Fidelity Investments is generally positive about the near-term prospects for the US economy, and identifies several good indicators: corporate profits are stronger than expected and growing consumers are still sitting on a lot of cash, built up during low pandemic spending, and starting to spend more on both goods and services the job market is …Read More

Wall Street has a quaint name for a decline of 10% or more: “correction.” Most investors don’t see it that way. But it’s a useful metric to look back at the last 4 corrections over the past seven years and compare to this year’s. We are now 4.5 months into the Correction of 2022. The …Read More

After two pandemic years of perhaps unexpectedly good returns in stock and bonds markets, the first four+ months of 2022 have been terrible—the worst start since 1970 (Note 1). Stocks and bonds moved down together as inflation, high interest rates, the war in Europe, high energy prices, and continued supply chain disruption caused great uncertainty …Read More

Van Halen & the Brown M&Ms That M&M story: Truth or fiction? With the recent passing of Eddie Van Halen, the story about his band and the brown M&Ms surfaced again. When the heavy metal band Van Halen was touring in the 1980s, they put a clause in every contract that there would be a …Read More

As expected, the Federal Reserve Board gave the final approval of Charles Schwab’s $26 billion acquisition of TD Ameritrade on October 6, 2020, forming a brokerage firm with over $6 trillion in client assets. What do I need to do right now? Nothing at all. For the time being, you will continue to access your …Read More