Every active investor spends time listening or watching to news, what do the pundits think? Sometimes they are on the correct track, sometimes they talk myth and sometimes they are wrong. To continually fill the space at a relatively inexpensive cost, pundits will be used. The trick is to identify which is which.

Recently Scott Barlow writing in the Globe and Mail wrote about 3 investment myths:

1. Gold goes up in price because of Trump’s inconsistent policies. The inconsistent policies are a given with the new President, however gold has only been reacting to the US inflation adjusted bond yields. For gold prices, watch the federal reserve bank or fed, not the President.
2. The takeover of retail by online shopping trend is getting faster. While online shopping is popular and consistent, the old trend of people only going to shopping centers has changed to both. The pace of e-commerce sales growth itself has remained the same.
3. While many of us have cut the cords to Cable TV, John Malone of Liberty Media says that is ok because the cable industry is a connectivity business (internet) and video retailer (cell phones). Just about no one is cancelling their internet service and for more and more organizations, you need to be connected to access them, including government services. The cable companies – TV, internet and cell phone companies will continue to earn plenty of cash flow to pay high dividends.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, we hear change is the only constant and start to believe things are really changing. In the world of press reporters, when they have a great story, they need to have verified the sources three times. For many myths you will watch to see long-term statistical trends before you change everything which you have learnt. Are there many challenges, yes; do companies try to deal with them; yes. Do not throw the baby and the bath water, just the bath water.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.