Stock indexes are neither created equally nor are necessarily designed to be representative of stocks in general. People want them to be, but they need to wonder why. Whenever we refer to how stocks in general or the stock market is doing, we refer to the performance of stock indexes, baskets of stocks assembled by […]
While homeowners have benefited from mortgage deferral payments, deferring paying the rent is a different proposition altogether. Their rising rent bills need to be dealt with or else. As it stands, the month of July is a significant one on the path towards trying to recover from the ravages of our recent economic slowdown due […]
While retirement is a time to relax a lot more, where you sit back and collect, retirees need to be aware of the pitfalls out there when it comes to managing their tax obligations. You’ve worked hard to build a good-sized nest egg for your retirement, including a nice sized IRA to take you through […]
AI company CrowdSmart is looking to build a better mousetrap by seeking to quantify industry consensus surrounding investments. The crowd isn’t always so smart though. What we call artificial intelligence certainly has its place, and the sheer processing speed and capacity of today’s computers can accomplish feats that would be far from possible otherwise. The […]
We don’t even consider beating 99% of your peers with a fund even meaningful, if your peers are weaklings. Eddie Brown’s small cap fund takes them all on though. At first glance, seeing remarks like a fund beating a high percentage of its “peers” has us grimacing a little, feeling bad for all those investors […]
In spite of falling further and further behind in the polls, the betting action still gives Donald Trump a 40% chance of re-election. It’s much closer to zero in reality though. It would be reasonable to think that if you were running for re-election as President of the United States, Joe Biden might be your […]
Technical analysis is supposed to be belief-neutral, where the data itself tells the story as it unfolds. The idea of a technical analyst preparing us for a reversion to the mean is just odd. Technical analysis is an evolving field in the study of the movement in prices of assets, stocks for instance, that does […]
Not so long ago, back when the world was flying, the grounding of the 737-MAX was the biggest issue that Boeing has ever faced. The plane may be back in service soon. Boeing’s 737-MAX used to be the biggest story in aviation since the 9/11 attacks. Aside from the residual paranoia that was felt among […]
Some very old ideas about investing have been dying a slow death for many years, losing ground in a survival of the fittest. Their weakness is being even more exposed now. Charles Darwin’s portrayal of the evolution of biological species being a matter of the survival of the fittest is an idea that applies well […]
It should not surprise us that among the good performing sectors this year, the biotech sector is among them, in the midst of a pandemic. Returning to normal isn’t so rosy though. When we focus on a particular sector among a broader stock index, such as the iShares Nasdaq Biotech ETF as a component of […]