In spite of only 1 in 5 active funds beating the S&P 500, plenty of investors still want to take their chances. There are better indexes than this, which active funds can’t touch. The S&P 500 is the benchmark for investing, and both individual investors and funds look to beat the returns of this index […]
According to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, the most important thing to investors these days is climate change. He has started addressing this by getting out of coal companies. BlackRock’s Larry Fink wants to make the world’s largest fund company more “socially responsible,” and has taken the first step by announcing that the firm will no […]
There are a few ingredients that are helpful to drive a company’s stock higher. Bank of America is a nice mix of business performance, buybacks, and increased optimism. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynahan isn’t quite as famous or even as well regarded as JP Morgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, the darling of big bank CEOs, […]
The first month of the year isn’t even half over, and Tesla stock is already up by 25%. It has more than doubled over the last 3 months. How much higher could this stock go? Tesla serves as an excellent example of how it pays to ride a stock while it’s hot. Tesla has been […]
In spite of how great the employment numbers are, there’s always room for complaints. It’s important to realize that we don’t want certain numbers to be too good though. Investors tend to look at the jobs report from the perspective of wanting to see evidence of more economic expansion. Investors love more expansion, and will […]
Unlike some big growth companies, Apple stock actually pays dividends, although the yield on this is now down to about 1%. Apple has wisely focused more on stock buybacks. There remains a big debate out there about whether companies should favor dividends or share buybacks. The fact that so many people favor dividends in the […]
The bull market marches on, but we’re seeing it being led by a small number of stocks. This means that it’s all the more important to focus on the strong and avoid the weak. We had a banner year for stocks in 2019, but it was a year in which the banner was certainly long […]
Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg just wrote an op-ed piece to tell us that in spite of what President Trump says, the economy is broken and he wants to fix it. It is not uncommon for politicians or prospective ones to try to twist things around to suit their political ambitions. Former NYC mayor, mega-billionaire, […]
When two hotheads and gunslingers Donald Trump and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei get into a gunfight, anything can happen. It turns out that both are wiser than they get credit for. The stakes were high in the current confrontation between the United States and Iran. World leaders are generally careful in their remarks, even when they […]
As we prepare for the new advisory regulations set to be implemented this coming June, requiring advisors to pursue the best interests of clients, we’re still far away from this ideal. In an effort to reduce conflict of interest when obtaining investment advice, the Securities and Exchange Commission is finally ready to enact what they […]