Financial milestones should be celebrated. The question is whether they can be believed, whether savers and investors who pass key numbers on their lifetime financial journeys can trust the point they have gotten to. I’m concerned about it now because the buoyant stock market of the last year has created a bunch of situations with …
At some point in the not-too-distant future, the last year of stock market gains will be a footnote to history. Rebounding from a precipitous drop as the world lurched into the pandemic in March of 2020, the stock market reversed course and gained more than 50 percent, as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500, …
One positive side effect of the pandemic is that people stuck at home started investing. According to a recent new survey from Charles Schwab & Co., 15 percent of all current U.S. stock market investors say they first began investing in 2020. Schwab tabbed that group of investors as Generation Investor or Generation I, but …
The guy whose research taught investors to expect a 10 percent annualized average return from the stock market has been trying to teach a different lesson for years, namely that the next quarter century is going to see market returns be more modest. It would be just another market forecast – a forgettable opinion from …
Throughout the pandemic, people who were mostly stuck at home took on burdens and household tasks they had let slide, and accepted challenges to clean up, complete chores and generally stay active and involved. They tackled self-improvement ideas; they made beef jerky and bread and pies (though not at the same time). With Covid vaccinations …
One year ago this week, the shortest bear market on record bottomed out. Stocks lost 34 percent from the penthouse on February 20 to the outhouse on March 23, a span of just 33 days. The coronavirus in that time was going from a worry to a pandemic and, as a result, the economy was …
Keith is a friend from the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania whose family is living both ends of the pandemic financial life through his adult twins. It’s a quirky story that’s about to take its next turn with the latest stimulus check from the federal government. Both of Keith’s 24-year-old children moved home within the …
Most people can remember exactly where they were when the stock market suffered its biggest one-day point decline ever. That’s not because the day was particularly memorable but more because it happened about a year ago, on March 16, 2020, early in the coronavirus pandemic when almost everyone had shut things down at home. Were …
You’ve probably heard the investing adage that “It’s not a stock market, it’s a market of stocks.” The idea is that when the market is described with adjectives like “jittery,” “booming,” “steady” or “volatile,” the experience in any individual issue may vary dramatically from that broad, average depiction. Indexes are useful barometers for the market …
You don’t have to be a trader to be affected by them, and these days the chances that you will be are growing. A combination of factors are driving that: heightened interest in and trading action around “story stocks,” fewer stocks to trade, easy access to trading tools creating more active investors and more. Throughout …
