Topley’s Top Ten – August 27, 2019

Author

Matt Topley
August 27, 2019

1.The Massive Spike in CORPORATE DEBT with Negative Yields…The Investor World Focused on Negative Sovereign Debt

Negative yields are not confined to justSovereign debt. The chart below shows there is over $1 trillion in corporatedebt with negative yields and growing. This will not end well. hashtag#investing hashtag#markets hashtag#economy hashtag#finances hashtag#hedgefunds

Don A. Steinbrugge, CFA

2.The Treasury Market is Pricing Inflation Below 2% for the Next 30 Years.

Chart of the Day

Bond investors have once again given up on the idea of thereever being inflation again.

3.Asian Stocks Price/Book Below 5 Year Average.

China “resolutely opposes theescalation of the trade war” with the United States and instead welcomes “calmnegotiations”, according to Vice-Premier Liu He, afterlast week’s moves by both Beijing and Washington further increased the tradetensions between the world’s two largest economies – “We are willing to resolvethe trade dispute with the US through calm negotiations,” Liu said in a speech. Fund Manager Who Beat 98% of Peers Says Stay Calmand Buy Stocks

From Dave Lutz at Jones Trading.

4.Grid in U.S. Vs. China Trade War.

Found at Morning Brew

5.Intermediete Term Volatility Not Much of a Spike.

The media focused on short-term volatility….VXX intermediate term volatility small blip off bottom.

6.These are Beyond Meat’s 12 highest-profile partnerships in the food industry

Carmen ReinickeJul. 24, 2019, 01:36 PM Drew Angerer/Getty Images

  • Beyond Meat‘s success is due in part to numerous high-profile partnerships with restaurant chains and food-delivery services.

  • As demand for plant-based meat alternatives booms, having the right network is important for Beyond Meat and its competitors.

  • These are the top restaurant and food-delivery partnerships that have boosted Beyond Meat’s stock price.

Beyond Meat has led a booming plant-based protein movement – and it’s hadsome important partners along the way.

Thecompany charmed the public market with its recent initial public offering, andit has soared more than 730% since its initial listing in May. But even beforethe plant-based meat-alternatives company went public, it had numerouspartnerships with fast-food chains.

Thatcompany has continued to add partners as it seeks growth. Soon after thecompany went public, analysts estimated that a partnership withMcDonald’s could send the stock up as much as 30%. Since May,numerous partnerships have indeed boosted the stock, from the announcement ofBeyond Sausage in breakfast sandwiches at Tim Hortons in Canada to the announcement of theBeyond Burrito at Del Taco.

Partnershipswith fast-food restaurants will continue to be important. Demand is soaring for plant-based meat alternatives,and it hasn’t shown any signs of slowing. Analysts have estimated that the marketcould grow to be $140 billion in the next decade.

Whileplant-based burgers like the Beyond Burger cost more than animal proteins suchas beef, it appears that consumers are willing to pay the difference.

Competitionfor the market, and for partners, is heating up. Partnerships secured bycompetitors have damaged Beyond’s stock. It slid when The Meatless Farm, aBritish plant-based meat-alternatives company, reached a deal with Whole Foods and on the newsthat Taco Bell would not include plant-based meatalternatives on its menu.

Hereare the top high-profile restaurant and food partnerships Beyond Meat hasannounced to date:

1. KFC

KFCannounced that it will begin testing a plant-based fried “chicken” in one location in Atlanta,Georgia in August. The faux meat is coming to the menubecause of a partnership with Beyond Meat to make Beyond Fried chicken. If thetest goes well, the new product could be added to more KFC locationsnationally.

2. Subway

Subway is jumping on the plant-based meat craze as well. Wednesday, the chain announced that it would partner with Beyond Meat to launch a Beyond Meatball Marinara sub. The sandwich will be available in 685 locations in the US and Canada in September.

3. Dunkin’Brands

Dunkin’

BeyondMeat and Dunkin’ on Wednesday announced a partnership to launch Beyond Sausagebreakfast sandwiches. The sandwiches were immediately available in Dunkin’restaurants in New York City’s Manhattan borough.

4. BlueApron

Sharesof Blue Apron gained when the company announced that it would include BeyondMeat products in its recipes. The food-delivery service plans to have tworecipes this summer that feature the Beyond Burger.

5. FamousDave’s

Thebarbecue restaurant Famous Dave’s gained 10% when it announced that it waspartnering with Beyond Meat to create and test plant-based proteins for itsmenu. The company has said the new menu items will be available to testmid-August.

6. TimHortons

BeyondMeat’s stock rocketed up as much as 12% when Tim Hortons announced that itsplant-based meat alternatives would be available in breakfast sandwiches acrossCanada.

7. DelTaco

DelTaco launched the Beyond Taco in April, and after its success the chain expanded its partnership with Beyond Meat in June toinclude the Beyond 8 Layer Burrito and the Epic Beyond Cali Burrito across theUS.

8. A&W

A&WCanada has also expanded its relationship with Beyond Meat. Afterthe success of the A&W Beyond Meat Burger, the company rolled out theSausage & Egger using Beyond sausage. The sandwiches are available acrosslocations in Canada.

9. TGI Fridays

TGIFridays offers Beyond Meat’s “bleeding” veggie burger on menus as analternative to beef patties.

10.Bareburger

BeyondMeat lists its partnership with Bareburger on its corporatesite. Bareburger also offers the Impossible Burger from Impossible Foods, a main competitor to Beyond Meat.

11.BurgerFi

BurgerFilaunched a Beyond Meat burger in eight of its 101 locations in July.

12. Carl’sJr.

Carl’sJr. offers a Beyond Meat burger on its menu. The chain even gave away freemeatless burgers from Beyond Meat to celebrate Beyond Meat’s 10th birthday and its listing on the public market.

7.Opinion: 10 mistakes nearly everyone makes when saving for retirement

By Paul A. Merriman Getty Images/iStockphoto

The decade before retiring is the most crucial

Don’t go there.

Until weretire we are all preretirees. So this article applies to you unless you’realready retired.

However,my fundamental focus here is the mistakes people make in the last 10 yearsbefore they retire.

Here’swhy this is a critical time: If you’re 10 years out, or even five, you havetime to do some course corrections that will make a difference — but you don’thave time to waste.

Based onmy observations from talking with thousands of investors over many decades,let’s look at 10 errors, each of them far too common.

1. Peopleapproach retirement without a coherent, organized plan.

I don’tthink you need a thick binder projecting your net worth every month until theyear 2065. But if all you have are some vague ideas, you’re making your lifemore difficult than it needs to be.

At aminimum, you should know how much you’ll need to meet your cost of living andwhat your reliable sources of income will be when you’re retired. There willprobably be a gap between those numbers, and you should have a plan for how tobridge it.

In the process of making a goodplan, you’ll necessarily avoid most of the mistakes in this list. Here isa link to a chapter from my book, “Financial FitnessForever,” to help you get started.

2. Preretireesare too confident in their ability to see the whole picture.

Retirementplanning, if done right, has too many moving parts for most of us to get itright by ourselves. Retirement is (usually) a once-in-a-lifetime event, and wehave one chance to get it right. No practice runs.

If you don’t have a financialadviser, I suggest you find a professional to review your plan and spot anycrucial pieces you may be overlooking or misjudging. If your money is investedwith a major firm like Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab SCHW, +0.25%,or T. Rowe Price TROW, +0.99%,you can probably get a free (or low-cost) consultation and review.

You’ll get more if you hire aprofessional by the hour, preferably one who has nothing to sell and noconflict of interest. If you need help finding such a person, here’s a goodconflict-free resource: Harry Sit. For $200, he’ll find you an adviser whoseprofile checks off the most important boxes, and I think Harry’s service iswell worth the cost. (I have no affiliation with him or his service.)

3. Preretireesoften don’t have any clear understanding of whether they have “enough.”

Many whoI’ve talked with think they are far behind the 8-ball and thus continue to takethe same level of risks they took when they were young. By doing so, they puttheir retirement plans in jeopardy.

The factis, there comes a time when protecting what you have (defense) becomes moreimportant than trying to get more (offense).

The bestway to avoid this mistake is to heed the advice in item 2 above

4. Somepeople retire at 65 or some other predetermined age even though they couldhappily continue working — and thus potentially double their retirement income.

My wifeand I decided to work another five years after we knew we had “enough.” Theresult: We now have twice as much money to live on.

5. Isee this way too often: People hang on to past investments that once seemedlike good ideas, but were in fact poor choices because of high costs, highturnover, unnecessary tax burdens — or just unrealistic expectations.

All of usare prone to make mistakes now and then. But some people hang on far too longto ill-advised investments, hoping against hope that they won’t have to facethe music.

Whilethey do nothing, their money is not working to meet their needs. Economistshave a phrase to describe the result “opportunity cost.”

In otherwords, by doing one thing, you lose the opportunity to do something else thatcould produce a more desirable outcome.

6. Thisis a variation on the previous item: I’ve seen many people enter retirementstill owning a piece of land on which they were going to build a retirementhome or getaway, even though the initial dream had faded or died some yearsearlier.

Myadvice: Don’t keep incurring this opportunity cost. Instead, consider sellingthe property so you can put the proceeds to work and finance your currentdreams.

7. Manypeople are afraid to take even small amounts of investment risks that have ahigh probability of boosting their returns.

I’ve seen too many cases ofsoon-to-be-retired folks with equity investments exclusively in funds theyconsider “safe” (often clones or near-clones of the S&P 500 index SPX, +1.10% ).

Even inthe final stretch toward retirement, you can still benefit significantly fromexposure to value funds and small-cap funds.

Holding10% of your equities in small-cap or value funds (or small-cap value funds)won’t increase your risk very dramatically. But it can add 1% or more a year toyour returns, and that’s enough to make a difference you’ll notice.

8. Manypeople approaching retirement take too much risk by failing to add bond fundsto their portfolios.

This is avariation of item 3 above. There’s always a tricky trade off between risk andreturn, and this dynamic often enters the picture during the years beforeretirement.

I explored this topic in a priorarticle that includes tables showing the implications of differentcombinations of stock and bond funds.

9. Lotsof people approaching retirement realize their savings are likely to beinadequate, yet they keep spending more than they need to.

People,listen up: If you’re concerned about whether you can afford to retire in fiveyears, this is not the time to buy a boat, take your extended family on acruise, pay for a destination wedding or make a flashy charitable contributionthat gets you lots of attention.

Cuttingback for a few years has two huge potential benefits. First, it allows you tosave more money. Second, it demonstrates that you can indeed live on less thanyou thought.

10. Toomany retirees plan on achieving future investment returns to be at least asgood as past returns.

This is arecipe for big trouble, because an extended period of below-average returns isalways possible. This is one of the items that should go into your overallplan, discussed in the very first item on this list.

Personally,I think it’s a good idea to base your planning on the assumption that futurereturns will be 2 percentage points less than they have been.

The downside: Yourplan will indicate you need more savings, and you may need to cut your spendingand/or postpone your retirement.

The upside: Ifyour assumption is right (and returns are indeed lower than they have been),you’ll still have enough. And if you’re wrong, you’ll still have a smile onyour face … and more than enough money to live well in retirement.

If youcan avoid most or all of these 10 mistakes, you’ll be more likely than many ofyour contemporaries to have a successful retirement.

That’s mywish for you.

If you’d like to review thistopic further, I’ve recorded a podcast called “How to avoid the big mistakes preretirees make.”

Richard Buck contributed tothis article

8.Exam Results Don’t Define You.

“Exam Results Don’t DefineYou”​

  • Publishedon August 22, 2019

Franchise Specialist “Helping you to growyourbusiness through franchising”

Lovehim or hate him he sure hit the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates gave aspeech at a high school about 11 things they did not and will not learn inschool. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teaching created ageneration of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them upfor failure in the real world.

Rule1. Lifeis not fair – get used to it!

Rule2. Theworld won’t care about your self -esteem. The world will expect you toaccomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule3. Youwill not make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be avice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule4. Ifyou think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule5. Flippingburgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word forburger flipping: They called it Opportunity.

Rule6. Ifyou mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes,learn from them.

Rule7. Beforeyou were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got thatway from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talkabout how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest fromthe parasites of your parents generation, try delousing the closet in your ownroom.

Rule8. Yourschool may have done away with winners and losers, but LIFE HAS NOT. In someschools, they have abolished failing grades and they will give you as manytimes has you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t have the slightestresemblance to ANYTHING IN REAL LIFE.

Rule9. Lifeis not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employersare interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

Rule10. Televisionis NOT real life. In real life people have to actually leave the coffee shopand go to jobs.

Rule11. Benice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

Ifyou agree, Pass it on, If you can read this – Thank a Teacher.

Assomeone who left school at 16 with 4 “O” levels and am now anEntrepreneur in Residence at Lancaster University I can relate to the above.However I am not knocking the students and wish everyone who got their resultstoday, good or bad, All the Very Best for the future… just bear in mind Bill Gate’swords.

BestWishes,

Len