August 12, 2019

“At best, most college presidents are running something that is somewhere between a faltering corporation and a hotel.” Leon Botstein

Among Fortune 500 companies, only 81 sponsored a pension plan in 2017, down from 288 in 1998. Axios, August 7, 2019

The Fed looked at balance sheets of those currently in their 50’s who are nearing retirement. For the middle two quartiles by income (the middle 50%) Social Security accounts for somewhere between 47% and 64% of their total retirement wealth. Barron’s, April 22, 2019

About $15 trillion of government bonds worldwide, or 25% of the market, now trade at negative yields. CNBC, August 7, 2019

Since 1993, if you purchased the S&P 500 ETF, or SPY, at the close of trading and sold it at the next day’s market open, essentially, keeping the shares overnight, you would have earned, excluding dividends, more than 670%. If, on-the-other-hand, you had bought the fund at the open and sold at the close on the same day you would have incurred a loss of 11%. Bloomberg, July 25, 2019

A recent poll found that 27% of millennials have no close friends, 25% have no “acquaintances” and 22%, or 1 in 5- have no buddies at all. This compares with only 9% of Baby Boomers and 15% of Gen Xers who reported having zero pals. New York Post, August 2, 2019

“I don’t know how man will fight World War III, but I do know how they will fight World War IV- with sticks and stones.” Albert Einstein

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