Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 3.25.16 (plus Masters In Business)

Hope everyone is enjoying their Easter/spring break.  I for one am free for two weeks since everyone I have meetings with is on break, two weeks that I'll be spending doing a lot of writing.  Meanwhile, here's the succinct summation I deliver every week at this time.  And the bonus this Sunday is a one-hour podcast by Slate's Helaine Olen in which she gives quite sage advice on why we should NOT be listening to MOST financial advisors, particularly the ones on TV and cable.  The hint in the opening narrative is that she socks it to the celebrity advisors like Suze Orman, which is fine by me.  I always thought one should be suspicious of these television gurus for, if they really knew what they were talking about, why would they be giving it away on television?  If you're one of the many who are on break this week, enjoy!

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 3.25.16

March 25, 2016 5:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending March 25th 2016

Positives:

1. 3rd estimate for Q4 GDP came in at 1.4%, up from 1.0% previously reported.
2. Jobless claims came in at 265k, with the previous week revised down to 259k.
3. New home sales came in at 512k SAAR, up 2% in February.
4. Bloomberg Consumer Comfort is still strong at 43.6.
5. PMI services flash came in at 51, up from 49.8 previously.

Negatives:

1. Existing home sales fell 7.1% m/o/m, coming in at a 5.080mm annualized rate, well below expectations.
2. Durable goods orders fell 2.8% m/o/m, with the core component falling 1.8% m/o/m.
3. MBA mortgage application composite fell 3.3% w/o/w.
4. Stocks snapped their 5-week winning streak.
5. PMI Manufacturing flash came in at 51.4, below the 52.4 expected.

Masters in Business: Helene Olen - The Big Picture

Masters in Business: Helene Olen

March 25, 2016 9:45am by Barry Ritholtz

In our special Good Friday edition of Masters in Business podcast, we speak with Helene Olen, personal finance columnist for Slate, and Inc. magazine. Olen was named “one of the 50 Women Who Are Changing the World.” She is a graduate of Smith College, and author of Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry, as well as The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to be so Complicated (w/Harold Pollack).

She tells the history of how she accidentally began writing about personal finance – she lived near the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, and when a reporter called in sick, she took a freelance assignment that became a career.

You may be surprised to learn that the personal finance industry has its roots in the Depression era 1930s, and was an outgrowth of the Self-Help industry. We discuss this history as well as many problematic issue of the industry today. As an example, Olen calls financial literacy a failure, with deep ramifications for a future retirement crises.

We discuss her distaste for the “gurus, pundits, self-anointed experts, crackpots, cranks, and outright frauds who populate the backwaters and slipstreams of American finance.” You definitely want to hear what she has to say about personal finance gurus such as Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, and Robert Kiyosaki.

You can stream the full podcast, or download it on Apple iTunes, Bloomberg, or SoundCloud.  

All of our earlier podcasts are at iTunes, Soundcloud and Bloomberg.