The latest jobs report was heralded by mainstream media as another indication that the US economy is humming along just fine. The consensus estimate of 190,000-200,000 jobs added was blown away by the actual 250,000 jobs reported. The unemployment rate is now at 3.7%, and wages increased year-on-year at over 3% for the first time since 2009. But looking...
Recent weeks have seen stocks all over the map. From reaching new highs near 27,000 earlier this month to finishing last week over 2,000 points below those highs, investors have been plunged into an uncertainty they hadn’t experienced since February. Back then, many investors didn’t know what to do, as markets plunged but then seemed to recover. Once the...
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past three weeks, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the furor surrounding Saudi Arabia’s alleged torture and murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The reaction from the West has been strong and steady, with numerous luminaries pulling out of a major investment conference that had been...
If weakness in the stock market earlier this year didn’t wake up investors and make them realize the underlying weak fundamentals of the US economy, hopefully last week’s stock market declines did. Just as much of the stock market’s growth over the past few years has been driven by tech stocks, so has much of the decline been driven...
For anyone hoping for a restoration of normal trade relations between China and the United States, last week’s Bloomberg report on Chinese government hardware hacking came as a devastating blow. If the allegations are true that Chinese spies managed covertly and surreptitiously to place microchips into servers used by Amazon, Apple, and other large American corporations, that will just...
According to the latest estimates, stock buybacks will have reached an all-time high of $1 trillion this year. That’s a 46% increase from last year, and far higher than the previous high reached in, you guessed it, 2007. And that estimate could even be conservative, given that we’re still only three quarters into the year and stock prices have...
We’re all familiar with the concept of the American Dream, the idea of having a small family, a house, a car, and leading an idyllic lifestyle. But for more and more Americans that dream is becoming further and further away from reality. With a rising cost of living, more expensive housing, food, and education, it seems that each generation...
To millions of American investors, the bull market in stocks of the past few years has added billions of dollars to their 401(k), IRA, and other retirement accounts. Most investors don’t know or care why stock markets have shot up so much, but they certainly enjoy benefiting from that run. If you take a look at the underlying causes...
One of the temptations that most investors fall prey to is the temptation to check the value of their investment portfolio on a daily basis. When prices rise significantly, they feel great; when prices drop significantly, they feel like they made a bad decision. But looking at things in the short term is never a good way to think...
Some of the highest-flying stocks of the past few years have been tech stocks. With the rise of cryptocurrencies and the creation of “disruptive” companies such as Uber and Airbnb, investors have been falling all over themselves in an attempt to cash in on the latest tech boom. Whether it’s investing in newer companies such as Tesla or established...