Investing money make many people nervous. Especially when your life savings are at stake, the thought of losing any money, let alone thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, is enough to make you think twice about putting any of your assets at risk. But investment ultimately is necessary in order to build up wealth. Sticking money under a...
Market events this week have made even the most bullish investors realize that the US economy isn’t what it used to be. In an attempt to ensure “fair trade,” President Trump placed a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports last Friday. The Chinese retaliated, and Trump threatened on Monday to place additional tariffs on another...
President Trump late last week slapped $50 billion worth of Chinese imports with a new 25 percent tariff. While the tariff had been long discussed, negotiations with the Chinese government in recent weeks seemed to have indicated a softening of Trump’s position towards China. That was particularly the case with Trump’s attempts to find a solution to keep troubled...
The millennial generation has become the largest generational cohort in the United States. Much ink has been spilled trying to analyze millennials and their behavior. While many of the characterizations of millennials tend to focus on personality traits and work ethic, there’s no question that millennials are vastly different from generations that preceded them. They aren’t making as much money...
Monetary policy is one of those topics that only a handful of people ever devote much time to studying. Most people ignore central banks during good times and beg them to intervene during bad times. During the worst part of the financial crisis Wall Street clamored for more assistance from the Federal Reserve. They got that assistance in spades,...
In what could be an ominous sign indicating a deterioration of the financial health of American households, levels of credit card debt have risen over the past year, with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York noting that the “flow into 90+ day delinquency for credit card balances has been increasing notably for the last year.” That’s a piece...
No matter which way stock markets are moving, there are always people trying to understand why they go up or down, or which way they’ll move in the future. It can be tough to weed out the important commentary from the downright false, as many pundits have a vested interest in seeing markets move one way or another. But...
Will he or won’t he? That’s the question everyone is asking about the nuclear summit between the United States and North Korea. Will President Trump pull the plug on the summit, or will it go ahead as scheduled? With all the back and forth, no one seems to know for sure. And that uncertainty has weighed on stock markets,...
After an amazing two-year run in which stock markets gained 60% in value, the past three months have seen stocks take a long hiatus. With the Dow trading mostly in the 24-25,000 point range, markets are largely waiting to see what direction the economy will take. On the positive side, the Trump tax cuts have put billions of dollars into...
Many investment advisers take a dim view of investing in gold. They’ll try to push their clients into stocks and bonds, CDs, and various other financial investments. If gold even gets a mention, it might get a recommendation to make up about 3-5% of an investor’s portfolio. Even billionaires like Warren Buffet denigrate the importance of gold, which is...
