Diversification is the Winning Ticket in 2016

Recent volatility notwithstanding, what has been striking about 2016 as an investing year is how relatively good it has been. In fact, the return on a diversified portfolio this year is competitive with many major asset classes, and has restored (for now) some confidence in the age-old mantra of diversification being among the most prudent of investing strategies.

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Trump’s Year of Magical Economic Thinking

 It is a relief that Donald Trump has finally turned to policy. Because now we can see, finally, that his policy ideas are as frothy, bombastic and detached from the world as the rest of his rhetoric. What the GOP candidate outlined in his big economic speech in Detroit on Monday relies entirely on an outdated theory (trickle-down economics)

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Why Trump Can’t Become a Dictator

Not only hasn’t he retracted his pledge to ban Muslims from America’s shores, Donald Trump has doubled down on it over the past week. In the wake of the Orlando shootings, Trump announced that as president he would “suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the U.S.” 

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‘Authoritative’ Pessimism in China

China’s economy, long a source of global dynamism, is changing into a source of instability. Growth, still rapid by international standards, is gradually decelerating, as a nearly three-decade-old investment- and export-led strategy delivers diminishing returns. Yet the Communist Party, beholden to — or composed of — interest groups that benefit from the status quo, has not shifted decisively toward more reliance on consumer demand and investment by private firms. Instead, Beijing continues to goose short-term growth with loans to bloated state-owned banks and industries.

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