Has the Fed Really Ended Its Accommodative Monetary Policy?
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted last week to raise interest rates yet again, setting a target range this time of 2.00-2.25%. While that was expected by everyone and had been priced in already by markets, what took some people by surprise was the fact that the FOMC’s statement for the first time in years omitted the statement...
Insider Stock Selling Increasing as Buybacks Reach Record Highs
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...
Early Retirement Is All the Rage, But Is It the Right Choice for Everyone?
Read any financial news site today and it will be full of accounts of people who worked hard to retire early. Whereas most Americans hope to retire around 65 and think of retiring at 50 as retiring early, some of these accounts feature people who have retired as early as 35. It’s pretty impressive to think that people have...
A Strong Stock Market Doesn’t Mean a Strong Economy
For decades stock markets have been viewed as proxies for the strength of the economy. The higher stock market indexes go, the stronger the economy is deemed to be. The most famous index, of course, is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which in recent days has pushed back to record new highs. But while many people, President Trump included,...
The American Dream Is Becoming Less and Less Attainable for More and More Americans
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...
Social Security Continues to Disappoint
Although the Social Security system was originally intended only to provide a backstop to retirees who may not have had enough money saved up for retirement, the initial benefits received by Social Security recipients lured many people into a false sense of security, leading them to believe that they could survive in retirement solely on their checks from the...