Thursday, December 29, 2016

We've had bad luck with our kids - they've all grown up.

So the town I live in is about 40 minutes' drive from the city of Sydney. So where I live is not a city. It is definitely a town, and it's quite quiet. The street that I live in is very quiet. We don't get a lot of traffic because we're off the highway, and so it's very low noise. So when we come off the street, we go down a very steep driveway. That driveway is shared between two houses: us and our neighbors. And even though we live reasonably close to our neighbors, we don't hear any of their noise and they don't hear any of ours.

It's not just U.S. equity markets that are impacted. For example, I cover African markets for other products at VOA, and fluctuations in the dollar impacts their economies drastically since African economies are large importers of basic goods and services. So, for example, Nigeria's local currency, the Naira, is at historically low levels against the dollar, which makes imports more expensive. Now, should Janet Yellen and the Fed decide to raise interest rates, the dollar will trade higher relative to other currencies, and that will, in the short term, hurt prices of economies dependent on imports because cost will get passed down to the consumer.

Be sure to wear a thick coat when you go out tonight.

I don't think I'll need a coat this evening, it's been reasonably warm out all day.

I know, but there has been a lot of fluctuation in temperature lately.

Do you really think there will be a steep drop in temperature within just a few hours?

Yes, I do. So please dress warmly, or you might get sick.