This column was released in syndication on April 13. 2022. Here’s some controversial financial advice for current times: Hold more cash. That is not the same as “go to cash,” which would be a call to exit the market. Far from it. And it’s not advice most people are comfortable giving …
Inflation is never a feel-good story. Nothing feels good about items getting more expensive, no matter how inconsequential price hikes were for decades prior to 2022. Gas prices have long been the biggest factor determining whether consumers were confident and happy or nervous and displeased. Elections turn on inflation numbers. “It’s the economy, stupid,” was …
I was asked this week for the best investing tip I could come up with for these wild times. My answer had nothing to do with the war in Ukraine, rising prices at the gas pump, the likelihood of interest rate increases or the stock market being off more than 10 percent and in correction …
“Stick with the plan” is investment advice, financial strategy and part of the actual plan. That doesn’t make it easy or comfortable. With volatility up and the market down over 5 percent in January, and with higher inflation, rising interest rates, a global supply-chain crisis, international unrest, worldwide politics and more swirling around us, the …
If you spent December reading or listening to the financial experts making forecasts for the year ahead, you could draw five conclusions about what to expect in 2022. We’ll see heightened inflation, higher interest rates, increased volatility, slower growth and lower investment returns. The specific predictions weren’t uniform or in complete agreement – it’s hard …
There’s a difference between complaining about inflation and responding to it. With the inflation rate surging to 6.2 percent in October – its highest level since Thanksgiving 1990 — holiday shoppers are about to feel a pinch harder than anything they may have faced in their lifetime as a consumer. The signs of it are …
My sixth grade teacher, Mr. Lewis, always said “One reason might make you believe something, but I need three sound judgments to be convinced.” He was teaching us to make intellectual arguments, preparing us for debate – whether with classmates or within our own minds – and hoping the process would give us sound, sensible …
At a time when many Americans seem obsessed with shutting out messages and viewpoints they don’t support and believe in, I found it refreshing last week to chat with a guy who most optimists and long-term investors either disbelieve or hate. Harry S. Dent Jr. has been a soothsayer of sadness and gloom for ages …
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 …
