SET Monthly Issues
SET Monthly Issue December 2016
The Unintended Consequences Of A Cigar Tax In 1960, when President Eisenhower signed the Cigar Excise Tax Extension, he set something in motion that went well beyond parejos and figuardos. Because of Washington’s bizarre legislative mashups, Public Law 86-779 gave people the opportunity to invest in portfolios of income-producing real estate. Eisenhower’s cigar tax law […]
SET Monthly Issue November 2016
Doubling Down On Dividend Income We’re still in the same cautious frame of mind. We have been concerned with market volatility for a number of months now. This concern prompted us to recommend the iShares Edge MSCI Minimum Volatility Emerging Markets ETF so we could install a safety net to capture the upside of emerging […]
SET Monthly Issue October 2016
INCOME FROM INFRASTRUCTURE There are 607,380 bridges in America. That’s according to the Federal Government’s National Bridge Inventory. Safety officials say more than 10% of these bridges are unsafe. Experts have designated 65,605 bridges as “structurally deficient”. Another 20,808 bridges are classified as “fracture critical”. It’s not pretty. But neither are woefully outdated airport terminals, […]
SET Monthly Issue September 2016
DRIVEN BY DIVIDENDS Sector investing is smart. It shields us from swoons, like we saw in the energy business a few years ago, and like we saw in financials and financial services earlier this year. Harnessing your sector ETFs to an asset allocation strategy that supports your investing goals is a foundation for success. So […]
SET Monthly Issue August 2016
SAFER HARBORS IN EMERGING MARKET STORMS When you look at investing in emerging markets, three considerations march to the head of the line… opportunity, volatility, and significant differences between one market and another. The outlook for an emerging market like the Philippines is much different from Poland. Lumping them all together into one basket is […]
SET Monthly Issue July 2016
RUNNING WITH THE BIG DIGITAL DOGS No corner of our sprawling economy is as disruptive, dynamic, and innovative as the technology sector. Tech is also the single largest part of the economy, even larger than the financial or industrial sector. No company in the technology sector can take anything for granted, not in a business […]
SET Monthly Issue June 2016
WAITING FOR THE NATURAL GAS REBOUND Erath, Louisiana is in Vermilion Parish, the heart of Cajun country. It’s home for 2,200 people, Big John’s Seafood Patio, and The Henry Hub. The Henry Hub is the crossroads of America’s natural gas pipelines. Nine interstate and four intrastate pipelines come together in Erath, and it’s such an […]
SET Monthly Issue May 2016
THE END OF OILPATCH AGONY It’s something all of us have had a hunch would happen sooner or later. Crude oil prices would eventually bottom out and the energy business would rebound. But it’s the timing that’s been devilish to decipher. The risks of getting back in too soon have been tough to ignore. We […]
SET Monthly Issue April 2016
The Changing Face Of Main Street Not long ago, the best looking and most prosperous appearing building in small town America was the bank. And before 1999, back in the days before lobbyists and politicians dismantled the Glass-Steagal Act of 1933, a community bank was the backbone of local finance. Community banks didn’t go away […]
SET Monthly Issue March 2016
The 11 Thousand Mile Connection It is 11,705 miles from Shanghai, China to Santiago, Chile. Flying time is brutal, more than a day, because there aren’t any direct flights. You need to go through Paris, Miami, Sydney, or even Chicago. But the vast distance between China and Chile suddenly shrinks when you examine things from […]
