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Japan press – “Abenomics here to stay”

Justin had the news on Friday of the imminent retirement of Japanese Prime Minister Abe.

  • the end of an era for Japanese politics
Abe will not be taking Abenomics with him though, Japan Times:
  • economists say Japan’s next leader will likely maintain he basic Abenomics framework
  • “For sure, markets will be watching the continuity. I think many are assuming that things won’t change a lot, but the new prime minister will need to clearly explain that,” said Daiju Aoki, chief investment officer at UBS Wealth Management Japan.
Shunsuke Kobayashi, chief economist at Mizuho Securities:
  • “The government will need to continue to deal with the pandemic and do what’s necessary to contain it while limiting the economic damage … whoever becomes the prime minister, he or she will have to face the same issue and take the same necessary steps” 
ps. Much of Abenomics boiled down to massive policy easing from the BOJ. This is not gonna change any time soon.
Abe was PM from 2006 to 2007 and then again since 2012. He will step down on or around September 15.  He is the longest-serving Prime Minister in Japanese history. Get well soon, and enjoy your retirement sir!

Justin had the news on Friday of the imminent retirement of Japanese Prime Minister Abe.

Sunday Times reports the UK “plans for a £30bn tax raid on the wealthy”

Monday 31 August 2020 is a holiday in the UK, a good time for getting this sort of bad news dribbling out.

UK press with the report,
  • Chancellor Rishi Sunak has his Treasury officials drawing up plans for a £30bn tax raid on the wealthy, businesses, pensions and foreign aid
  • proposals would be part of the budget in November
  • planning to raise capital gains tax
  • and corporation tax (from 19% to 24%)

UK Times link is here (may be gated).

ps. Reuters report here is ungated

Monday 31 August 2020 is a holiday in the UK, a good time for getting this sort of bad news dribbling out.

Happy 90th birthday to Warren Buffett

The Oracle of Omaha turns 90 today

Warren Buffett
Warren Buffet celebrates his 90th birthday today as the world’s sixth-richest man. At $82.1 billion, he’s done well for himself.
But what Jason Zweig notes in the WSJ is that the genesis of his genius was in playing the long game and starting as early as possible.
Around the age of 10, he read a book about how to make $1,000 and intuitively grasped the importance of time. In five years, $1,000 earning 10% would be worth more than $1,600; 10 years of 10% growth would turn it into nearly $2,600; in 25 years, it would amount to more than $10,800; in 50 years, it would compound to almost $117,400.
Today’s markets are as get-rich-quick as ever but the long game always wins.

31 Best Quotes on Investing

– Warren Buffett

warren buffett

  1. “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
  2. “Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No.1”
  3. “Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.”
  4. “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price, than a fair company at a wonderful price.”
  5. “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”
  6. “Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”
  7. “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
  8. “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”
  9. “The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.”
  10. “Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.”
  11. “I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors, be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”

 

– Philip Fisher

philip fisher

  1. “Conservative investor sleep well.”
  2. “The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.”

 

– Benjamin Graham

  1. “Buy not on optimism, but on arithmetic.”
  2. “The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator.”
  3. “If you are shopping for common stocks, choose them the way you would buy groceries, not the way you would buy perfume.”
  4. The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate.”

 

– Charlie Munger

  1. “Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up.” – Charlie Munger
  2. “Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not to keep up with every damn thing in the world.”
  3. “No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.” – Charlie Munger Peter

– Peter Lynch

peter lynch

  1. “Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it’s doing.”
  2. “Although it’s easy to forget sometimes, a share is not a lottery ticket… it’s part ownership of a business.”
  3. “If you’re prepared to invest in a company, then you ought to be able to explain why in simple language that a fifth grader could understand, and quickly enough so the fifth grader won’t get bored.”
  4. “Go for a business that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.”
  5. “If you don’t study any companies, you have the same success buying stocks as you do in a poker game if you bet without looking at your cards.”

 

– A few Other Best Quotes on Investing

  1. “Minimizing downside risk while maximizing the upside is a powerful concept.” – Mohnish Pabrai
  2. “The secret to investing is to figure out the value of something – and then pay a lot less.” Joel Greenblatt
  3. “Every once in a while, the market does something so stupid it takes your breath away.” – Jim Cramer
  4. “While it might seem that anyone can be a value investor, the essential characteristics of this type of investor-patience, discipline, and risk aversion-may well be genetically determined.” -Seth Klarman
  5. “Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.” – Paul Samuelson
  6. “The four most dangerous words in investing are: ‘this time it’s different.’” – Sir John Templeton

Trump to announce a $750m deal to buy 150m rapid Covid-19 tests from Abbott Labs

White House senior adviser Alyssa Farah:
  • “This is a major development that will help our country to remain open, get Americans back to work and kids back to school”
No schedule has been set for Trump’s announcement.
Abbott said it plans to ship tens of millions of the tests in September
expects to increase production to 50 million tests in October
Thursday in Asia time brought news of the rapid test receiving approval:

US initial jobless claims 1006K vs 1000K estimate

US initial jobless claims and continuing claims

  • initial jobless claims 1006K vs 1000K estimate
  • jobless claims four-week average 1068K vs 1175.25K last week
  • continuing jobless claims 14535K vs 14400K estimate
  • continuing claims four-week average 15215K vs 15819.75 last week
Initial jobless claimsThe claims data continues to disappoint with the weekly numbers back above 1 million for the 2nd week in a row after dipping below for one week early in August (to 971).
Continuing claims also was slightly higher than expectations. Nevertheless it was still lower vs. the last week’s revised 14758K number.

US Q2 GDP second reading -31.7% vs -32.5% expected

The second reading on Q2 gross domestic product

US GDP second reading Q2 2020
  • The first estimate was -32.9%
  • Q1 was -2.5%
  • Final sales -28.5% vs -29.3% prelim
  • Business investment -26.0% vs -27.0% prelim
  • Consumer spending -34.1% vs -34.6% prelim
  • Exports -63.2% vs -64.1% prelim
  • Imports -54.0% vs -53.4% prelim
  • Inventory change -$286.4B vs -$315.5B prelim
  • GDP deflator -2.3% vs -2.0% expected
  • Full release
Despite the headline, there’s more good news here than bad. The revision higher in inventories means that inventory rebuilding will be less of a tailwind in Q3 and Q4 than anticipated. The drop in inflation also added to real GDP.
“In the second estimate, real GDP decreased 31.7 percent in the second quarter, an upward revision of 1.2 percentage points from the previous estimate issued last month. The revision primarily reflected upward revisions to private inventory investment and PCE,” the BEA said in the release.