This group of stocks could determine the market’s next move
Semi stocks are having flashbacks to their May sell-off. The SMH semiconductor ETF has fallen more than 4% this week, its worst since the middle of a spring slump. The latest round of selling on Thursday came after President Donald Trump announced via Twitter that an additional 10% of tariffs on Chinese goods would go into effect September. “All it takes is one tweet to derail two months of positive momentum,” Mark Tepper, president of Strategic Wealth Partners, said on CNBC’s “Trading Nation ” on Thursday. “Within the sector, there’s some companies that are crushing it, some companies are whiffing, so you need to be selective.” The broader chip space’s sell-off could bleed into the rest of the market, warns Matt Maley, equity strategist at Miller Tabak. The semis are “a great leading indicator for the entire market, but the last two years have been particularly so where it topped off before the rest of…
Did Trump Trigger Bitcoin’s Latest Gains?
Bitcoin prices have rallied lately, pushing higher as the markets respond to continued concerns surrounding the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China. The cryptocurrency climbed more than 5% in 24 hours on CoinDesk after President Trump posted a tweet yesterday morning about his plans to turn up the heat on the world’s second-largest economy. In the tweet, he stated that “the U.S. will start, on September 1st, putting a small additional Tariff of 10% on the remaining 300 Billion Dollars of goods and products coming from China into our Country.” The digital currency rose to as much as $10,663.62 around noon EDT today, up approximately 6% from the same time yesterday, CoinDesk data showed. At this point, the cryptocurrency had climbed more than 13% since late Monday, when it began a steady, upward trend. [Ed note: Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to…
The Best Stocks For Dividends And Growth Right Now
You and I know why people buy real estate investment trusts (REITs). They’re income machines that are literally mandated to take the lion’s share of their profits and put them back into shareholders’ hands as cash dividends. It’s no secret. Just about anyone who buys into REITs know that they produce far bigger dividends than your typical stock. But put most people in front of a Yahoo! Finance or Google Finance stock chart, and they’re suddenly struck by selective amnesia. Because they forget that these charts only consider price gains and don’t include REITs’ outsized dividends. Let’s look at some of the optical delusions investors find when they stumble across the charts–then look at what happens once you split out price and total returns (with dividends). Because when a yield gets up into the 7% to 8% range, its effect on your total profit is way bigger than most folks realize. First up: healthcare…
What Is ‘The Stock Market?’
A bit of history to help you decide When I was a kid on Wall Street (1980s), we all knew what “The Dow” was. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was a set of the 30 most prominent public companies in America. Collectively, they were intended to represent the U.S. economy. They were household names in their industries, and the Dow was considered THE “Blue Chip” index. Ask someone over age 50 how they keep track of how the stock market is doing, and they will likely mention the Dow. Sure, they know the S&P 500 Index as well. However, the Dow dates all the way back to 1896. The S&P 500 did not come into existence for another 61 years. And as late as the early part of this century, the S&P 500 was still fairly new to the average investor. To be clear, the S&P has been the…
10 Investing Tricks That Will Help You Outperform Most Investors
PHILADELPHIA — For all the books, articles and TV shows devoted to investing, it seems to be a difficult body of knowledge to master. But what if the best investing advice is actually the simplest? That’s the bet being made by a group of rabid do-it-yourself investors called the Bogleheads who are devotees of Jack Bogle, founder of investment management firm Vanguard. Bogle is famous for promoting a low-cost investing philosophy that shuns actively managing assets to try to outperform the market and instead promotes passively investing so one’s portfolio rises along with the market. This decidedly un-sexy investing advice might have died out if it weren’t for the data proving that this strategy can greatly improve one’s returns. (More on that below.) In fact, this 31,500-member group, originally formed in 1998 on Morningstar.com as the Vanguard Diehards, is thriving: For every member, there are six guests who read but never post, giving it a reach…
3 Top REIT Buys For The Next 55 Years
Will interest rates really get the chop everyone thinks they will as 2019 rolls into the home stretch? The smart money certainly thinks it knows. Beyond tomorrow’s rate cut (which the pros see as all but in the can), futures traders predict two more chops—in September and December. But here’s something no one will tell you: not a single person outside of Jerome Powell has any clue what the Fed will do next. Not futures traders. Not your adviser. Certainly not the talking heads on CNBC. That’s why we’re going to dive into three “forever” stocks that beat the market no matter what rates do. More on those shortly. And if you sit on them for the long haul—I’m talking decades here—you can almost certainly count on outperforming the market. Before I name names, I’ll tell you that all three of these companies are real estate investment trusts (REITs), dividend-paying “landlords” that crush the market no matter what rates are…
The Top 8 Reasons People Don’t Invest In The Help They Need
After leaving my corporate career and embarking on my own business as a therapist and later, career coach, writer and speaker, I had to make the huge shift from receiving a regular paycheck to generating consistent revenue by offering services and programs that help professionals thrive. In the beginning of that journey, even though I had been a marketing VP and thought I knew a lot, there was so much I didn’t know about entrepreneurial success. I began to realize that I’d have to invest a good deal of time, money and effort in getting outside help if I were to be successful, including receiving marketing guidance, virtual assistance, branding, web development, course launch help, etc. During the past 13 years, I’ve often resisted and waited far too long to get help, and the results were disastrous. I’d offer myself a lot of reasons why I didn’t really need the…
3 Things Most People Don’t Know About Investment Managers
Sometimes, finding the right person to help you with your money management can be difficult. This is especially true when you’re looking for an investment manager to help you grow your investment portfolio. One of the biggest issues that I’ve noticed between prospective clients and their investment managers is that the clients often don’t know much about the person they’re trying to hire. Considering that financial services such as investment management are incredibly important in preparing for retirement, I thought I’d share some things that most people don’t know about investment managers here: 1: Your Investment Manager Might Not Know as Much About Investing as You Might Think The person that you’re relying on to make sound investment decisions to grow your portfolio’s value might not know much more about the stock market than you do. This is a distressing thought for many. I recently came across a Forbes article that highlights…
Forget San Francisco: 5 cities where Bay Area techies would rather live
Why buy a house in San Francisco when you can snap up something more affordable in New York? Bay Area tech workers are showing some sensitivity to the cost of housing in the region, according to a survey from Wealthfront, an investment management firm that provides robo-advisor services. The firm polled close to 2,700 of its clients through the first five months of this year. All of the participants work in the Bay Area at tech companies. Close to a quarter of clients think they’ll flee altogether and head for cheaper cities elsewhere in the U.S., including Chicago and Austin, Texas. These potential buyers have set their sights on affordable dwellings, too, said Kate Wauck, vice president of communications at Wealthfront. “People weren’t moving to other cities to buy these massive homes for the same price as in San Francisco,” she said. “Rather, they’re choosing more modestly priced homes.” Participants…
Goldman Sachs: Two factors will keep the stock market stuck right here through the end of the year
Government policy uncertainty and a poor earnings outlook will keep the stock market from rallying any further this year, according to Goldman Sachs. Low interest rates have boosted U.S. equity valuations this year, bringing the S&P 500 to record highs, and investors are hoping long-term yields dropping even more will lead to even higher stock prices. But the market’s growth will stop just a little bit higher from here, Goldman Sachs said in a note to clients. “Although our rates strategists forecast the 10-year US Treasury yield will fall to 1.75% by year-end, we expect lingering policy uncertainty and negative revisions to 2020 EPS will limit equity upside,” said Goldman Sachs’ chief U.S. equity strategist David Kostin. The stock market has been on a tear this year with the S&P 500 up more than 18% since January and closing at an all time high on Tuesday. Kostin said more than 90% of…