Markets have been on a rollercoaster since the start of the year. Last week was no exception.
But despite all the volatility and the scary headlines, like this one on Tuesday…"Markets Live: Fasten seat belts as ASX plunges"
Source: The Age
…the market ended the week down just 0.5%.
I'm still bullish on the market for this year. The US economy continues its recovery, while locally, Australia looks certain to rack up its 24th consecutive recession-free year.
Unemployment appears to be stabilising, and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has upped its forecast for economic growth, in particular the falling Aussie dollar providing additional impetus for exports and a restraint on imports.
Retail sales grew for the eight consecutive month — another sign that consumers are confident enough to keep spending.
Yes, dear Foolish readers — the death of the Australian economy has been greatly exaggerated.
AMP Capital head of asset allocation Nader Naeimi agrees, telling Fairfax media earlier this week…
"After the past week's selling, a really great set of local economic data showed the pessimism about the local economy was overdone." Takeover bid puts a rocket under the junior oil sector
News out on Friday, that Canadian firm Baytex had made a $4.10 per share bid for Aurora Oil & Gas (ASX: AUT), put a ROCKET under the junior oil sector. The offer price was a substantial 56% over Aurora's last closing price — and shows that demand for acreage in prime US shale oil and gas regions is white hot. Aurora is involved in more than 80,000 acres in the heart of these regions, including 22,000 acres in the liquids rich zones of the Eagle Ford.
Several Australian listed companies have already received prime prices for some of their land holdings. Antares Energy (ASX: AZZ) only recently pulled out of a deal to sell its Permian Basin assets for US$300 million.
Its market cap is only just over $100 million currently. Obviously, the company believes the assets are worth more. Time will tell.
Is this the next takeover candidate?
One stock that could be next on the takeover list is Sundance Energy (ASX: SEA).
Shares in Sundance rose 10% on Friday, and with acreage in the US shale regions, may well be the next on auction block.
Sundance is a stock that we have highlighted previously in a Motley Fool Share Advisor report titled 'One small resources company that could win big'. We highlighted Sundance based on its potential production and performance — a takeover offer for the company being the potential icing on the cake.
That said, investing in companies purely on the chance of it receiving a takeover offer is fraught with danger, and not something we recommend.
Other stocks with US oil and gas assets that could be under the microscope include AWE Limited (ASX: AWE), Red Fork Energy (ASX: RFE) and Maverick Drilling and Exploration (ASX: MAD).
Now, onto something less stockmarket related.
When it comes to money and work, two things many of us deem to be the most important in life, the older generation, who have been there before and done it before, have some great advice.
Motley Fool colleague Morgan Housel has written a great article on 10 maxims he found the most fascinating and useful.
Over to you Morgan…
REVEALED: One 'gold plated' stock to buy now
10 Money Lessons From Elderly Americans Who Have Seen It All By Morgan Housel
Karl Pillemer is a gerontologist and a self-described person who "goes directly to the self-help aisle in the megabookstore."
He combined these two passions and interviewed more than 1,000 elderly Americans — most in their 80s and 90s — seeking out advice on how to live a good life. He calls them "the experts." His book, 30 Lessons for Living, is wonderful, and I'd recommend it to everyone.
The experts give advice on everything from raising kids to a proper diet. But I found their advice on money and work the most fascinating, because it goes against so many maxims younger Americans live by. Here are 10 from Karl's book.
1. Young people obsess about making a lot of money. Older people wonder what they were thinking.
When asked about their prescription for happiness at work, what wasn't mentioned spoke the loudest. And fancy statistics aren't necessary because the results are so clear.
No one — not a single person out of a thousand — said that to be happy you should try to work as hard as you can to make money to buy the things you want.
No one — not a single person — said it's important to be at least as wealthy as the people around you, and if you have more than they do it's real success.
No one — not a single person — said you should choose your work based on your desired future earning power.
2. Money is often at war with time. Balance them appropriately.
The view from the end of the life span is straightforward: time well and enjoyably spent, trumps money anytime.
They know what it means to make a living, and they are not suggesting that we all become starving artists. But they also know firsthand that most people who decide on a profession because of the material rewards at some point look back and gasp, "What have I done."
In their view, we all need a salary to live on. But the experts concur that it's vastly preferable to take home less in your pay cheque and enjoy what you are doing rather than live for the weekends and your four weeks holiday a year.
If doing what you love requires living with less, for the experts, that's a no-brainer …
If you are willing to accept a lower income level, you can gain enormous benefits by choosing part-time work as a lifestyle.
Imagine if you suddenly had more leisure than work time. Some experts made this decision: living on much less money, renting rather than owning a house, and forgoing expensive consumer goods to pursue a job and a lifestyle they enjoy.
3. Independence at work is crucial.
When the experts discuss their work lives, two themes go hand in hand: purpose (beyond making a salary) and autonomy. Neither one can be found in every job, every time, but without them work can become a miserable burden…
Career satisfaction is often dependent on how much autonomy you have on the job. Look for the freedom to make decisions and move in directions that interest you, without too much control from the top.
4. You'll spend 40+ hours a week at work for half a century. Make sure you enjoy it.
[Expert:] "No amount of money is worth more than having a job that you're glad to get up and go to every morning, instead of one you dread … I have learned many lessons, but there are only a few that in the long run are meaningful and which I have tried to pass on to my children and students. If you can't wake up in the morning and want to go to work, you're in the wrong job …"
You know those nightmares where you are shouting a warning but no sound comes out? Well, that's the intensity with which the experts wanted to tell young people that spending years in a job you dislike is a recipe for regret and a tragic mistake. There was no issue about which the experts were more adamant and forceful.
Did you miss this?
5. Jump at new work opportunities. I've seen people who turned down a promotion for fear it would be too time-consuming or taxing, or who rejected a chance to spend a year or two abroad because they were "not the adventurous type"
The experts' view? This approach to life is a huge mistake.
Their advice is to embrace new challenges at every turn, saying yes as often as possible. The most frequently reported regrets about work in particular involved times when opportunity knocked and they kept the door firmly closed. According to our elders, the greatest reward you can receive in your career is the opportunity to do more.
6. Not traveling enough is a key source of regret
I learned that whether [the experts] had visited dozens of counties or stayed put in one place, the experts had one thing in common: they wished they had travelled more.
I came away from my interviews with the realisation of the profound meaning travel has at the end of life. To sum up what I learned in a sentence: when your traveling days are over, you will wish you had taken one more trip.
Often, after a long narrative about trips taken, I heard an elder say wistfully, "But I always wish I'd visited …"
7. To succeed at work, you need to be more than talented. You need to be nice.
The experts come from hundreds of different occupations and employers. They have observed people who succeed at work and those who crash and burn. It is on such experiences that this lesson is based. Their consensus: no matter how talented you are, no matter how brilliant — you must have interpersonal skills to succeed.
Many young people today are so focused on gaining technical expertise that they lose sight of this key to job success: traits like empathy, consideration, listening skills, and the ability to resolve conflicts are fundamental in the workplace.
8. Be frugal, but live a little.
[Expert:] "Don't worry so much. There is not enough time in our lives to trade off the gold of our existence for the dust of what-ifs or what-if-nots. I had my first job before I was twenty and saved everything I could from my pay cheques. I closed my ears to good advice from a dear woman who told me that I should enjoy my days and not become so absorbed with thrift. I did not understand what she said. Although I used money to attend plays and concerts, I did so knowing that each ticket for a performance meant less money in my savings account. As I grew older, people I knew and loved died, and I began to see how very precious each moment of each day is."
9. Stop worrying about things you can't control.
It seemed reasonable that people who had experienced the Great Depression would want to encourage financial worries … the reverse is the case, however.
The experts see worry as a crippling feature of our daily existence and suggest that we do everything in our power to change it.
Most important, they view worrying as a waste of time. They see time as our most precious resource. Worrying about events that may not occur or that are out of our control is viewed by them as an inexcusable waste of our precious and limited lifetime.
10. Long-term thinking is a great way to live as an investor. It's a terrible way to live as a person.
[Expert:} "It seems to take a lifetime to learn how to live in the moment but it shouldn't. I certainly feel that in my own life I have been too future oriented. It's a natural inclination — of course you think about the future, and I'm not suggesting that that's bad.
But boy is there a lot to be gained from just being able to be in the moment and able to appreciate what's going on around you right now, this very second.
I've more recently gotten better at this and appreciated it. It brings peace. It helps you find your place. It's calming in a world that is not very peaceful. But I wish I could have learned this in my thirties instead of my sixties — it would have given me decades more to enjoy life in this world. That would be my lesson for younger people."
I don't know about you but hopefully I can learn some of those lessons!
