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Monthly Archives: April 2016

Helicoptor Money To Take Flight?

Of late I have been seeing more and more reference to ‘Helicopter money’ as a fiscal stimulus tool.

Helicopter money is the concept of just printing extra money and giving it to citizens directly (i.e visualize a helicopter flying over a city dumping money out the windows).  Now that interest rates are near or below zero in some countries, people are getting tired of trying to stimulate the economy via interest rate manipulation.   The theory seems clear – with all this free money gained by the populous, demand for goods would increase, raising the inflation rate.

If you look at google trend – you can see an uptick of search interest – if that is any indicator.

helicoptermoney

Ben Bernanke, ex US Fed Chairman, just wrote an article about it, as a policy of last resort.  I agree with Mr. Bernanke – if countries do resort to helicopter money, it would be an admission that large scale manipulation of the economy and interest rates via the central banks is not effective.  So if this continues to be discussed, be aware we are down to a dangerous last resort.

April 23, 2016 Dan Leave a comment

My Nordstrom Decision

A year ago I wrote a post on why Nordstrom (JWN)  intrigued me.   Nordstrom’s online presence and growth was my thesis for making it one of my top holdings.

Last month I closed out most of my position in Nordstrom.  Why?  I have a stronger thesis:  Always fear Amazon.  And Amazon is getting into the online clothing business:

https://consumerist.com/2016/02/23/amazon-now-selling-clothing-under-its-own-in-house-brands/

From what I can tell, Amazon is going after the sweet spot of Nordstrom’s clientele.  No data yet on how successful this will be for Amazon, or how much it will hurt Nordstrom.   I still hold a position in Nordstrom’s as I think they are a great brand and well run, but I figure I should probably watch from the sidelines for a while.

On a related topic, online clothing sales is the biggest online sales category in 2015.  Conventional wisdom had been that consumers wanted to touch and try on clothes during the purchasing process, but apparently online convenience is more important.  Who would of thought that 5 years ago?

Is any bricks and mortar retailer safe these days?  That’s the question I continue to ask myself (that – and who is filling all these office buildings I see being built?).  For now the only other brick and mortar retailers I hold is Costco and Starbucks – companies I see as safe from the online revolution – for now.

 

April 9, 2016 Dan Leave a comment

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