Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - The Underground Economy One of the reasons it is so hard to make economic predictions, is because there is so much information that analysts don’t have much data on, despite their show of confidence. One of those factors is the black market or underground economy. That is a part of the financial plumbing, where trade and employment are neither reported nor ta...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Governments Subsidize Key Industries COVID helped us to realize that having local suppliers of essential products is important. That is why governments are working hard to reshore production of critical items like drugs, medical supplies, rare earths, chemicals and batteries. To fast track the transition, governments are buying shares in companies, guaranteei...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Country Subsidies China has an investment strategy it took three decades for the west to figure out. Beijing, looked for the next generation of promising industries like electric cars, batteries, solar and communications technology. They then supported start up companies in these key sectors with subsidies that allowed them to produce products cheaper than an...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Ways To Play AI Is SpaceX important to the future of AI? Of course? Whether you should buy it, is an entirely different discussion. At current prices, investors are paying $90 dollars for every dollar of sales the company generated last year. That is extraordinarily rich. If you want to participate in AI by owning companies with more reasonable valuations, lo...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - IPO Performance The markets are seeing more owners taking their companies public, than we have seen in years. Names like SpaceX and Antropic, the Artificial intelligence platform, have got the markets buzzing. But the question investors should be asking, is how have new issues performed compared to the markets as a whole. Is it worth venturing into this unkno...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Are Tariffs Here To Stay? Back in February, many foreign countries breathed a sigh of relief when the US Supreme Court struck down the broad based tariffs that the Trump administration imposed. This set in motion a mad scramble by US companies to apply for the 166 billion in refunds these tariffs had accumulated. Trump, unfazed, said he would be back with a n...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Defensive Portfolios Building a defensive stock portfolio isn’t rocket science. For ideas, just think about all the products and services you need to buy whether the economy is good or bad. You switch on the lights when it is dark. Turn up the thermostat when it gets cold. Take the trash to the curb once a week. You shower, shave and eat breakfast before driv...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Taxing Unrealized Profits The next frontier in governments ever increasing reach to separate you from your money is the annual taxation of unrealized profits on assets, even though they continue to be held and aren’t sold. In their crosshairs are investments like stocks, homes, businesses, art, precious metals and cryptocurrency. Countries have been watching...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - The Kid Headache A lot of retirees are able to look back on a life filled with great careers, substantial charitable commitments, deep friendships and financial success. Yet their one sore point, is kids who never give them the time of day, except when they need the bank of mom and dad to bail them out financially. If you have this kind of relationship, do wh...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Six Minutes It just makes sense, to do your homework before making an expensive purchase. Car buyers on average, do over 10 hours of online research, and visit at least four dealerships before closing a deal. Home buyers spend approximately 124 hours over several months, researching and looking for a home before making a purchase. Contrast this to the average...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Vehicle Purchase Scams In the past, buying a car was usually done in person. You would meet the owner or go to a dealership and see someone face to face. Then would come the vehicle inspection, test drive and discussion about price. Today more and more auto transactions are taking place on line. The buyer never meets anyone and doesn’t see the vehicle until i...

AI’s Second Act Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Investors who are disappointed because they missed out on the recent huge gains made by AI stocks shouldn’t feel the party is over. We are likely early in the game - just finishing Round 1. Where AI models and supporting infrastructure get tested and developed. Round 2 is the global rollout. This is where Artificial Intelligence finds its prac...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Patience & Energy Investing The biggest spikes in oil prices historically, have always occurred as a result of wars, embargoes, or other political tensions in the Middle East. The reason is obvious. This area produces 30% of the world’s total crude, so any disruption sends prices skyward. What isn’t so obvious, is the timing of those disruptions. Most have ca...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Working Longer People are living longer, healthier lives. Over the past 50 years, average global life expectancy has risen from 62 to 75 years. Developed countries saw longevity increase from 72 to 82 years. This has many experts worried that those extra years in retirement, and the risk of lower government benefits, will lead to a financial crisis. Thankfull...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - The Alberta Advantage Revisited The Alberta advantage, is all about living in a place where you can earn more, and your cost of living, especially for homes and taxes, is less. This advantage really shows up in the amount people can save. Between 2019 and 2025, the average Alberta household was able to put about $65,000 in the piggy bank. BC, because of its h...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Share Buybacks & Stock Prices For well over a century, most of the gains from owning stocks came from the dividends they paid - up to 90% in fact. Then things began to change. In our present era, only 30% of gains come from dividends. The remainder, or 70%, now comes from share price appreciation. One of the reasons for this, is, companies are using more of t...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Dividend Growth Dividend paying stocks are a wonderful thing. But companies, that can both, pay and grow their dividends over time - are even better. Like many Canadian investors, I have banks stocks in my portfolio that have been owned continuously for decades. This sector has amply rewarded us for our patience. Many of these bank shares have grown their div...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Strategic Reserves & Supercycles During the Covid epidemic, global supply chains collapsed, leading to shortages of many critical goods. It is happening again with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. We are experiencing shortages in oil, natural gas, fertilizer, aluminum and sulphur. The country that has spent many decades preparing for this is China. They h...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - The Best of Times Even though the world has its problems, we are still living in the greatest period in history. Across the long arc of human existence, economic growth crawled forward at a rate of perhaps 0.1 percent per year. This was enough to support a very gradual increase in population, but not enough to improve the average persons living standards. The...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Orbital Data Centers Rocket companies are the next big thing among tech investors. They will provide the transportation needed to build data centers in outer space. The advantage touted by fans of orbital data centers, is that they can be powered by solar energy - which is available 24/7 in space. The disadvantages no one wants to talk about, are the incredib...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - We The People I recently watched a public debate on economic policy. The audience would cheer and applaud every time one of the debaters would blame politicians, the rich, or big business for the economic quagmire we are in. Over the 90 minute event, the one group that was conveniently ignored was the general public. You, me, the neighbour next door, the rest...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Old School Economics Current economic thinking is to narrow the tax base as much as possible and get fewer and fewer people to pay more and more. And secondly, the solution to everything involves spending lavishly and not fiscal restraint. I am obviously showing my age here, but I can remember not too far back when most nations pushed for policies that expand...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - A Needle In The Haystack Some sectors of the economy are fairly easy to determine, which individual companies in it, will be winners or losers. Other sectors like technology, bioscience and junior mining are very hard. The number of companies in these areas that become successful are small in number…but for the ones that make it…the payoffs can be huge. For m...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Investing & Ego Investing in stocks is no place for those who have never been wrong or can’t be bear to be wrong. Some people are wired psychologically with a need to be consistently correct. For people like that, investing will simply chew them up mentally. Investing is a messy business. You make lots of mistakes, and all those mistakes are very visible. Eve...

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Why Markets Remain High The stock markets keep hitting all time highs in spite of tariffs, regional wars, trade embargoes and $100 oil prices. This is leaving investors wondering why stocks continue to levitate on what seems like thin air. The answer involves money flows into artificial intelligence and defence. The estimated cost to build out AI infrastructu...