Dangerous infections now spreading outside hospitals

From USA Today

Although soap and water can wash off the bacteria, hand sanitizers don't kill C. diff, says the CDC's Michael Bell, who specializes in drug-resistant pathogens and hospital-acquired infections


Dangerous infections now spreading outside hospitals

Liz Szabo, USA TODAY  |  February 25, 2015

Life-threatening infections caused by bacteria called Clostridium difficile now sicken nearly half a million Americans a year, health officials said Wednesday.

The number of these infections — which can cause "deadly diarrhea" and damage to the colon — doubled between 2000 and 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2011, about 29,000 patients with the bacteria, also known as C. difficile or C. diff, died within a month of becoming sick, according to a CDC study published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. One out of three of these infections occurs in people 65 and older. People 65 and older also account for most deaths.

"C. difficile infections cause immense suffering and death for thousands of Americans each year," CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a statement.

Although the infections are often treatable with antibiotics, toxins released by the bacteria can severely damage the colon, forcing doctors to remove it, says the CDC's Michael Bell, who specializes in drug-resistant pathogens and hospital-acquired infections.

C. diff is the most common health care-associated infection in the USA, costing hospitals $4.8 billion a year, according to the CDC.

About two-thirds of C. diff infections developed in patients with a recent hospital stay, although symptoms often set in only after discharge, according to the CDC. About 100,000 C. diff. infections a year are diagnosed in nursing home residents.

More than 80% of patients who pick up C. diff outside of hospitals had visited outpatient doctor's or dentist's offices in the previous 12 weeks, according to the CDC. The bacteria are hardy and can live on bed linens, bathroom fixtures and medical equipment, according to the CDC.

Although soap and water can wash off the bacteria, hand sanitizers don't kill C. diff, Bell says. The CDC recommends that doctors treating C. diff patients wear disposable gowns and gloves.

"The numbers are pretty striking," says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who wasn't involved in the new study. "A substantial number of cases are occurring in people who have never been to a hospital."

Healthy people also can develop C. diff infections after taking antibiotics for illnesses as mild as urinary tract infections or bronchitis, says the CDC's Fernanda Lessa, the study's lead author.

Although antibiotics can save lives, they can also wipe out huge numbers of helpful bacteria that live in the digestive tract, says Amesh Adalja, senior associate at the Center for Health Security of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who wasn't involved in the new study.

Read more from USA Today >>

Olive Oil vs. Coconut Oil: Which is Heart-healthier? (Infographic)

From Cleveland Clinic

Olive Oil vs. Coconut Oil: Which is Heart-healthier? (Infographic)

Pick the winner of Cleveland Clinic Health Hub Knockout

By Heart & Vascular Team of Cleveland Clinic | 10/30/13

Web sales for Home Depot grow 36% in 2014

You see the worldwide trend....internet shopping. Major retailers are making aggressive moves in this direction. Are you benefiting from this trend? Learn how you can benefit from MarketAmerica.com.

From InternetRetailer

Web sales for Home Depot grow 36% in 2014

BY MARK BROHAN Research Director  |  February 24, 2015

Home Depot added $1 billion in web sales in 2014, and e-commerce accounted for 23% of the growth in all revenue and now accounts for 4.5% of all sales.

It was another big year online for The Home Depot Inc. and it’s taking to social media to get the word out.

This morning in a tweet, Home Depot mentioned that e-commerce sales grew by over 36% in 2014 and added another $1 billion in total e-commerce revenue.

Based on that metric and for the year ended Feb. 1, Internet Retailer estimates web sales reached $3.750 billion, up 36.0% from $2.758 billion in 2013.

For the year, Home Depot reported:

• Total sales increased 5.5% to $83.176 billion from $78.812 billion in 2013.
• Comparable-store sales increased 5.3%.
• Net earnings were $6.345 billion compared with $5.385 billion in 2013.
• The web accounted for 4.5% of total revenue compared with 3.5% in 2013.

The growth in e-commerce of $1 billion accounted for nearly one quarter—23%—of the increase in all sales of $4.364 billion.

Home Depot, No. 16 in the Internet Retailer 2014 Top 500 Guide, says such factors as an aggressive ship to store program helped to boost web sales. “Almost 40% of online orders are picked up in the store,” CEO Craig Menear told Wall Street analysts on Tuesday’s fourth-quarter earnings call.

For the fourth quarter:

• Total sales increased 8.3% to $19.162 billion compared with $17.696 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013.
• Comparable-store sales increased 7.9%.
• Net earnings were $1.379 billion compared with $1.013 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013.

Home Depot didn’t break out Q4 web sales.

Disease Prevention Through Diet & Nutrition

From Medicine.net

Disease Prevention Through Diet & Nutrition

Here are three reasons why following a healthy diet is important:

1. to maintain health by preventing loss of muscle strength, bone mass, and vitamin deficiency states;
2. to prevent diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, obesity, osteoporosis, and certain cancers; and
3. to help control and/or treat chronic diseases and conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, sleep apnea, and celiac disease.

Maintaining health

The body requires carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals to maintain healthy organs, bones, muscles, nerves, and to produce hormones and chemicals that are necessary for the proper function of organs.

Vitamins and minerals are naturally occurring substances that are essential for the growth and function of the body. Vitamins and minerals are both necessary (in small amounts) for normal chemical reactions (metabolism) in the body.

Preventing and controlling diseases

Obesity and heart attacks are major public-health problems in the United States and other countries. Therefore, most dietary recommendations are aimed at preventing these two diseases. Obesity comes over time by eating more calories than the body burns. Obesity, in turn, can be a cause of many diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, liver disease, arthritis, high blood pressure, gout, gallstones, and certain cancers.

To lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, it helps to eat more low-energy-dense foods. Low-energy-dense foods (such as vegetables and fruits) contain few calories per unit volume of food so that one can eat a large volume of it (for example, lettuce) without taking in many calories. One should also eat less of the high-energy-dense foods such as fats, egg yolks, fried foods, sweets, and high-fat salad dressings. Foods with a high energy density also often have high cholesterol and saturated fat content. One should also eat less of those foods that provide calories but little other nutrients, such as alcohol and many packaged snack foods.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, published in 2010 by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), contains guidelines for healthy diets based upon review of scientific studies for people above 2 years of age. These guidelines recommend that a healthy diet should:

• balance calories with physical activity to manage weight;
• consume more of certain foods and nutrients such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat dairy products, and seafood;
• consume fewer foods with sodium (salt), saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, added sugars, and refined grains.

MyPyramid is an online animated program to help a person customize his/her diet by choosing proper foods and portion sizes based on the individual's age, sex, and activity level. The key objectives of the MyPyramid Plan are to help a person get the most nutrition (proteins, vitamins, and minerals) out of the recommended number of daily calories and to achieve a balance between food intake and physical activity to maintain a healthy weight. The MyPyramid Plan recommendations include:

• Make half your grains whole.
• Vary your veggies.
• Focus on fruit.
• Get your calcium-rich foods.
• Go lean with protein.

Find your balance between food and physical activity.

Read more from Medicine.net >>

The Simplest Long-Term Investment Strategy You'll Ever See

From DailyWealth

The Simplest Long-Term Investment Strategy You'll Ever See

By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud
Friday, February 20, 2015

Is your goal as an investor to beat the market?

If your answer is yes, I have news for you...

Not every investor can beat the market. And in many cases, trying to beat the market can shatter your long-term gains...

The truth is, most investors don't come anywhere near beating the market. The chart below tells the story. It shows just how bad returns have been for the typical investor over the past two decades...



While U.S. stocks increased 8.2% a year over this period, the average investor saw less than a third of those gains... just 2.3% a year.

That's actually much worse than it seems over two decades of investing. After 20 years, a $10,000 investment at 8.2% turns into $48,367... a 384% return. The same investment at 2.3% a year turns into just $15,758... a 58% gain.

Said another way, the average investor earned just 15% of the long-term gain on stocks over this 20-year period.

There are plenty of reasons why the typical investor underperforms... High fees, lack of diversification, and trading in and out of the market at the worst possible times are culprits.

The last point is key... investors tend to buy into stocks at the top and sell at the bottom. It crushes their long-term returns.

ETFs can't solve that psychological barrier. But they do offer an easy way to make long-term investment decisions.

Whether you'd like to build a simple portfolio of 60% U.S. stocks and 40% bonds or a complex portfolio with a dozen asset classes, ETFs are a great tool.

You see, ETFs are easy to buy and sell. And more than 1,000 trade in the U.S. So you can invest in just about anything you'd like.

Take a look at the table below. It shows a mock long-term portfolio... And how you could build it in just a few minutes with just a few transactions fees using ETFs...

Read more from DailyWealth >>

How To Find Happiness In Today’s Hectic World

From BarkingUpTheWrongTree

How To Find Happiness In Today’s Hectic World

"Paralysis is the consequences of too many choices."

Eric Barker  |  February 22, 2015

Trying to find happiness in a world so busy and complicated can seem impossible.

What’s weird is that in so many ways our lives are objectively better than our grandparents’ lives were. We have more… yet we often feel worse. Don’t you wonder if life was happier when it was simpler? I do.

Who has the explanation for this? And more importantly, who has answers on how to fix it? I don’t. But I know someone who does.

So I gave Barry Schwartz a call. He’s a professor at Swarthmore College and the author of the bestseller, The Paradox of Choice.

Barry’s work explains why more choice can actually make us miserable and what we can do to simplify our lives and become happier. His fantastic TED talk on the subject has been viewed over 7 million times.




Here’s what you’ll learn in the post below:

• Why a world of so many choices can make us unhappy.
• Why always wanting the best can be a path to clinical depression.
• How gratitude and relationships can be the key to fixing these dilemmas.
• The one sentence you need to remember to start on a path to a simpler, happier life.

Less really is more. Here’s why.

The Paradox of Choice

Economics tells us that more choice is better. And for most of human existence that has been true.

But research is showing that more choice is not always better. Overflowing email inboxes, 500 television channels and 175 different kinds of salad dressing at the grocery store doesn’t make life drastically better — it’s paralyzing. Here’s Barry:

The standard way of thinking about this is that more choice will help some people and hurt no one. But it turns out that when people have too many options, instead of being liberated by all these choices, they’re paralyzed. They can’t choose at all. And if they overcome paralysis, they make worse decisions.

What happens when your employer gives you more choices for your 401K? I’ll tell you what: for every 10 options given the likelihood that you pick any of them goes down by 2%.

Read more from BarkingUpTheWrongTree  >>

Nutrition Panel Calls for Less Sugar and Eases Cholesterol and Fat Restrictions

From NYTimes

Nutrition Panel Calls for Less Sugar and Eases Cholesterol and Fat Restrictions

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR  |  FEBRUARY 19, 2015

A nutrition advisory panel that helps shape the country’s official dietary guidelines eased some of its previous restrictions on fat and cholesterol on Thursday and recommended sharp new limits on the amount of added sugar that Americans should consume.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which convenes every five years, followed the lead of other major health groups like the American Heart Association that in recent years have backed away from dietary cholesterol restrictions and urged people to cut back on added sugars.

The panel said that Americans were eating too much salt, sugar and saturated fat, and not enough foods that fit a “healthy dietary pattern,” like fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, fish and moderate levels of alcohol. Members of the panel said they wanted Americans to focus less on individual nutrients and more on overall patterns of eating, such as a Mediterranean-style diet, which is associated with lower rates of heart disease and stroke.

The panel singled out added sugars as one of its major concerns. Previous dietary guidelines have included warnings about eating too much added sugar, but for the first time the panel recommended that Americans limit it to no more than 10 percent of daily calories — roughly 12 teaspoons a day for many adults — because of its link to obesity and chronic disease.

Americans consume 22 to 30 teaspoons of added sugar daily, half of which come from soda, juices and other sugary drinks. The panel said sugary drinks should be removed from schools, and it endorsed a rule proposed by the Food and Drug Administration that would require a distinct line for added sugars on food nutrition labels, a change the food and sugar industries have aggressively fought.

Many experts, including some who disagreed with the panel’s cautions on salt and saturated fat, applauded its stronger stance on added sugars.

“That was one of the high points of these guidelines, and something that was sorely needed,” said Dr. Ronald M. Krauss, the director of atherosclerosis research at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute. “There is a striking excess of added sugar intake in all age groups across the population.”

Dr. Krauss, the former chairman of the American Heart Association’s dietary guidelines committee, said that the advisory panel’s emphasis on overall dietary patterns was “a tremendous move in the right direction.” As part of that move, the panel dropped a suggestion from the previous guidelines that Americans restrict their total fat intake to 35 percent of their daily calories.

Since they were first issued in 1980, the guidelines have largely encouraged people to follow a low-fat diet, which prompted an explosion of processed foods stripped of fat and loaded with sugar. Studies show that replacing fat with refined carbohydrates like bread, rice and sugar can actually worsen cardiovascular health, so the guidelines encourage Americans to focus not on the amount of fat they are eating but on the type.

The guidelines advise people to eat unsaturated fat — the kind found in fish, nuts, and olive and vegetable oils — in place of saturated fat, which occurs primarily in animal foods.

Read more NYTimes >>

What Greece Is Getting Out of EU Agreement

Greece's aid extension - just kick the can down the road......again!





From Bloomberg

By Karl Stagno Navarra and Jonathan Stearns

(Bloomberg) -- Euro-area finance ministers reached an accord that would keep bailout funds flowing to Greece in return for a commitment to meet certain conditions, buying time to work out the detail of longer-term Greek financing.

Talks in Brussels between officials from the 19 euro-area finance officials concluded Friday evening with an agreement to extend aid to Greece for four months.

“We agreed on four months under conditions,” Austrian Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling told reporters after the meeting. Greece must submit a list on Monday of measures it will undertake in return and “the institutions check whether the list is sufficient,” he said.

Breakthrough in the standoff between Greece and its creditors eases the immediate risk of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government running out of cash as early as next month. It might also go some way to help repair the ties between Greece and Germany, the biggest European contributor to Greece’s 240 billion-euro ($274 billion) twin bailouts and the chief proponent of economic reforms in return.

U.S. stocks rose and the euro advanced with European equity futures amid optimism over the prospects for an accord.

Fed officials worried about hiking rates too soon - minutes

Excerpt Fed minutes:
"Many participants indicated that their assessment of the balance of risks associated with the timing of the beginning of policy normalization had inclined them toward keeping the federal funds rate at its effective lower bound for a longer time."

From YahooFinance

Fed officials worried about hiking rates too soon - minutes

"Even though Fed officials agreed that U.S. economic growth was strengthening, the minutes showed the central bank continuing to struggle with whether it can move ahead with raising rates amid falling inflation expectations."

By Michael Flaherty and Howard Schneider  |  Reuters, February 18, 2015


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve policymakers expressed concern last month that raising interest rates too soon could pour cold water on the U.S. economic recovery, and fretted over the impact of dropping "patient" from the central bank's rate guidance.

The minutes from the Fed's Jan. 27-28 policy-setting meeting, released on Wednesday, show officials grappling to square solid U.S. economic growth with the weakness in international markets as well as worrying about falling inflation expectations in the United States.

Fed officials debated the impact that stubbornly low inflation measures were having on the central bank's confidence in moving ahead with the rate hike plan, the minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee meeting showed.

The central bank is targeting June as the month to begin raising rates, Fed policymakers have indicated.

The minutes shed light on the depth of the Fed's inflation debate and highlight the desire of policymakers to keep interest rates lower for longer.

"I think it's probably much more dovish than anybody anticipated, that's for sure," said Greg Peters, senior investment officer at Prudential Fixed Income, referring to the minutes. "I think June is going to be hard for them to move, but that's not to say they won't."

In its January policy statement, the Fed gave a nod to turmoil in markets across the globe, saying it would take "financial and international developments" into account. It was the first time since January 2013 that the Fed made an overt reference to overseas economic events in its policy statement.

The minutes offered a more detailed view of the overseas concerns, with policymakers noting how China's economic slowdown and tensions in the Middle East and Ukraine posed downside risks to the U.S. economic growth outlook.

The "international" reference in January led bond investors to quickly bet that the Fed would wait longer to raise rates, but bond yields have shot higher since early February. The surge showed that investors were getting more comfortable with the expectation that the Fed's initial rate hike would happen in June, on the back of strong economic growth and jobs data.

The release of the minutes, however, tempered that view, as bond yields fell after the 2 p.m. EST (1900 GMT) release.

"Clearly there are some more dovish members that feel the economy is still not strong enough to support steady pricing, so that is holding the Fed back from normalizing policy," said Alan Gayle, senior investment strategist at Ridgeworth Investments.

CONFLICTING SIGNALS

Even though Fed officials agreed that U.S. economic growth was strengthening, the minutes showed the central bank continuing to struggle with whether it can move ahead with raising rates amid falling inflation expectations.

"Several participants saw the continuing weakness of core inflation measures as a concern," the minutes said, detailing the Fed's internal debate over the conflicting signals sent by different measures of inflation expectations.

Read more from YahooFinance >>

S&P 500 smashes targets, but that doesn't mean stocks have more steam

From MarketWatch


S&P 500 smashes targets, but that doesn't mean stocks have more steam

By Barbara Kollmeyer
Published: Feb 18, 2015

Limping to the finish line, the S&P 500 closed above 2,100 for the first time ever on Tuesday, delivering year-end target goals to Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and Barclays nearly 11 months early. Deutsche Bank’s 2,150 target is not far off, then we start digging into the 2,200 ballpark. What say ye, marksmen?

Those S&P 500 gains weren’t much, and were based on the mere whiff of a rumor linked to one of the craziest eurozone-crisis episodes in recent history. See It Market’s Andrew Nyquist points out that if the S&P 500 closes out the month at current prices, it would mark the biggest percent gain for the month of February since 1998.

He also points out that the index is just 4% up on its September 2014 highs, and for five months, that gain’s not such a huge deal. Last year, the market bottomed around Feb. 3 and ended up more than 4% for the month — which Nyquist says raises the question of how much steam is left this month. Crunching a few numbers, he points to 2,124 and 2,163 as the next resistance levels in this new 2,100-plus territory. More on his thoughts here.

Some scolding from Jones Tradings’s Michael O’Rourke, who calls the “lack of respect for risk is astounding,” with S&P 500 highs coming as a Greek exit from the euro looks more real than ever. And investors keep upping the value of U.S. earnings amid multiple expansion. That comes just as markets are beginning to wake up to a Fed “policy-normalization process mid-year,” he says.

The perennial question: What’s the big money doing? It’s 13F time and fourth-quarter holdings are on the radar, though of course that’s a look back. Late last week, we saw David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management slash the value of equity holdings 40% in that period. But then Daniel Loeb’s Third Point boosted stock holdings. And filings also show Soros has cut back on U.S. stocks. At least late last year.

Scroll down to The Buzz for a completely rundown which stocks the big money was getting in and out of.

If you’re truly bored of Greece, then today’s the day to get your Fed fix, with minutes coming up. And eager beavers will be listening up to see if the Fed is done with being “patient,” especially after Philly Fed’s Plosser was quoted on Bloomberg as saying the central bank is “really close” with regards to a rate rise.

Read more from MarketWatch >>

Deepak Chopra walks the walk of spirituality

"I personally believe your biological age can be 20 or 30 years younger than your chronological age, if you are physically fit, emotionally mature and not reactive [to people or situations]."


From LA Times

Deepak Chopra walks the walk of spirituality

By NANCY LLOYD  |  December 12, 2014


Author Deepak Chopra says belief and biology can link to promote youthfulness and health

 At age 6, Deepak Chopra experienced what he calls "an existential crisis." His grandfather died, and Chopra became frightened when he overheard his uncle remark, "Yesterday he was playing with his grandchildren, and today he is a fistful of ashes." His grandmother tried to comfort him by saying, "Grandfather is with God … in heaven." But for Chopra, that day triggered enduring questions about death, heaven and the meaning of life.

Now 67, Chopra is a prolific writer, spiritual guide and a renowned physician who decades ago championed integrative medicine, a melding of mainstream, Western medicine with alternative treatments.

Chopra suggests a new melding, this time of science and faith, in his latest book, "The Future of God: A Practical Approach to Spirituality for Our Times." He also discusses those ideas in a new public television show, "The Future of God."

He advocates daily meditation — 20 minutes when you get up and 20 minutes in the afternoon. Chopra recently teamed up with Oprah Winfrey to offer online meditations (try one at lat.ms/1vBcESc).

What is the link between belief and biology?

There is a big link between what you hold to be true and what happens in your biology. [Your belief] changes the activity of your genes away from inflammation in the direction of self-regulation. … People who think that, as they age, they grow healthier and wiser, have more endurance and … we are showing, unequivocally, that meditation not only slows down the aging process but reverses some of the biology of aging. I personally believe your biological age can be 20 or 30 years younger than your chronological age, if you are physically fit, emotionally mature and not reactive [to people or situations].

What do you do to stay fit?

I walk about five miles [a day], and I do yoga. Once in a while I do weightlifting and strengthening, but I found that yoga achieves the same thing. So lately I've been doing yoga, meditation and I walk. When I'm in New York, I don't take a cab, I walk. If I take the subway, I get off a couple of stations before I'm supposed to get off.

Read more from LA Times >>

Negative interest rates: Coming to America?

"...there are strong global forces suppressing rates everywhere, and it could mean negative rates remain a feature of markets and at least a theoretical possibility here."

From YahooFinance

Negative interest rates: Coming to America?

Yahoo Finance | By Michael Santoli
February 13, 2015

American savers have had it hard enough, earning next to nothing on bank deposits and money market funds. But could it get worse, with banks here charging depositors interest to hold their money and high-quality bonds yielding nothing at all?

It might seem a curious question, given broad expectations for higher U.S. interest rates, as job growth gathers momentum and the Federal Reserve has openly hinted it is eager to end its seven-year policy of near-zero short-term interest rates.

Yet a collapse in interest rates overseas and the continuing risk of financial shocks is spurring Wall Street economists at least to mull the unlikely prospect of such a scenario developing here.

The specter of negative interest rates has been sweeping across Europe for months. The European Central Bank and those of Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark have set official overnight interest rates among banks below zero in an aggressive effort to encourage borrowing, energize economic growth and stave off deflation, a spiral in which people continually expect prices to fall.

As a result, some banks in Denmark are charging customers for the privilege of keeping their money in deposit accounts there.

Economists at Goldman Sachs Friday explored the possibility that, under unexpected and unwelcome circumstances, rates in the U.S. could slide below zero as well.

The firm concludes that it is “extremely unlikely” that the Fed would move in this direction.

For one thing, the U.S. is growing at nearly the fastest rate among mature economies, which has led the Fed to set the stage for the first short-term interest rate hike in nearly nine years.

Wall Street is debating whether this might occur in June, September or perhaps early 2016. But for now, Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s stated intention and the market consensus is that the next move for rates is up, and likely within the year. If it happens, it will be a modest dose of good news for savers, who could expect to collect slightly more on their money.

Even if damaging financial shocks struck to derail the U.S. recovery or rupture financial markets, a rush to negative rates here appears unlikely. And without negative rates on money banks deposit with the Fed, consumer interest rates would not turn negative.

Goldman points out that even in the depths of the crisis, the Fed rejected the idea of eliminating the 0.25% it pays banks on their excess reserves kept at the central bank. Policymakers were concerned that it would upend the operation of money-market funds, which are viewed by many as a nearly risk-free equivalent to cash and are far more prevalent in the U.S. than in Europe.

There is also a sense that dropping rates below zero would have limited effectiveness in promoting faster growth, and individuals would likely respond by holding more savings in actual cash currency.

The growth rate of physical currency in circulation has indeed accelerated since the Fed dropped rates near zero in 2008. And this was not pocket cash meant for daily expenses.

“In fact,” Goldman economist Kris Dawsey says, “most of the increase in currency outstanding in recent years has occurred in $100 bills, which are less likely to be used for day-to-day transactions.”

The cost of safety

Still, there are strong global forces suppressing rates everywhere, and it could mean negative rates remain a feature of markets and at least a theoretical possibility here.

Large expanses of the global bond market reflect the gravity of zero-percent rates, as investors intent on keeping their capital safe accept negative yields on bonds – ensuring that over the term of the investment they will get back less than the amount paid.

Read more from YahooFinance >>

Bishop Jordan speaking at the Market America World Conference 2015 in Miami

Bishop Jordan speaking at the Market America World Conference 2015 in Miami

Some excerpts:

"You can either live a reasonable life or an unreasonable life. You can live an ordinary life or an extraordinary life. Which life are you choosing?"

"There is no power in thinking  about it. There is no success in thinking about it."

"The default limitations are self-imposed."

Ronald Reagan said:
"There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to
our progress except those we ourselves erect."

"Know when you are being negative. You get what you expect. See, life gives to you the way that you give to life. You will only get in life to the degree that you expect."

How to become a 401(k) millionaire in four easy steps

From Forbes

How to become a 401(k) millionaire in four easy steps

John Wasik  Contributor
PERSONAL FINANCE | 2/11/2015

If it weren't for the tripwires of human behavior, becoming a millionaire would be a pretty easy path to follow.

It's mostly math and good habits.

So when I came across this piece on nowitcounts.com, a Web site for investors over 50, I saw a clear message: If you save consistently, the miracle of compound interest will make you rich.

The good news is that there's no secret as to how this works. In fact, many people have followed this path: At least 70,000 Americans are now 401(k) millionaires, a number that has doubled since 2012, according to Fidelity Investments.

How is that possible? Weren't people supposed to be out of the market and losing money in the wake of this generation's largest financial debacle?

Well, not everyone was out of the market. Millions kept putting money into their 401(k)s as the market climbed.

Stocks alone have more than doubled (as measured by the S&P 500 index) from 2009 through 2014 -- up 168% with dividends reinvested.

That's an 18% annualized return that you could've roughly achieved by doing nothing by holding a no-brainer index fund like the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which only charges you 0.09% annually for holding all 500 stocks in the index.

Becoming a 401(k) Millionaire

So how does the 401(k) Millionaire plan work? Here are four essential things you need to do:

1. Save 10% to 15% of Your Salary -- or More.

This is boiled down multiplication. The more you save, the sooner you'll become a millionaire.

Plus, you don't have to worry about taxes until you pull the money out at a future date. According to nowitcounts.com:

"Fidelity’s 401(k) millionaires had an average company contribution of 5 percent.

In addition, those millionaires deferred about 14 percent of their pay over the 12 years they were studied, amounting to $13,300 a year. That made their total savings rate 19 percent. IRS rules allowed people to defer up to $17,500 of their pay in a 401(k) account in 2014 and as much as $23,000 if you were 50 and older."

2. Invest in Stocks.

Let me refine this a bit: You need to invest in as many stocks as you can from all over the world.

Read more from Forbes >>

This Is the Most Stressed-Out Person in America

"Money remains the top source of stress across the U.S., with work close behind for those employed, followed by the economy, family responsibilities, and personal health concerns."


From Bloomberg


This Is the Most Stressed-Out Person in America

New research into the causes of stress and how we relieve it offers a portrait of an anxious country

by Suzanne Woolley

She’s a woman in her late 20s or early 30s, taking her young son to school on the bus. After she drops him off, she might sneak a quick cigarette before heading to a job that pays less than $50,000 a year. Just another young parent trying to juggle work and family, money and bills.

Or, more accurately, one big ball of composite demographic stress. This woman is a blend of what the American Psychological Association’s 2014 “Stress in America” survey, released on Wednesday, identifies as the most stressed-out parts of American society. While average reported stress levels are down—at 4.9 on a 10-point scale, compared with 6.2 in 2007—“stress is not going down as much for women, for people with low incomes, for young adults, or for people who are parents,” says Norman Anderson, chief executive officer of the APA.

Money remains the top source of stress across the U.S., with work close behind for those employed, followed by the economy, family responsibilities, and personal health concerns. Here’s a breakdown of the Americans who most need a spa vacation—and/or a big fat raise—right now:




Millennials

Americans age 18 to 35 are feeling the most economic heat, and Gen X-ers are right behind them. Millennials pegged their overall stress level at 5.5 on a scale of 1 to 10 and were the most likely generation to say this level rose in the past year—36 percent of millennials, vs. 30 percent of Gen X-ers.

Millennials also reported some of the highest levels of stress related to finances, rating their money angst at 5.4, which compares with an average of 4.7 for all of the adults surveyed by Harris Poll for the APA last August. Three-quarters of millennials and Gen X-ers reported money as a somewhat or very significant source of stress, compared with 64 percent of Americans overall. 
And managing stress isn’t a skill either generation has mastered yet. Many millennials reported feeling isolated or lonely because of stress, although they also reported having an average of 4.8 close friends—hopefully ones they don’t communicate with only on Snapchat.

Read more from Bloomberg >>

Joseph "Fat Joe" Cartagena: Believe

"Don't leave your destiny to chance!"

The Four States of the Market... And Where We Are Now

If you are in the market, you need to know where we are now...don't get caught naked!


From DailyWealth

The Four States of the Market... And Where We Are Now

By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud
Thursday, February 5, 2015

Where do we stand now?

Is it time to get out of the market? Or get in?

Most people don't know...

Why? Because they have no frame of reference... They don't know how to size up today relative to any other time in the markets.

My good friend Meb Faber came up with a simple solution for you on our latest Inside True Wealth podcast...

Meb talked about the "the four states of the market" when I asked him if he was more of a "value" investor or a "momentum" investor. Here's what he said about value and momentum:

It's sort of like talking about politics or religion, right? Many people are either firmly Republican or Democrat, or Christian or Muslim or Hindu or whatever it may be. And that's the way it is with value and momentum. Most people are one of either... To be able to have both perspectives, put them in your head, and not go crazy is rare.

Meb does keep both perspectives...

If you look at a very simple example, which is the U.S. stock market, you can put it into a box with four possible states based on trend and value.

So you have the best state 1) cheap and going up. Then the next best is actually 2) expensive but still going up, which is where we are now in my mind. And then it goes to 3) cheap but going down, and the worst possible state is 4) expensive and going down.

Right now, Meb sees us in the second best of the four states of the market – expensive but still going up.

His big concern is that if the trend switches to going down, then we enter the worst state of the market – expensive and going down. Meb says:

The bad news is you could flip from one of the better states right now, which is what we're in – expensive and going up – to expensive and going down.

And so that, in my mind, I see as kind of the signal to batten down the hatches. You know, we've been in this incredible bull run six years going on, and at some point, the trend will change.

So how do you get out? Meb said:

We did a paper called "Learning to Love Investment Bubbles" that looked at the most famous bubbles in history, so everything from Japan in the '80s, to other types of bubbles, and using something just as very simple as a 200-day moving average to exit... Just to say, "you know what, I'm gonna get out at some point."

If you had sold back in 2007 when the stock market fell below the 200-day moving average, you would have gotten out near 1,500 on the stock market – and you would have missed the crash all the way down to 666. Take a look...




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4 Ways to Be a Smarter Investor

From Money

4 Ways to Be a Smarter Investor

Walter Updegrave

Today's bull market won't last forever. Here are 4 ways to prepare for when the going gets tough.

Given how stock prices have surged the past five years, you didn’t exactly have to be a financial whiz kid to earn big gains. But this generous market won’t last forever. Sooner or later, it will give way to a stingier version that will not only giveth but taketh, a market that won’t be so forgiving about mistakes.

Here are four tips that can help you prepare so you’ll be ready when the market gets tough.

1. Don’t be a “bull market genius.” Pretty much anywhere you put your money in recent years you reaped impressive returns. All nine of Morningstar’s U.S. equity style categories returned an annualized 14% or more the past five years. That’s good. It’s helped investors fatten up retirement accounts that took a big hit back in the financial crisis.

But long-sustained rallies in stock prices can be dangerous. Investors can get the impression that it’s their investing prowess, their ability to sort through the array of investments available and pick out the winners, that’s responsible for the gains they’re racking up. Investing wags have a name for such people: “bull market geniuses.”

In fact, if you look more closely, you’ll see that even professional investors are really doing little more than riding a rising market. The latest SPIVA Scorecard from S&P Dow Jones Indices shows that more than 70% of U.S. stock fund managers underperformed their benchmark index over the past five years.

The lesson for individual investors: Don’t ever fall for the illusion that you’re in control when it comes to the markets. Although we’re not totally at the market’s mercy—we can decide how much to put in stocks vs. bonds and how we react when the market sizzles or fizzles—we largely must settle for the returns the markets deliver. Lose sight of that fact, and you may pay dearly.

2. Avoid the smorgasbord syndrome. If you’ve been to one of those all-you-can-eat buffets, you’ve seen how high people can pile their plates with all manner of entrees, salads, appetizers, and desserts. Many people invest the same way. They load up their portfolio with every new fund, ETF, or other investment that comes along. But that approach no more creates a well-balanced portfolio than choosing one of every item from a smorgasbord gives you a balanced diet. When it comes to investing your retirement savings—or investing any money—simpler is better. The more you keep adding investments to your portfolio in the name of diversification, the more likely you’re di-worse-ifying than diversifying. Keep it simple.

3. Focus on fees, not returns. Ever been to a party where someone held court about how he doubled his money in some hot IPO or other investment? How many times have you been to a gathering where someone bragged about paying less than 0.20% for a total stock market index fund? Probably never. Start a conversation like that, and you’ll find people quickly making for the crudité.

But even though expenses may not be the sexiest investment topic, I’d argue they’re one of the most important. And the more control you exercise over how much you pay for investments, the larger the nest egg you’re likely to end up with in retirement. Although it’s possible for some investment managers to post returns high enough to offset outsize fees, those who do so consistently are rare—and hard to identify in advance. A better course: stick to low-cost index funds. You’ll get to keep more of whatever returns the markets are delivering and, as I’ve shown before, potentially increase your retirement income by 40%. See how that fact goes over at the next cocktail party.

4. Ignore the circus. Everybody loves it when the circus comes to town. The trapeze artists, the lion tamers,t he clowns, the elephants…the whole atmosphere makes for a good time. There’s an investing circus too—carnival barker pundits touting their stock picks, the investment strategists looking into their crystal balls to foretell the market’s future, analysts walking the tightrope of making bold calls and hedging them at the same time—and it’s in town every day.

If you simply enjoy the Fellini-like spectacle, fine. Watch and enjoy. But don’t let the hype and the hoopla distract you from your investing strategy. The investment circus crowd is always jabbering away about something—the Alibaba IPO one day, the possibility of a market meltdown the next, etc.—but it’s more sound and fury than insight, or at least insight you should act on. Once you’ve built a mix of low-cost stock and bond index funds that jibes with your goals and tolerance for risk, stick to it, periodically rebalance your portfolio to bring it back to its original proportions—and ignore the financial equivalent of tumblers, contortionists, daredevils, and other performers looking to draw you into their tent.

Walter Updegrave is the editor of RealDealRetirement.com. He previously wrote the Ask the Expert column for MONEY and CNNMoney. You can reach him at walter@realdealretirement.com.

You can read a series of articles Road to Wealth from Money >>

Falling Behind on Alzheimer’s Research

From AARP


Falling Behind on Alzheimer’s Research

As research funding lags, cases are increasing — with staggering costs

by T.R. Reid, AARP Bulletin, January/February 2015

The most expensive disease in America is devouring federal and state health care budgets, and depleting the life savings of millions of victims and their families. But the greatest cost of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia is not financial, but personal. This cruel ailment steals our memories, steals our independence and finally steals our dignity by eroding the ability to manage the basic tasks of daily life.

Recent studies show that the cost of caring for Americans with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias has surpassed the cost of treatment for cancer patients or victims of heart disease. And these costs are virtually certain to go up. While the deaths from some cancers and heart disease are declining, the number of Alzheimer's cases continues to increase every year as the population grows older. "If we don't get some control over this disease," says Huntington Potter, a neurobiologist at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, "it's going to bankrupt both Medicare and Medicaid."

And yet Alzheimer's is an also-ran when it comes to federal funding for research on prevention and treatment. In the intense political competition for federal dollars, other diseases come out far ahead of Alzheimer's. Washington has committed some $5.4 billion this fiscal year to cancer research, about $1.2 billion to heart disease and $3 billion to research on HIV/AIDS. Research funding for Alzheimer's will reach only about $566 million.

"It's just a fact that some diseases have stronger political backing, and that leads to federal funding," says Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who chairs the Senate Special Committee on Aging. "If you contrast our Alzheimer's funding to the other major diseases, or compare the spending on research to the cost of care, we're not spending nearly enough to find ways to deal with this problem."

A devastating disease
The Alzheimer's Association estimates that 5.2 million Americans had Alzheimer's disease in 2014, a figure that has risen steadily over the years. Nearly two-thirds of Alzheimer's sufferers are women. Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, which is a collective term for a number of conditions marked by a loss of mental abilities. Generally the disease begins near the hippocampus, the brain's memory center, and then spreads to areas of the brain that control language, judgment and physical activity.

The disease was named for a German physician, Alois Alzheimer, who presented a case study in 1906 of a female patient exhibiting loss of memory and other cognitive issues. An autopsy of her brain showed the buildup of proteins that are now known to be hallmarks of the diseases. These proteins form clumps known as "plaques," which appear to contribute to neuron death, and "tangles" of protein fiber that disrupt the neuron's transit system. Eventually communication between neurons breaks down.

Read more from AARP