Bob's Journal
Found 589 Articles.
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Bob’s Journal for 4/18/19
The interest rate changes of the last few years tell an interesting story and provide lessons for later in 2019. One reason stocks and bonds appreciated following the financial crisis and especially from 2016-2018 is that the Fed tightened monetary policy much less than investors expected. After years of the Fed doing less than expected, […]
Bob’s Journal for 4/11/19
Closed-end mutual funds can increase your portfolio returns, but investing in them has an extra layer of risk. There’s a key distinction between closed-end mutual funds and the better-known open-end mutual funds. An open-end fund doesn’t have a fixed number of shares issued. Instead, at the end of each day, the fund company tallies the […]
Bob’s Journal for 4/4/2019
Housing is staging a comeback, and that’s likely to help economic growth the rest of the year. The Fed’s tighter monetary policy caused housing to stall for most of the last year or so. Sales and construction were down, and prices increased at a lower rate. After the Fed announced a pause in its tightening […]
Bob’s Journal for 3/28/19
Your retirement plan should assume inflation will be higher than the published numbers, whether you already are retired or still looking forward to it. The most widely cited measure of inflation is the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all urban consumers. This measure generally has been declining since it peaked in the early 1980s. In […]
Bob’s Journal for 3/21/19
Markets have been rallying, but investors don’t seem to be very bullish. Stock indexes, of course, have strong returns so far in 2019. The NASDAQ 100, as represented by the QQQ exchange-traded fund (ETF), is up about 14.5% for the year to date. The S&P 500 gained more than 12.5% and the Russell 2000 index […]
Bob’s Journal for 3/14/19
How much should we rely on recent economic data? I say, “Not much.” There are major anomalies in recent data, creating more noise than usual. Two major reports from last Friday are prime examples. Retail sales for December declined sharply, yet January’s sales increased briskly, especially after excluding autos and gas. But as I explain […]
Bob’s Journal for 3/7/2019
While the headlines focus on how the major stock indexes are doing, it’s important to examine the details of what’s happening within the indexes from time to time as well. Looking under the hood of an index is important because a few stocks can lead the index higher or lower and hide what is happening […]
Bob’s Journal for 2/28/19
There have been quite a few changes in the markets the last few months. Let’s review some of them today. Most stock indexes hit lows on Christmas Eve 2018 and have been moving higher since then. Earnings and other fundamentals haven’t been improving as much. The result is stocks generally sell at higher valuations than […]
