{"id":383,"date":"2018-09-12T03:59:16","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T03:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/?p=383"},"modified":"2020-11-17T03:42:20","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T03:42:20","slug":"musings-from-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/index.php\/2018\/09\/12\/musings-from-the-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Musings from the US"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-385 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/usa-300x177.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"177\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/usa-300x177.jpg 300w, https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/usa-768x454.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/usa.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">I recently returned from a 2 week vacation in the US (it was great to briefly escape the miserable Auckland winter!). \u00a0While in the States, I couldn\u2019t help make a few very unscientific observations, based purely on what I did and what I saw:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">The parts of the US economy most visible to a tourist appear to be thriving.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking airports, hotels, shops, restaurants, night spots, attractions, etc.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">The scale of the US (and the US economy) is just so big.\u00a0 You notice this particularly when you see the size of the transport networks, the massive ports, criss-crossing airport flights, vast industrial areas, and extensive competition for just about everything.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">More than any previous overseas trip, I was totally reliant on the services of major US technology companies.\u00a0 I used Google Maps and Google searches constantly; I stayed connected via Microsoft OneDrive and handled emails with Outlook; transport was often via Uber or Lyft; \u00a0I shopped on Amazon and ebay; I Facebooked.\u00a0 \u00a0I didn\u2019t however use any Apple product or service (and probably never will \u2026 some habits die hard!)<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">From an investment perspective, everything I saw and did highlighted the importance of having highly diversified investments.\u00a0 In this part of the world we have no exposure to the huge US technology sector (Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc), let alone other huge sectors such as automotive and pharmaceuticals.\u00a0 The US economy is surging ahead, while the NZ economy is slowing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">And lets not forget that the market capitalisation of US stocks is around $30 trillion or just under half of the world\u2019s market cap.\u00a0 The US is big!\u00a0 Stock prices have risen significantly over the last few years, but are supported by very strong company earnings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">Granted, there is an unstable president at large in the White House, but despite this, the US seems to be surging forwards, and still looks to me like a good place to invest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">Dean Edwards\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently returned from a 2 week vacation in the US (it was great to briefly escape the miserable Auckland winter!). \u00a0While in the States, I couldn\u2019t help make a few very unscientific observations, based purely on what I did&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":387,"href":"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions\/387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestegginvestments.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}