Of all the schemes investors have come up with to try to avoid losses and/or to beat the market, market timing is probably one of the most seductive. It seems obvious that when something significant occurs in the U.S. economy or elsewhere in the world, you’d expect the market to react accordingly. Wouldn’t that be…
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Tune in to any news channel on TV or pick up any newspaper and the one U.S. stock market benchmark that you will inevitably find reported is the Dow. Yet the Dow – more formally called the Dow-Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) – is not especially representative of the broad stock market. Or for that matter…
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The stock market has been very generous to investors since the recession of 2008. Over the past 15 years the S&P 500 large cap index rose 13.9% on average each year (source: Morningstar). The same, however, cannot be said for smaller company stocks. The Russell 2000, a popular small cap stock index, grew only 10.4%…
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A long time ago before the inception of email and the Internet, some investment advisors made a living selling investment books and/or newsletters. There are still plenty of investment authors and books around today, but the newsletters have given way to investment emails, web sites, podcasts, and TV pundits hawking everything from stocks and cryptocurrencies…
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Every year since 2011 the Gallup Poll canvasses Americans about their personal finances. The most recent survey was completed in April. The findings reveal how we collectively feel about the various types of investments we have access to, as well as some interesting demographic differences. What do we think is the best investment? Real estate,…
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