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Bob's Journal

Found 460 Articles.
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Your Retirement Finance Week in Review

June 21, 2018

Inflation has been rising. Should the Federal Reserve be worried about it? The Consumer Price Index (CPI) has been rising steadily since early 2015. It recently settled in above 2%, and the headlines announced that the latest 12-month reading was at the highest level since 2011. Some Fed officials, including Chairman Jerome Powell, have said […]

Tech Stocks Are the Talk of Wall Street

June 14, 2018

Either technology is taking over the economy, or the market is sending some warning signs about technology stocks. I wrote earlier this year about how technology’s share of the S&P 500 has been climbing the last few years because returns in technology stocks are much higher than the rest of the index’s sectors. Recently, the […]

Many Changes in the Global Markets

June 7, 2018

There were a lot of changes in the global markets in May, and many of them caught investors by surprise. U.S. stocks made another sharp turn. To review the year, they had an extremely strong January. Then, they were weak the next few months as investors adjusted to higher interest rates, trade conflicts and other […]

The Dollar’s Recent Surge Is Unusual

May 31, 2018

The dollar has been soaring lately, and that has affected both the global markets and economy, as well as reflected recent occurrences. The moves in the dollar in the last few months are unusually large for a major currency. The Bloomberg U.S. Dollar Index increased 4% since mid-April. The dollar had been trending steadily lower […]

How Markets Respond to Monetary Policy

May 24, 2018

The Federal Reserve’s been tightening monetary policy since 2015, yet economic growth remains solid. The economy’s resilience after the Fed’s tightening is a mystery to a number of investors and analysts, but it shouldn’t be. It’s a normal part of the economic cycle. The federal funds rate has been increased six times since the Fed […]

Knowing What Your Index Fund Invests in

May 17, 2018

Investors need to be aware of changes in the major stock indexes. Index fund investors, of course, need to know how the indexes are composed so they’ll know what’s in their portfolios and the risks they are taking. Investors in non-index, or active, funds should know what’s in the indexes, because mutual funds usually are […]

Have we Reached Peak Earnings for This Cycle?

May 10, 2018

Most companies now have reported their first-quarter earnings, and the overall results are outstanding. Almost 70% of companies exceeded the earnings estimates for the quarter, and more than 72% exceeded revenue estimates. The percentage of companies exceeding earnings estimates was the highest since 2006 and among the highest since 1999. A large percentage of companies […]

Dollar Surge Surprises Analysts

May 3, 2018

The dollar’s been soaring lately and surprising many analysts. After the latest upward surge, the PowerShares DB US Dollar Bullish ETF (UUP) still is down 4.50% over the last 12 months and 0.85% annualized for the last three years. But it’s up 4.86% for the last three months, 3.39% for the last four weeks and […]

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