Years ago, I stayed in a hotel on the Las Vegas strip where a message flashing on the big screen out front said “98% wild slots.” The sign was telling the public that the hotel’s slot machines paid out 98 percent of the money they took in, reducing the “house edge” to 2 percent. By …
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 …
Investors are struggling to put their finger on what has changed about the stock market of late. Yes, there’s war, the highest inflation we’ve seen in 40 years, the persistent promise/threat that interest rates are rising and more. Those economic and geopolitical events have driven the market down by more than 10 percent this year, …
The most common advice investors have gotten thus far in 2022 seems to be: “This is a good time to rebalance your portfolio.” It started right around New Year’s Day, because plenty of people simply hold fast to the idea that the start of a new year is the perfect time to rejigger a portfolio …
“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 …
Walking my dog through the neighborhood last week, I came upon a friend who gave me his standard greeting for these occasional chance walk-bys: “What do you like in the market right now?” He knows I’m not handing out stock tips, but he usually follows it up by name-dropping, or we’ll spend a few moments …
Janet, a grandmother from New Orleans, wants to give a little something extra this year for the holidays, but doesn’t want to go to the mall to get it. She’s not shopping online for it either. She wants to buy her six grandchildren stock. “I saw something that said that a gift of stock is …
The worst stock market forecast of all time is finally coming true, and for all of its pitfalls, the advice behind the terrible prognostication remains among the best ever given. That strange dichotomy is coming to a head now because the Dow Jones Industrial Average is on the verge of breaking 36,000, and most observers …
Welcome back to the intersection of fear and greed, the place that investors go to at times when stock markets are acting frothy and volatile and/or flirting with new highs. With both of those conditions currently in play, it’s the place where a lot of investors now find themselves. The question is whether they have …
