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Bob's Journal

Found 460 Articles.
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Major Transitions Are Taking Place in China

October 18, 2018

China deserves a lot of investors’ attention these days. China would be important at any time because it’s the world’s second-largest economy. However, China’s recent weakness and unique problems make it an important subject. Right now, there are major transitions taking place in China. It has too much debt, both public and private. The government […]

Are Equities Joining a Global Trend?

October 11, 2018

The decline in U.S. stock indexes in the last week or so could mean those equities are finally joining a global trend. Most assets have negative returns for the year. Before the decline began from record highs on Sept. 20, we had some warning signs. The major U.S. indexes were hitting new highs, but significant […]

Data Provide Mixed Bag of News

October 4, 2018

Economic growth decelerated in August, but the economy still grew at a healthy rate. No one should be surprised about slower growth in August, because July’s economic data were among the strongest of the last two years. The reports for August activity were released in September, so now we can take a comprehensive look and […]

Economy Perseveres against Tighter Monetary Policy

September 27, 2018

For several years now, the economy has been resisting the Federal Reserve’s tighter monetary policy. In 2015, the Fed stopped its quantitative easing program, and it has been increasing interest rates at a very slow rate ever since. The Fed also is letting the bonds and mortgages it bought mature and roll off the balance […]

Why All Investors Should Pay Attention to Emerging Markets

September 20, 2018

U.S. investors should pay attention to what’s happening in emerging markets, even if they’re not invested in those markets. Emerging markets had strong recoveries after a bear market ended in early 2016. Latin American markets were among the strongest, with equity returns outpacing U.S. stocks for most of 2016 and 2017. But the situation began […]

Why Not to Use a Single Piece of Data

September 13, 2018

Investors recently were given another good reason why not to rely on one piece of data to make decisions. For years, we’ve been told that Americans weren’t saving enough money and that the savings rate was declining, even after incomes and asset prices recovered from the financial crisis. As it turns out, that was all […]

Bob’s Journal

September 6, 2018

Investors soon will be reminded that index investing isn’t the same as passive investing. Standard & Poor’s and MSCI, the leading constructors of market indexes, will be overhauling their indexes. This isn’t the typical periodic change in which they move a few stocks in and out of the indexes. Instead, the firms are overhauling the […]

Bob’s Journal

August 30, 2018

There has been quite a divergence between U.S. stock indexes and international indexes. Leading up to the correction in early 2016, U.S. stocks were far ahead of stocks from most other countries. After the correction, overseas stocks surged ahead of their U.S. counterparts. Latin American stocks were particularly strong. In the first part of 2017, […]

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