Bob's Journal
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17 Record Highs in 50 Trading Days
The S&P 500 set 17 record closing highs in the first 50 trading days of 2024 through March 13, according to Bespoke Investment Group. That’s the most record highs to start a year since the 20 in 1998. Here’s another bit of investment trivia: There have been only five years since 1953 that record highs […]
Big Stock Losses Don’t Always Mark a Good Time to Buy
Big Stock Losses Don’t Always Mark a Good Time to Buy Some bad stock advice that’s frequently repeated is to buy a stock because it’s down a lot from its peak. Something I’ve heard variations of many times is, “It’s down 70%. That makes it a good buy.” The data don’t support that argument. Stocks […]
Bob’s Journal for 4/6/23
Social Security Trust Fund Moves Closer to Depletion After last year’s annual report from the Trustees of Social Security and Medicare projected that the retirement trust fund would run out of money in 2034, I said it was too optimistic. The assumptions in the report didn’t seem realistic. It looks like I was right, since […]
Bob’s Journal for 3/30/23
Cash Management Makes a Comeback Years ago, both businesses and individuals focused on cash management. After years of being neglected because of low interest rates, cash management is making a comeback. Cash management is the practice of earning a decent yield on money, taking little or no risk, and maintaining liquidity by not locking the […]
Bob’s Journal for 3/24/23
Some Notable Events That Grabbed My Attention This Week Correction: In the April 2023 issue of Retirement Watch (which was published electronically last week and will be in the mail shortly), the ticker for iShares Global Metals & Mining Producers on page 11 was misidentified and should be PICK, which is stated correctly in the […]
Bob’s Journal for 3/16/23
Silicon Valley Bank Probably Is Only the Beginning During the last week, both Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank were taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Those failures are likely only the beginning. The Federal Reserve made two rapid changes in monetary policy in recent years. During the early years of the pandemic, […]
Bob’s Journal for 3/9/23
Some Notable Events That Grabbed My Attention This Week I participated in a number of podcasts recently to discuss my latest book, “Retirement Watch: The Essential Guide to Retiring in the 2020s.” There were a couple of great discussions you might want to listen to. One is my appearance on “Retire with Purpose” with Casey […]
Bob’s Journal for 3/2/23
Why Interest Rates Haven’t Peaked Investment markets indicated investors thought interest rates peaked in late 2022. The yield on the 10-year treasury bond reached 3.96% in October 2022 and began falling. By late January 2023, the yield was below 3.50%. Throughout that period, futures markets prices indicated investors believed interest rates would decline steadily for […]
