So Baby Boomer: Life Tips

Blogging Boomer Gratitude

While people may express gratitude when they gather at Thanksgiving, showing appreciation is far from traditional at the office.

The workplace ranks dead last among the places people express gratitude, from homes and neighborhoods to places of worship. Only 10% of adults say thanks to a colleague every day, and just 7% express gratitude daily to a boss, according to a survey this year of 2,007 people for the John Templeton Foundation of West Conshohocken, Pa., a nonprofit organization that sponsors research on creativity, gratitude, freedom and other topics.  Spouses, partners, children, parents, friends and mere acquaintances are up to four times more likely to get a thank-you, participants said.

That is why Blogging Boomer Carnival #287 is focused on giving thanks to the people we care about and to what we have received in our lifetime.  Thanksgiving is a significant cultural meme that goes back deep into our history:

By the time fall arrived in 1621, things were going much better for the Pilgrims who crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1620 to what today we call Plymouth, MA within the United States of America, thanks to the help they had received. The corn they planted had grown well. There was enough food to last the winter. They were living comfortably in their Indian-style wigwams and had also managed to build one European-style building out of squared logs. This was their church.  They were now in better health, and they knew more about surviving in this new land.  The Pilgrims decided to have a thanksgiving feast to celebrate their good fortune.  They had observed thanksgiving feasts in November as religious obligations in England for many years before coming to the New World.

Today, here is what we are thankful for:

Laura Lee over at the Midlife Crisis Queen says, "Humility has taught me to feel gratitude for every day I am given." Learn more about how humility and gratitude are healthy!

Vaboomer says to be thankful is to think good thoughts: 

http://tinyurl.com/thankful-thoughts.

SoBabyBoomer is thankful for the heartfelt acknowledgment we receive from boomers who visited our blogging boomer carnivals over the last five years. 

Rita R. Robison, consumer journalist blogging at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, is thankful for her family and having a house to live in and a car to drive. Rita also is thankful she has health care insurance.

Tom Sightings knows plenty of people who decided not to get married, who decide not even to get roommates.  They choose to live the solo lifestyle, which does offer its advantages.  But he is thankful for the people he lives with -- his Significant Other, as well as various children who occasionally stop by for a visit, all people who love him, support him, dine and sleep with him, and occasionally annoy the hell out of him.

What are you thankful for today?

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Think of Investing as a trip.

(Here are Part 1 and Part 2 of this article.)

Think of Investing as a Trip

Here's my advice: View the Elliott wave Principle as your road map to the market and your investment idea as a trip.

You start the trip with a specific plan in mind, but conditions along the way may force you to alter course. Alternate counts are simply side roads that sometimes end up being the best path.

Elliott's highly specific rules keep the number of valid interpretations to a minimum. The analyst usually considers the "preferred count" to be the one that satisfies the largest number of guidelines. The top "alternate" is the one that satisfies the next largest number of guidelines, and so on.

There are only three hard-and-fast rules with the Wave Principle:

1. Wave two cannot retrace more than 100% of wave one.
2. Typically wave four does not end within the price territory of wave one but may do so from time to time in highly leveraged markets.
3. Wave three is never the shortest wave of an impulse.

Elliott's rules give specific "make-or-break" levels for a given interpretation. In Figure 2, for example, if the move labeled (2) continues below the level of the beginning of wave (1), then the originally preferred interpretation would be instantly invalidated.

By eliminating subjectivity, the rules help you firm up your investment strategy -- and reduce your risk.

"Are We There Yet?"

You've heard that irritating question, "Are we there yet?," from the back seat just about a million times. Every map has a scale, and it's the scale that helps me determine how many miles I have to travel before I reach my destination. When using the Wave Principle, Fibonacci relationships are the scale.

Many investors today know that Fibonacci ratios are used for market forecasting. But few realize that Fibonacci analysis of the markets was pioneered by R.N. Elliott. The use of Fibonacci ratios requires a valid Elliott wave interpretation as a starting point. Unfortunately, many non-Elliott analysts try to find Fibonacci proportions between market moves that are not related to each other in any way. This has made the approach appear to be far less valuable than it is.

Elliott wave analysis has two chief insights concerning Fibonacci relationships within waves. First, corrective waves tend to retrace prior impulse waves of the same degree in Fibonacci proportion. For example, wave (2) in Figure 2 retraces 38% of wave (1). That's a common relationship. Other frequent wave relationships are 50% and 62%. Second, impulse waves of the same degree within a larger impulse sequence tend to be related to one another in Fibonacci proportion. For example, common relationships include wave three traveling 1.62 times the distance traveled by wave one of the same degree. When that occurs, wave five often tends toward equality with wave one of the same degree.

Planning the Trip

Just as I sit down and plan my trips before shoving off, I rely on wave interpretations and Fibonacci relationships to help establish investment strategies and reduce risk exposure when I analyze the markets for our clients. Investors use these same wave analysis methods to help decide where to get into a market, where to get out and at what point to give up on a strategy. The Wave Principle lets you identify the highest probability direction for the market, as you also adopt an optimum position to take advantage of it -- all while protecting yourself against lower probability outcomes. You couldn't ask more from your own GPS.

By the way, we did make it to Cades Cove on our way back across Smoky Mountain National Park. I turned off my GPS and consulted my map. The old tried and true worked like a charm.

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Who is Jim Martens?
Jim is one of the very few forex Elliott wave instructors in the world, and a long-time editor of EWI's Currency Specialty Service. A sought-after speaker, Jim has been successfully applying Elliott since the mid-1980s, including 2 years at the George Soros-affiliated hedge fund, Nexus Capital, Ltd.

Catch up on Jim's latest thoughts about FX markets and the business of trading them at his Twitter feed.

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Download Your Free 14-page eBook: "Trading Forex: How the Elliott Wave Principle Can Boost Your Forex Success" Here's some of what you'll learn: Which Elliott waves to trade Which Elliott waves set up your forex trade When your analysis is wrong Guidelines for projecting price targets How to evaluate an Elliott wave structure How to use the bigger picture to give you perspective on the market's next major move Jim also takes you through two real-world trading examples to reinforce what you've learned and apply it to your own trading. All you need is a free Club EWI profile to download this FREE 14-page eBook now >>

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Which Works Best -- GPS or Road Map? (Part 3). EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

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Boomers Live Elsewhere From Gloversville

Glovemaking, one of the few handicraft industries in the United States, began over 250 years ago in an upstate New York community that would come to be called Gloversville.

Sir William Johnson (who received the only baronetcy ever granted on American soil) persuaded a shipload of Scottish Highlanders from Perthshire to brave the Atlantic to establish the glovemaking industry in the New World.  The Highlanders brought their tools--needles, thread, and the sword-like shears necessary for cutting leather--and they brought the closely guarded guild craft techniques of Europe. 

Material they found in abundance.  Indians provided the deerskin hides that gave gloves a unique durability and feel.  And the U.S. glove making craft was born.  Sir William settled close to Gloversville, then known as "The Gate of the Adirondacks," and later married a full-blooded Mohawk woman.  Thus Sir William and his wife symbolize the marriage of European and native American glovemaking art.

I was born in Gloversville, NY during World War II, to a family with deep roots in the glovemaking business.  I even worked in a Gloversville tannery during summers of my University of Florida years, but lived elsewhere during and after college.

My earliest ancestors had settled in this part of the world as early as the 1630s...trading among the American Indians and one, Cornelis Antonissen Van Sleyck, was even adopted into the Mohawk tribe after being married to Otstock, whose mother was American Indian and her father was a Frenchman named Hartell.  The Dutch name of Margretta was given to Otstock and, as a family tradition, has been handed down (as middle name) within the extended family (including my sister, Jill).   

The crystal-clear water from the Adirondack mountains was perfect for the tanning of deerskin to a velvety soft texture.  The leather gloves and mittens produced were traded with the tin peddlers from Boston and the local economy flourished.  The age-old tradition of glovemaking survived virtually intact in Gloversville, allowing the community to easily weather the Great Depression and World War II because everyone needed gloves.  Glove manufacturing was the stimulus for full employment as one manufacturing job created 5 to 8 other supplier and service jobs throughout the community.

However, in the early 1960s, glove manufacturing began to move outside the country where lower cost labor was available.  Today, most gloves are made offshore, in places like China and Indonesia, where wages are 20 to 30 times less than what American workers must make to survive.  Rather than invest in automating the U.S. glovemaking process, glove manufacturers, with the support of government, chose to move to the lowest cost labor source.  This resulted in many of the Baby Boomer Generation, who were born in Gloversville, finding employment opportunities elsewhere.

"The encouragement of mere consumption is no benefit to commerce; for the difficulty lies in supplying the means, not in stimulating the desire of consumption; and we have seen that production alone furnishes those means.  Thus, it is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption."  Jean Baptiste Say

Richard Russo's memoir, "Elsewhere," brought me back to the place and time of my youth while illustrating the strong magnetic pull the place has on me to this day.

In mid-life, I even attempted to retain the age-old tradition of glovemaking in Gloversville during the 1980s & 1990s against the tide of mass-produced, cookie-cutter gloves globally manufactured at labor rates 30 times lower. Our Signature Series brand gloves "fit like a glove" was meant to be made. Painstakingly. Individually. With expert craftsmanship.  And made for discriminating individuals who demanded the very best....and who have attempted to reorder their custom-made gloves long after we were forced to close Signature Glove Manufacturing.

"Elsewhere" illustrates how our lives are affected by the changes that cultural memes (like post-World War II women supporting themselves, when it was no longer fashionable to wear fine gloves to hide aging hands, etc.), manufacturing industries moving to the lowest labor sources around the world, the effect of technology on the artisan craftsmanship of the past and the "getting out of the ghost towns" of our youth.

Like myself, Richard Russo author of "Elsewhere" was born in Gloversville, New York during the 1940s.  It's where the author got his title from: as both he and his mother Jean moved from place to place-- Arizona, Illinois, and finally Maine-- she couldn't wait to get out of Gloversville.  Then when she was "elsewhere," she always wanted to move back and did for a short time after she had lost a job in Tucson. 

For those who were born in Upstate New York, 60 or 70 years ago, "Elsewhere" will bring back some of those memories of your youth. 

Source:  Richard Russo: Elsewhere: A memoir

 John Agno: Books for Boomers: Reviews & Coaching Tips (FREE)

 John Agno: Boomer Retirement Life Tips ($2.99)

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Boomers Saving While Retirement Waits

People usually save more as they near retirement, and they’re saving extra now that Americans’ wealth has been depleted by the financial crisis.

From 2007 to 2010, median U.S. household net worth fell by 38.8 percent to $77,300, the lowest level since 1992, the Fed said in June. The savings rate has averaged 4.3 percent in the 39 months since the recession ended, compared with an average of 2.3 percent in the same period before the recession. Retirees and older workers also will likely cut spending as they anticipate tax hikes and cuts in Medicare and Social Security. Six out of every 10 baby boomers between the ages of 50 and 61 say they may have to defer retirement.

Federal Reserve officials say they are concerned that retirees are making it harder for the central bank to create more jobs for those still working.  Older people are more likely to avoid purchases of houses, cars, and other pricey items that the Fed is trying to encourage with record-low interest rates.  Their growing numbers are making the Fed’s job even harder.

“Spending decisions of the older age cohorts are less likely to be easily stimulated by monetary policy,” said William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in a speech on Oct. 15. Each day, some 10,000 of the 78 million American boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, turn 65. The share of the population that’s made it to that age will swell to 18 percent by 2030 from 13 percent last year, according to the Pew Research Center in Washington.

Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek, November 19, 2012

 John Agno: Books for Boomers: Reviews & Coaching Tips (FREE)

 John Agno: Boomer Retirement Life Tips ($0.99)

 

Boomers Saving for Retirement

Baby Boomers who can't retire are in almost every organization.

Stung by the recession, many have watched their 401(k)s plummet.  Others have plundered their retirement savings to make mortgage payments or help their kids go to college or stay afloat.  The result: Thousands are psychologically ready to retire, but financially unprepared and unable.

"With the decline in pensions [and] defined-benefit plans, it's becoming apparent that people have been woefully deficient in putting enough aside to meet their retirement goals," says Kent Allison, partner and national practice leader in the financial education practice at PwC in New York.  "The average 401(k) balance is $25,000.  Among those over the age of 50,  it's only $100,000.  It's in no way sufficient to replace what historically was provided by a defined-benefit plan."

Thirty-seven percent of 1,700 working American adults nationwide cited not being able to retire on time as their top concern, according to PwC's 2012 National Financial Wellness Survey. That's an increase of 19% in just one year.  Not surprisingly, more than half (53%) of employees said they plan to retire later than they had previously planned.  Sixty percent of those individuals said they were delaying retirement because they hadn't saved enough.

Source: Human Resource Executive, November 2012

 John Agno: Books for Boomers: Reviews & Coaching Tips (FREE)

 Boomer Retirement Life Tips explores their personal strategy and saving for retirement to where they will retire, how to handle aging parents and adult children, to health and wellness tips for aging like fine wine and deciding on a phased retirement or encore career. 

Sample for free or purchase for $1.99 this new retirement life tips ebook at: www.smashwords.com/books/view/106452

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Veterans Day: Remembering Leadership Lessons

Last week, my grandson asked me to provide him some information on my military service during the Vietnam Conflict Era--for a report he and his classmates were engaged in to recognize those who have served their country on Veterans Day.

The life changing experiences our men and women in uniform have encountered during their active duty have given them an opportunity to learn and demonstrate effective leadership principles and to better understand what is important to them and those they serve.

What is the meaning of life?

Our life signature is the tracing of the talents we are given and how we express them in our lives.  We are all blessed with a few God-given signature talents.  A big part of your life is discovering what these are, then utilizing and applying them to the best of your ability.

"No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him." James Russell Lowell

To clearly define your areas of brilliance, ask yourself a few questions and take some self-assessments.  What do you do effortlessly?  What do you do that other people find difficult? 

Where will you be at your most powerful?

How you can make an immediate impact?

How you can win as a leader?

For example, my top two StandOut strength roles are "Equalizer" and "Pioneer" because I love order but thrive in the unknown---an explorer, yet I am grounded in intelligent argument.  I know how to articulate my values and guiding principles clearly and concisely (nobody has to guess) and this makes my relationships straightforward and simple.  The greatest value I bring to my followers is: I won't allow us to charge ahead without proper preparation.

As a structured and optimistic leader, I inspire followers to bet against the law of averages to achieve higher and sustained performance.   My career or life signature is bringing order to opportunity.  An organized trailblazer, I have forged ahead with a clear purpose, and with confidence that comes from knowing that my "supply lines" would not be broken. 

Great leaders can be born into a culture of leaders--the Kennedys, for example--but birthright is no guarantee that someone will become the real deal.  Real leaders are made; they learn through trial and error on the job and are nurtured and developed through time.

Honing those leadership skills can happen outside the workplace, too.  One of the many leadership "laboratories" helpful to emerging leaders is their college fraternity.  Serving your fraternity brothers and university community in different roles affords numerous types of leadership training.  You learn quickly how to deal with adversity and constructive criticism, as well as how to improve, grow and handle increased responsibility.

After I graduated from the University of Florida (as an officer in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam Conflict Era), the country and my fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, was experiencing a segregation versus integration conflict.  While on active duty, within a 70 officer leadership class, the first African-American member of Sigma Phi Epsilon and I became good friends as we two fraternity brothers competed for the "top gun" [Honor Graduate] of our leadership class.   He later became Bill Clinton's presidential campaign manager and, after they won the election, he was the Secretary of the Commerce Dept. in the Clinton Administration.  Commerce Secretary Ron Brown died in an airplane crash in Europe while serving his country.  The Ron Brown Scholar Program today awards undergraduate college scholarships to academically talented, highly motivated, African-American high school seniors.

True leaders put service above self; empower, don't control; and serve rather than demand to be served.  To develop your own servant leadership potential, practice the art of sacrifice for others rather than thinking of having subordinates or followers.  Champion your team, troops or staff by always helping and promoting them.  Set the most enviable example and let your actions demonstrate what serving others truly means.

Real leadership is not about amassing personal power; it's about the ability to unleash the strengths of others and in turn create a culture of success.

That and other military and corporate leadership experience built on my signature talent to create order while pushing beyond the boundaries of current understanding.

Once you take the StandOut self-assessment, you too will see where your "ideal career" has shown itself and allowed you to acquire the self-knowledge that will continually lead toward expressing your desired life signature.

For a directory of self-assessments, go to: http://www.SelfAssessmentCenter.com

 Marcus Buckingham: StandOut: The Groundbreaking New Strengths Assessment from the Leader of the Strengths Revolution

 John Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership (ebook at $2.99)

 John G. Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership: Self Coaching Secrets (paperback at $28.99)

Blogging Boomer Carnival #284

Come to the Fall flowers carnival where participating blogs are enjoying the season while focusing on Baby Boomer issues from health to midlife crisis to finance and travel. 

As the boomer generation's 60s become the new 40s, this week's boomer-centric articles document newsworthy happenings in their lives.  Be sure to visit SoBabyBoomer's tent at the Accidental Locavore by Anne Maxfield.

 John Agno: Books for Boomers: Reviews & Coaching Tips (FREE)

U.S. Stocks On a Collision Course with Market History

Next time you look at a clear night sky, keep in mind that what you see is the distant past.

Most stars are so distant that it takes millions of years before the light is visible to us.

Even so, astronomers can learn much about the future of the universe by studying the past.

NASA astronomers announced they can now predict with certainty the next major cosmic event to affect our galaxy, Sun, and solar system: the titanic collision of our Milky Way galaxy with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy.

NASA, May 31, 2012

That collision is expected in some 4 billion years.

The Hubble Space Telescope also recently revealed the farthest-ever view of deep space. NASA noted, "The images allow us to follow the development of the universe."

And back here on earth, Elliott wave practitioners study the market's past price patterns to determine the probable development of the present trend.

You see, price patterns repeat themselves at all degrees of trend.

Indeed, Robert Prechter recently discussed how past wave patterns are similar to what's unfolding now:

The ... rallies of 1929-1930 and 1938-1939 are good examples.

The Elliott Wave Theorist, September 2012

Both of those rallies came after steep market declines. Likewise, the present rally of three and a half years commenced after the 2007-2009 market plunge.

Be aware: Both of those past rallies in turn fell back into severe market declines.

The Dow Industrials lost 86% on just the second leg of the 1929-32 bear market, and surrendered 41% during the 1939-42 downtrend.

U.S. markets are likely on a similar collision course with history. The present price pattern is unfolding at a larger degree of trend than those previous two periods.

Position your portfolio for what Prechter calls "History in the Making."

To that end, EWI offers you a no-obligation education in Elliott Wave analysis. See below for details.

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Learn the Why, What and How of Elliott Wave Analysis The Elliott Wave Crash Course is a series of three FREE videos that demolishes the widely held notion that news drives the markets. Each video will provide a basis for using Elliott wave analysis in your own trading and investing decisions. Access the Elliott Wave Crash Course now >>

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline U.S. Stocks On a Collision Course with Market History. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

 Robert R. Prechter Jr.: Conquer the Crash: You Can Survive and Prosper in a Deflationary Depression