When the stock market is going up people pay attention to the index. And what a year the S&P is having. YTD it’s up roughly 20%. When the market is down as it was yesterday people pay attention to the stocks they own. Why? Just because “the market” is up doesn’t mean all stocks are [...]
Cathie Wood continues to stretch the limits of her fifteen minutes of fame as Ark Investment Management seeks to introduce a new ETF. Coming on the heels of much “needed” offerings such as an ETF focused on space-related investments Ark will soon launch a product excluding industries such as alcohol, banking (because, after all, money [...]
The days of thoughtfulness are gone. Brevity is the new wisdom. Today if something can’t be expressed in less than 280 characters it isn’t worthwhile. We’re barely done with the first paragraph of this post and some of you are already itching to click off and go elsewhere. Impatience is everywhere. We don’t read prospectuses. [...]
President Obama (The Orator in Chief) never turned down an opportunity to stand in front of a microphone. He was fond of demonizing evil millionaires and billionaires from behind a podium. He seemed to believe that rather than building businesses and creating jobs these people sat home twirling their evil mustaches and conjuring ways to [...]
From 10/26/20 - 11/13/20 the FINRA Investor Education Foundation surveyed about 1,300 households. the typical new investment account was opened by individuals age 45 and younger the top reasons for investing include saving for old age (~17%) and the ability to start with smaller sums of money (~16%) the least popular reasons for investing include [...]
With the move to $0 commissions by the major brokerage firms a new light has been shined on the practice of selling order flow. Just what is it and why is it as good/bad as you’ve heard? Let’s peal back the layers of the onion and find out.
Concerned about stock market performance if Joe Biden wins the White House and the Democrats take a majority in the House and Senate? History suggests maybe you shouldn’t be. Dating back to 1951 there have been eighteen years in which the Democrats controlled the legislative branch. in fifteen of those eighteen years (83.3% of the [...]
Notice 2020-79 issued yesterday by the IRS covers the inflation adjustments for items such as 401(k) contribution limits, deductible IRAs, the saver’s credit, etc. Full details are available here.
The income side of fiscal policy (i.e. taxation) is always highly politicized. The song never seems to change. Republicans think everyone pays too much. Democrats think everyone pays too little. An oversimplification? Maybe. Nonetheless a basic understanding of the proposals independent of the emotionally-charged rhetoric can go a long way towards achieving Thomas Jefferson’s view [...]
Two plus two equals four. That’s math. It’s real. It’s measurable. It’s fact. That’s how finance is supposed to work. But maybe four is not enough. Maybe it’s too much. How quickly can I get from two to four? I used to be at four but now I’m at two and since four is ‘right’ [...]