Daily Posts Archive
Mutual funds have been around for decades, but it’s been just the last 25 years or so that their popularity has skyrocketed, due in large part to the growing participation in 401(k) retirement plans, which made mutual funds household names. About a decade ago, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) gained traction with individual investors and began to give mutual funds some heavy competition. And in the past few years, they have also emerged as good vehicles in which to park retirement money. But what many investors don’t realize is that there is another vehicle (besides mutual funds), which also offers you a means to pool your money with others to buy shares, at nominal costs.
Back when the U.S. was an agrarian nation, August used to be the best month for the stock market in performance terms. But it lost the lead as the strongest month in 1951, and now, with only about 2% of the country involved in farming, August has taken its place as the worst. So that should just about settle it, right? There’s no point in being invested in stocks in August. So selling in May and going away looks better and better. Not so fast.
What do you do when a stock changes character? Specifically, how do you handle it when a stock you’ve known as a growth stock may have turned into an income stock?
The biggest companies due to report during earnings season, including notes on volatility/price of options and recent order flow.
In general, I think the future is pretty bright. By all measures, the world’s population today is better-nourished, better-educated and less violent than at any time in history. The long-term trends for the world as a whole look good. And if you’re going to be a successful investor, it truly helps to have a long-term perspective—to be able to imagine the possibility of holding onto a stock for ten years or more. Admittedly, that’s hard to do, with the media’s focus on the short term. And in the year ahead it may get even more difficult, as the noise from the current record-setting G.O.P. Presidential field—and indeed, all the election-oriented activity of the next fifteen months—serves as a constant distraction from the task/pleasure of managing your own money.
Retirees should choose consumer sector stocks with well-established brands, reliable earnings, and a history of paying regular dividends. They might not be as exciting as Amazon, but these companies can add a reliable income stream to your portfolio while also providing upside.
Gold miners may look like a smart bargain play. But given the track record in gold the last four years, it’s not worth the wait.
It’s the beginning of August, high summer in New England, and a bit of summer fatigue is setting in. Summer in New England is short, so we try to pack half a year’s worth of cookouts, beach days, hikes, kayaking, sight-seeing and other outside recreation into three months. It’s fun, but the pace can be a bit frantic, especially as the season enters its third act. Frankly, all I want to do now is lie on a beach somewhere and read a book.
In this week’s video, Mike Cintolo discusses the mixed market, where growth stocks continue to act well on balance, but many areas of the broad market look awful and the major indexes chop sideways.