Juggling Dynamite

Acknowledging and accepting constraints on time, growth and resources is essential inspiration for wise solutions. Doing more with much less is the goal.  The destructive “all you can eat” mentality that assumes endless resources, is an idea whose time is gone.  Thank goodness for that…

Navi Radjou has spent years studying “jugaad,” also known as frugal innovation. Pioneered by entrepreneurs in emerging markets who figured out how to get spectacular value from limited resources, the practice has now caught on globally. Peppering his talk with a wealth of examples of human ingenuity at work, Radjou also shares three principles for how we can all do more with less.  Here is a direct video link.

Late in every market cycle, financial gurus who are mandated to stay fully invested in equities at all times start talking about dividend paying stocks being ‘defensive” picks in ‘corrections’. If only that were true.

This chart of the Canadian financial Index (XFN) is just one poignant example.  From a high just under $33 last November when all the usual suspects were saying their usual “we love the banks in here”, the financial index dumped 36% to trade at $21 a share this morning, before quickly rebounding back to the $28.00 range this afternoon (still down 14% from last November).  Lest some think this an irrelevant blip, sudden crashes in heinously over-valued, highly levered markets tend to be foreshadowing of more lasting mean-reversion moves to come.  Dividends will be insufficient salve for such deep capital wounds, as years of expected income are outweighed by principal losses.

Today while trusting clients go about their daily lives, few will have noticed the warning shot marked out this morning by many of the most trusted ‘blue chip’ shares. It will not be until prices start closing at fresh lows on monthly statements that most will be aware of the damage done to their savings.

Marc Faber has long been a gold bull, so he is naturally also not a U$ bull (which has been wrong over the past 4 years) but overall his comments in this clip are worthwhile.

‘Gloom, Boom and Doom Report’ Editor Marc Faber on the market selloff. Here is a direct video link.