Daily Posts Archive

Getting to the market today—first we had the August 24 bottom, a month later we had the retest, and now we’ve got a rally that, while it’s not perfect, is certainly creating some winners. I think selective buying is okay. But what to buy? For my money, there are two methods of stock-picking that tend to work.

According to Gallup, having enough money for retirement is the most common financial concern in the U.S. In the 2014 survey, Gallup found that 59% of Americans are worried about not having enough money for retirement. That’s actually down from a few years ago, when over 66% of Americans were concerned about funding their retirements.

Dividend aristocrat Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) is finally rallying this week. Is this a great opportunity to buy a dividend aristocrat on the cheap?

Clearly, it’s in the interests of full-service brokerages to discourage you from making your own investing decisions. They make their money from commissions for trading your account and fees for managing your money. And the more they can count on keeping you in a standard mix of index funds, ETFs, sector funds and bond funds, the better they like it.

Playing a competitive tennis match or tournament is a great deal like trading and investing these days. Going into a match, I rarely know the player, his style of play, or how I will approach the match. Similarly, these days in the market, every day is totally new, filled with unexpected swings. But as in tennis, in trading/investing you hit your best shots and put on your highest conviction trades—and over time, you will win out.