far from what I can tell this hasn't been addressed.  Will see if it's covered after I read the book.

-Finally we don't speak often of our clients and friends here.  When we do we disguise their identity so as to protect their confidentiality.  Today we want to put a shout out to Mrs. Garson who had a bit of a setback over the weekend.  Mrs. G. all of our thoughts and prayers are with you and the family today.