The July jobs report that was just published is another sign of the underwhelming continued growth of the economy. While economists predicted a gain of 193,000 jobs, the actual number was only 157,000, a pretty large miss. And while much of that was chalked up to a one-time hit from the closure of bankrupt toy retailer Toys R Us,...
If you want to live a comfortable retirement, pay for your children’s college tuition, buy a vacation house, or enjoy any of the other creature comforts that many people today have come to expect, you have to invest your money. Chances are that you’re not going to work till you die, so you can’t expect to fund your lifestyle...
The continued tariff war between the United States and the rest of the world shows no signs of abating anytime soon. Coca-Cola has announced price increases on its products due to US tariffs on aluminum imports raising the price of aluminum cans. Harley Davidson and BMW have both announced shifts of production from the US to factories in Asia...
In investment circles it’s common to hear that stocks and gold are negatively correlated. That is to say, gold’s price increases when stock prices decrease, and vice versa. That’s why you’ll often hear the recommendation to sell stocks and invest in gold when stocks are doing poorly, and to sell gold and buy stocks when stock markets are doing...
President Trump recently took on the Federal Reserve’s conduct of monetary policy, although not in a good way. Rather than criticizing the Fed for keeping interest rates too low for too long, he criticized the Fed for raising interest rates, complaining that in so doing the Fed has taken away America’s competitive edge against China and is erasing all...
Last week’s hearing with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell doesn’t inspire confidence that the Fed knows what it is doing. Much attention has been focused recently on the yield curve, the spread between 2-year and 10-year Treasury securities, which has become increasingly narrow in recent weeks. The spread is becoming so close, in fact, that it risks inversion, with...
It’s time once again to discuss the importance of timing when it comes to investing. Timing plays a role in investing success whether we like it or not, and it affects investing strategies. Because of that, your investing strategy may need to change depending on whether you’ve got a lump sum of money to invest or whether you intend...
One key indicator of the economy’s health that economists and financial market observers look at is the yield curve. In particular, they look at the spread between the yield on 2-year Treasury bonds and 10-year Treasury bonds. As the difference between the yield on those two maturities narrows, the yield curve is said to be flattening. And in some...
There’s a tendency, when looking at economic data, to look at aggregate measures and use them as proxies to determine the health of the economy. When looking at job numbers, for example, it’s tempting to look at figures for the total number of jobs, number of employment openings, and the unemployment rate to figure out how healthy the economy...
One of the most popular investing strategies today, and one that’s growing more popular all the time, is passive investing. It’s a strategy that focuses on investing in low-cost funds that track popular stock indices, such as the S&P 500, the Russell 2000, the Wilshire 5000, etc. Rather than trying to beat markets through active stock-picking, the passive funds...