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Free Trade vs. Protectionism

Posted on November 21, 2016 by Daniel DollingerMay 2, 2017

Overview

Free trade and protectionism are 2 approaches that a country can take in regards to trade. It details the ability for people to buy products and services from other countries and/or sell products and services to other countries. It has effects on both international trade and on domestic issues.

What is Free Trade?

Free Trade means there are no restrictions on the buying and selling of goods from/to people from other countries. That applies to all goods such as outsourcing, pharmaceuticals, etc.

What are the Effects of Free Trade?

Free Trade increases competition among the suppliers of goods. That has the following effects:

Goods are cheaper
Wages are lower
Goods are better quality
There is a wider variety of goods on the market

What is Protectionism?

Protectionism means there are restrictions on the buying and selling of goods from/to people from other countries. Examples of protectionist policies are tariffs, quotas, etc.

What are the Effects of Protectionism?

Goods are more expensive
Wages are higher
Goods are poorer quality
There is less variety of goods on the market

Fee Structure

Rate	Assets Under Management
1.44%	Below $125,000
1.00%	Between $125,000 and $750,000
.85%	Between $750,000 and $1,250,000
.80%	Between $1,250,000 and $1,750,000
.75%	Between $1,750,000 and $2,500,000
.70%	Between $2,500,000 and $3,250,000
.65%	Between $3,250,000 and $4,250,000
.60%	Above $4,250,000

A single rate is applied to the entire account. So a person with a $750,000.01 account pays less than a person with a $750,000 account. I will waive personal tax return fees for accounts over $1 million. For accounts that are above $5,250,000, we’ll need to discuss a custom rate.

As I’m writing these to help my readers, I would be very appreciative of any input in regards to what I should write next. If you want me to write about a particular topic, please contact me. Please contact me if you would like to submit a post to my blog.

If anything that I mentioned above interests you, please consider downloading my free e-book. The book contains my thoughts on investment management and some information that I think everyone should know. You can also download it below.

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Questions for the comments

Did my explanation make sense? Do you agree or disagree with what I said?

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A Message, Means of Production and Debt Strategies

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Daniel DollingerMay 2, 2017

My Message to You

I write these posts to help everyone and I care deeply about advancing financial education so people can make more informed choices. So I ask everyone to send me any questions they have. I want the things I write about to be relevant to their lives. Please tell me what’s important to you.

What are Means of Production?

In the creation of goods/services there are 2 factors. The first factor is labor (the workers) and the second factor are Means of Production (the tools that the workers use to create the good/service). Means of Production refer to all non-labor inputs into the creation of the end product. It could be land, a factory, a forest, a screwdriver, etc.

How to Get Out of Debt?

This is a complicated question, but I’ll give you some quick tips.

List out your debts and rank them based on their interest rate. It is almost always a good idea to pay off your highest interest debt first. Remember there is no practical difference between earning a 5% investment return and avoiding a 5% interest payment. Avoiding the interest, however, is guaranteed so it is far less risky.

List out all the things that flow into your bank account (income) and list out all things that flow out of your bank account (expenses). Do your best to figure out how to maximize the former and minimize the latter. For now, cut out any unnecessary expenses such as luxuries (restaurant meals, clothing accessories, etc.). Once you are more financially stable you can reintroduce them.

Fee Structure

Rate	Assets Under Management
1.44%	Below $125,000
1.00%	Between $125,000 and $750,000
.85%	Between $750,000 and $1,250,000
.80%	Between $1,250,000 and $1,750,000
.75%	Between $1,750,000 and $2,500,000
.70%	Between $2,500,000 and $3,250,000
.65%	Between $3,250,000 and $4,250,000
.60%	Above $4,250,000

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Questions for the comments

Did my explanation make sense? Do you agree or disagree with what I said?

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Investment Newsletter for the end of October, 2016

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Daniel DollingerMay 2, 2017

The Dow was down this month by 166 points in total. Lots of back and forth excitement. Lots of the “world is ending” election news. In the end, the market was essentially breakeven. And the TV pundits are still exaggerating or making up reasons for ratings.

Today’s topic is real estate, not a stock market topic at all. It is, however, an investment topic. After all, your net worth includes all your assets; your stocks, mutual funds, bonds, the gold you have hidden in the safe in your closet (everybody knows about it), and real estate. The point of portfolio management is to manage your total net worth.

Each type of asset has an up and down curve. The different curves will differ from each other. But everything goes up and down. Right now, the stock market is going sidewise. The real estate market is going up insanely. Or are the buyers insane – interesting question? The house across the street from me sold in 3 hours. I am sure there were multiple offers. The real estate curve will not always go up. There are down turns also. The buyers are getting sucked up by the emotion and are becoming desperate. I.E. It’s a bubble.

I have had clients pull money because everyone they know was making money on real estate. That would be running with the herd or more exactly behind the herd. It is not very smart. I am the guy facing the stampeding very thirsty buffalo herd with the only water just behind me. That makes me very smart.

I personally do not want to buy anything, stock or real estate, when the buyers are desperate. I want the sellers to be desperate. I want to buy cheap. Four years ago, I bought a townhouse in a short sale. It was a week short of foreclosure. It is now worth almost double what I paid. The good people who were forced to sell it bought it at the top of the prior bubble. During the last crash, real estate agents were driving trucks and working as clerks to survive. That is the right time to buy. And, it happens on a regular cycle and it will happen again.

I have made the point many times that the more up and down pistons there are in a portfolio, the lower the overall risk will be. Therefore, I can achieve higher overall return for the same amount of risk. The reason is because the curves are going up and down at different times. Real estate is excellent at diversifying stock market risk and vice versa. I believe rental properties have a legitimate place in a portfolio. That does not mean that I should buy stupid.

Personally, I am accumulating my cash (properly invested of course) waiting for the next desperation stage of the cycle. I have no problem waiting three or four more years.

I know many of you will disagree but I do not consider your home to be a pure investment. It is at best a hybrid of investment and personal consumption. Your intention is to live in it not to resell it at a profit. You can and will do many things to your home to increase its magnificence, its joy to you. They will not increase the sales value. Your new kitchen cabinets, deck, vacuum system will not increase the house sales price as much as they cost. You did these things for you. An investment property has a different attitude. You do what you have to but usually not more. Profit is the agenda.

Thanks for your attention.

Dan

Fee Structure

Rate	Assets Under Management
1.44%	Below $125,000
1.00%	Between $125,000 and $750,000
.85%	Between $750,000 and $1,250,000
.80%	Between $1,250,000 and $1,750,000
.75%	Between $1,750,000 and $2,500,000
.70%	Between $2,500,000 and $3,250,000
.65%	Between $3,250,000 and $4,250,000
.60%	Above $4,250,000

As I’m writing these to help my readers, I would be very appreciative of any input in regards to what I should write next. Please contact me if you want me to write about a particular topic. If you would like to submit a post to my blog, please contact me.

E-Book Download

Questions for the comments

Did my newsletter make sense? Do you agree or disagree with what I said?

Learn About My Business

What is Specialization of Labor?

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Daniel DollingerMay 2, 2017

In Short

As I mentioned in an earlier post, people should focus on what they are best at, and buy/trade for everything else they need. Specialization increases productive capacity and the total sum of knowledge of a community.

Example 1

Let’s imagine a community with 100 people. Every person is completely self-sufficient (they do everything on their own). In this community, every individual has roughly the same knowledge (the same ability to do things). Everyone is a jack of all trades and a master of none. Now let’s say that community splits all the roles of the community so each person has a different task. The ability to specialize would allow each person to become a master of that task and therefore the grand sum of all knowledge within that community to increase. As knowledge increases, productive capacity increases, for people will learn more effective and efficient ways of doing their tasks.

Example 2

I want you to imagine a pencil. No one person created that pencil; it was created via the specialization of labor. We have loggers that obtained the wood, miners that obtained the graphite, drivers that shipped the materials to the pencil factory, the pencil factory itself assembled the product, construction companies that built the roads used, everyone used machines that were made by someone else, etc. Every product in our lives is the effort of millions of people working together. There is likely not a single modern product that you can make entirely on your own. Historically, until specialization of labor and trade occurred, society was extremely unproductive and there was a low quality of life.

Fee Structure

Rate	Assets Under Management
1.44%	Below $125,000
1.00%	Between $125,000 and $750,000
.85%	Between $750,000 and $1,250,000
.80%	Between $1,250,000 and $1,750,000
.75%	Between $1,750,000 and $2,500,000
.70%	Between $2,500,000 and $3,250,000
.65%	Between $3,250,000 and $4,250,000
.60%	Above $4,250,000

As I’m writing these to help my readers, I would be very appreciative of any input in regards to what I should write next. If you want me to write about a particular topic, please contact me. If you would like to submit a post to my blog, please contact me.

E-Book Download

Questions for the comments

Did my explanation make sense? Do you agree or disagree with what I said?

Learn About My Business

What are Compensating Differentials (The Cost of Comfort)?

Posted on October 24, 2016 by Daniel DollingerOctober 24, 2016

In Short

Compensating Differentials are a fancy way of saying that people are not willing to do horrible jobs unless they are paid more.

Wages vs. Comfort

If we take 2 jobs that require equal skill, on average the total compensation will be the same. Compensation isn’t just cash but includes working conditions. For example: compare a librarian at an elementary school with a librarian at a prison. The working conditions at the prison are most likely more unpleasant (due to the mood) and thus for anyone to be willing to work there they need to be paid more (and they do).

Application to What I Do

This tradeoff between financial returns and comfort also exists in the financial markets. Let’s say we have a really risky bond. The chance of default is very high. Anyone holding that bond suffers great stress. That stress is, in essence, negative compensation as it makes your life worse off. Therefore, to get people to buy the bond it has to offer a large financial return. On the other hand, a bond with no risk just has to offer financial compensation. The total compensation for both bonds are roughly identical. This same trade-off schema exists for stocks and all other financial assets.

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Questions for the comments

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Competitive vs Monopolistic Markets

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Daniel DollingerMay 2, 2017

In Short

A competitive market has many companies within it, with the price charged equal to the marginal cost. A monopolistic market has one company in it, with the price above its marginal cost.

Competitive Market

The whole idea of competition is having alternative choices. If company A does something bad than people switch to company B. Let’s take the widget selling industry. Within this industry there are 1000 different companies. In order for one of the companies to grab more customers and thus profit they must lower the price and/or improve the quality of the widget produced. They will lower the price down to their marginal cost, which is how much it costs them to make the widget. They won’t lower it past there as they don’t want to lose money for every widget sold.

Monopolistic Market

In contrast with a competitive market, in a monopoly there are no alternative choices. If you don’t want to buy the item from company A, you will have to go without, which is sometimes not at all a desirable choice. Without the potential consequence of a competitor undercutting their price they can keep their prices high. Without the potential consequence of a competitor producing a higher quality product they can keep the quality of their product low. Profits in a monopolistic market are thereby much higher.

The Disadvantage and Advantage of Monopoly

The disadvantage of monopoly is that it leads to higher priced and/or lower quality products. The advantage is the higher profits incentivize people to innovate initially to establish the monopoly. The classic example is patents. A patent is in essence a government created monopoly. The inventor of an item or idea is the only one who can use or profit from an idea for a period of time. The disadvantage of patents is that the price is much higher. The HIV/AIDS drug Combivir is $12.50 per pill in the USA (where the patent is recognized), it’s 50 cents per pills in India (where the patent is not recognized). The advantage is that more people will try to invent something new. Without the promise of huge profits, many companies would not go through all the work and R/D of developing new pharmaceutical drugs. It wouldn’t be financially worth their time.

Fee Structure

Rate	Assets Under Management
1.44%	Below $125,000
1.00%	Between $125,000 and $750,000
.85%	Between $750,000 and $1,250,000
.80%	Between $1,250,000 and $1,750,000
.75%	Between $1,750,000 and $2,500,000
.70%	Between $2,500,000 and $3,250,000
.65%	Between $3,250,000 and $4,250,000
.60%	Above $4,250,000

E-Book Download

Questions for the comments

Did my explanation make sense? Do you agree or disagree with what I said?

Learn About My Business

What is a Externality?

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Daniel DollingerMay 2, 2017

In Short

Within every market transaction there are buyers (demanders) and sellers (suppliers). Also, there are bystanders who are affected by the transaction that are not part of it. The effects on these bystanders are externalities. The costs and benefits to these bystanders are usually not taken into account when the market participants are making their deals. As a result a particular deal occurs either too often or not often enough (assuming the goal is to maximize total utility) (Total utility is personal utility + societal utility). One way these externalities can be addressed is by using taxes/subsidies.

Example of a Positive Externality

Getting a flu shot has a distinct personal benefit. It makes it less likely that you get sick. In addition, it has the benefit of making other people less likely to get sick. So in this case you are the demander, the person giving the shot is the supplier, and everyone else in society are the bystanders. When evaluating the costs and benefits of getting a flu shot, most people don’t consider the benefits to the bystanders (positive externality). As a result flu shots don’t happen as often as they should. Hypothetically, let’s say you getting the shot gives you 1 dollars of personal benefit and it causes society to receive 1 dollar of benefit. One solution is for the government to pay you a dollar for getting a flu shot (subsidize you). That would cause the demander to internalize the societal benefit and flu shots would occur more often.

Example of a Negative Externality

Let’s say you own a company that sells cigars. The smoke (from smoking the cigars) caused 200 dollars worth of damage to society (second hand smoke damage) (negative externality) but only 100 dollars worth of damage to the property of you and your customers. So in this case you are the supplier, the customer is the demander, and everyone else in society are the bystanders. Smoking causes damage that the market participants are not going to consider, so cigar sales occur more often than optimal. One solution is for the government to tax you $100 for selling cigars. That would cause the supplier to internalize the societal cost and cigar sales would occur less often. This idea is the underlying ideology behind sin taxes.

Fee Structure

Rate	Assets Under Management
1.44%	Below $125,000
1.00%	Between $125,000 and $750,000
.85%	Between $750,000 and $1,250,000
.80%	Between $1,250,000 and $1,750,000
.75%	Between $1,750,000 and $2,500,000
.70%	Between $2,500,000 and $3,250,000
.65%	Between $3,250,000 and $4,250,000
.60%	Above $4,250,000

E-Book Download

Questions for the comments

Did my explanation make sense? Do you agree or disagree with what I said?

Learn About My Business

What is Elasticity?

Posted on October 7, 2016 by Daniel DollingerMay 2, 2017

In Short

Elasticity is how behavior in a market changes in response to a change in price. A demand curve can be described as elastic or inelastic. A supply curve can be described as elastic or inelastic. See post on equilibrium for more on curves.

Elastic Demand Curve

This is when a small increase (decrease) in the price causes a large decrease (increase) in the quantity demanded. For example: if the local supermarket raises their apple prices by $1.00, most people will simply buy their apples from another cheaper supermarket. If that supermarket drops their price by a dollar; more people will shop there instead of at other stores.

Inelastic Demand Curve

This is when a large increase (decrease) in the price causes a small decrease (increase) in the quantity demanded. For example: if a lifesaving medicine is exclusively sold by company A and company A raises the price by 1000%, demand for that product is unlikely to drop for the buyers don’t have a choice. If the company lowers prices, demand is unlikely to increase for anyone who needed the medicine was likely already buying it.

Elastic Supply Curve

This is when a small increase (decrease) in the price causes a large increase (decrease) in the quantity supplied. For example: An apple seller learns demand for apples has increased due to a famous actor eating an apple in a movie. The market price for apples has thus increased by $1.00. They will then buy more apples from their supplier in order to fulfill that higher demand. Example 2: That seller learns demand for apples has decreased due to that same actor saying apples are horrible and the market price has dropped by $1.00. The apple seller will decrease the amount of apples they order from their supplier for they don’t need as many to satisfy the demand.

Inelastic Supply Curve

This is when a large increase (decrease) in the price causes a small increase (decrease) in the quantity supplied. For example: An apple seller learns demand for apples has increased due to a famous actor eating an apple in a movie. The market price for apples has increased by $1.00. They are, however, locked into a contract with a supplier who is out of stock. They as a result cannot respond to that higher demand. Example 2: That seller learns demand for apples has decreased due to that same actor saying apples are horrible and the market price has dropped by $1.00. They are, however, locked into contract with a supplier that states they have to buy at least a certain amount of apples per year. So they can’t decrease the number of apples they order in response to the lower demand.

Applications of Elasticity

Elasticity informs economists of the effects of various market interventions such as sales taxes, subsidies, etc.

Fee Structure

Rate	Assets Under Management
1.44%	Below $125,000
1.00%	Between $125,000 and $750,000
.85%	Between $750,000 and $1,250,000
.80%	Between $1,250,000 and $1,750,000
.75%	Between $1,750,000 and $2,500,000
.70%	Between $2,500,000 and $3,250,000
.65%	Between $3,250,000 and $4,250,000
.60%	Above $4,250,000

E-Book Download

Questions for the comments

Did my explanation make sense? Do you agree or disagree with what I said?

Learn About My Business

Investment Newsletter for the end of September, 2016

Posted on October 5, 2016 by Daniel DollingerMay 2, 2017

Last month, I wrote about how the Dow was down and almost every portfolio was up. I made the point that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is not the market. It is quick and easy sample to look at and is generally representative of how the market is doing. I look at it myself many times every day.

But you are not invested in the Dow. You are invested in a lot of things with an extra weighting on small cap value. Other long periods of time, small cap will outperform large cap and value will outperform growth. We saw this premium in August and we are seeing it again in September. The Dow was down this month by 93 points in total. Lots of back and forth excitement. One day up 200, another day down 200. In the end, essentially breakeven. Your portfolios were significantly up. In fact, it was a great quarter for all of you. Almost every one of you easily beat the Dow even though some or most of your money is not even invested in the stock market. It is in fixed income.

The small cap premium does not happen every month. In fact, there has been several years now where it appears to have disappeared. It is very evident over longer periods. It appears to have come back with a vengeance over the last few months. I cannot tell you whether we are seeing statistical noise (after all a quarter is a pretty short time) or a start to a new trend. Actually, reversion to an old trend. The small cap premium has been present for many decades. It also makes sense. Smaller companies have more room to grow than do big ones.

The way a mutual fund identifies a small cap collection of companies is to take all the publicly traded companies that meet basic qualifications (like no going concern issues, minimum size, etc.) and sort them based on size of the capitalization (how much is all the stock worth). Depending on the fund, they may choose the smallest 20% or 30% and so on.

The value premium also makes sense. It is also better to buy a company at a bargain price. Instead of sorting the universe of publicly traded companies based on size, they sort based on value. The fund may look at stock price divided by earnings (PE ratio) or often price divided by book value. There are many other ways to sort value. The fund then picks the 20% or 30% that are the cheapest as compared to the value measure.

The DFA small cap value fund that I have you all invested in sorts by both size and value. These funds have hundreds of holdings. Some will win and some will lose. On average, you will win over long times Hopefully, we are seeing the reversion of the extra returns of value and size. I am proud to present your quarterly reports to you. Very sweet profits.

We had some day by day up and down turmoil during the quarter. The talking heads and journalists played up various fusses for ratings. Day by day stuff is meaningless. If you listened to the TV experts, you would be surprised that you even made money this quarter.

Thank-you all for your business and support. Call me with any questions you might have.

Sincerely,

Dan

Fee Structure

Rate	Assets Under Management
1.44%	Below $125,000
1.00%	Between $125,000 and $750,000
.85%	Between $750,000 and $1,250,000
.80%	Between $1,250,000 and $1,750,000
.75%	Between $1,750,000 and $2,500,000
.70%	Between $2,500,000 and $3,250,000
.65%	Between $3,250,000 and $4,250,000
.60%	Above $4,250,000

E-Book Download

Questions for the comments

Did my newsletter make sense? Do you agree or disagree with what I said?

Learn About My Business

What is Economic Equilibrium?

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Daniel DollingerMay 2, 2017

Introduction

Previously I talked about supply and demand. In short, supply is how much of a good is being offered on the market. Demand is how many people want to buy that good. Equilibrium will tell you in a market where the price is going to end up.

Equilibrium

Think of a chart with 2 axes. The vertical axis is price; the horizontal axis is quantity. Supply is a line that slopes up. The higher the price, the more the quantity supplied. Demand is a line that slopes down. The lower the price, the more the quantity demanded. Where the 2 lines intersect is the equilibrium point, which states the price and quantity that the market is going to settle on.

Example 1

Let’s say the price of item A is really low. As a result everyone wants to buy it (high demand), but very few people want to sell it due to low profit margin (low supply). The buyers would compete over the limited supply and the price would be bid up. As a result of the bid up, more suppliers enter the market in search of profit.

Example 2

Let’s say the price of item A is really high. As a result very few people wants to buy it (low demand), but many people want to sell it due to high profit margin (high supply). The sellers would compete over the limited demand and the price would be driven down. As a result of the falling price, more buyers enter the market in search of a discount. In both example 1 and 2 there is downward pressure and upward pressure. Where that pressure is balanced is the equilibrium point.

Curve Shift

Let’s say a celebrity says item A is the best thing ever. That would shift the demand curve up, for at every possible price, people want more of it. Let’s say suppliers of item A find a way to make it cheaper. That would shift the supply curve down for they would be willing to supply item A at a lower price, which as mentioned earlier would have positive effects on demand.

Fee Structure

Rate	Assets Under Management
1.44%	Below $125,000
1.00%	Between $125,000 and $750,000
.85%	Between $750,000 and $1,250,000
.80%	Between $1,250,000 and $1,750,000
.75%	Between $1,750,000 and $2,500,000
.70%	Between $2,500,000 and $3,250,000
.65%	Between $3,250,000 and $4,250,000
.60%	Above $4,250,000

As I’m writing these to help my readers, I would be very appreciative of any input in regards to what I should write next. If you want me to write about a particular topic, please contact me. If you would like to submit a post to my blog, please contact me.

E-Book Download

Questions for the comments

Did my explanation make sense? Do you agree or disagree with what I said?

Learn About My Business