Nobody knows why the S&P 500 index declined more than 11% in October; the largest decline since, well, earlier this year.
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‘Investing Insight’ Category
If you’re the kind of person who like to worry, then October has given you plenty of stimulus. After yesterday’s 3.1 percent drop in the popular S&P 500 index, the index has lost 8.8% in this month alone, wiping out all the gains that we’ve enjoyed this year, putting the index in negative territory. The […]
Debt Explosion, Few Downgrades If you’re looking for something to worry about, consider corporate debt: $1 trillion of it. Research by the Bloomberg News organization found that corporations have taken advantage of more than a decade of historically low interest rates to make highly-leveraged acquisitions, taking on debt at unprecedented rates. Looking at some of […]
Fire in a Crowded Theater Yesterday’s market declines—the Dow down 3.15%, the S&P 500 down 3.29% and tech stocks, as represented by the Nasdaq index, off 4.08%–were entirely within the normal range of mini corrections, which we’ve experienced numerous times since March 9, 2009. But they represent an interesting test of character for the press […]
2018 Third Quarter Market Report If you believe that the trend is your friend, then perhaps the U.S. stock market is in for an excellent fourth quarter. U.S. equity markets suffered small losses in the first quarter, followed by decent single-digit gains in the second quarter. Now that the third quarter is in the books, […]
The Uneven Recovery of Americans After the Great Recession One of the consistent themes we’ve been hearing in the political arena is that the economy and stock markets are doing very well, and that we’ve finally recovered from the Great Recession. But recovery to market highs and the personal recovery from the losses experienced during […]
Beware the Bears If you’ve been paying attention to the financial news lately, you’re probably seeing a lot of ominous predictions—and they’re usually backed up by some ominous headline. The most simplistic are saying that the bull market has now lasted ten years, so therefore it’s about to come to an end—as if bull markets […]
Generational Financial Divide If some random person off the street handed you $10,000 in cash, no strings attached, and would pay the taxes on this windfall, what would you do with it? Researchers asked this question of people who they categorized in the Millennial generation (age 18-34), Generation Xers (age 35-54) and Baby Boomers (over […]
The Long Bull You can be forgiven for wondering what all the hoopla was about when, on August 22, the newspapers erupted with the announcement that the current bull run in the U.S. stock market was the longest in history. Wasn’t the day before and the day before that part of that run? The answer […]
Savings Bonds Redux Remember savings bonds? Ask anybody who was around during or in the years right after World War II, and they’ll have fond memories of buying a savings bond for $25 for a child or grandchild, and five years later the bond would be worth $50. For people of a certain age, it […]