Day Trading

Day trading is not investing!  Wikipedia defines day trading as “speculation in securities, specifically buying and selling financial instruments within the same trading day, such that all positions are closed before the market closes for the trading day.  Traders who trade in this capacity with the motive of profit are therefore speculators.” Investors construct portfolios, … Continued

You Are Never Hit By The Bus You See

With the stock market bouncing off all-time highs again, I’ve seen a large number of market forecasters making predictions about the future path of the U.S. economy and financial markets. If you enjoy hearing the predictions of the financial media talking heads, I implore you to take a look at CXO Advisory Group’s “Guru Grades” … Continued

Momentum Investing

While there are a number of specific strategies that can be considered to be momentum investing, the simple definition can be summarized as, buying stocks that have been going up and selling/shorting stocks that have been going down on the assumption that the existing trend will continue.  It’s a little like being famous for being … Continued

Politics and Investing

Recently, I had four client meetings on the same day.  While four client meetings on the same day isn’t unusual, what was unusual was the main topic of all of the meetings.  The first two clients were incredibly anxious about Joe Biden winning the Presidency and their stock portfolio crashing.  The third and fourth meetings, … Continued

Apple and the Averages

Apple’s recently announced a 4 for 1 stock split will present some issues for the Dow Jones Industrial Averages (DJIA) but not the S&P 500. The DJIA is weighted by the market price of the underlying 30 component companies. Currently, Apple accounts for about 10% of the DJIA.  After the split, this will be reduced … Continued

Is the 401(k) Obsolete?

That seems to be the view of Aaron Brown, writing for Bloomberg News, in an article titled “401(k) Plans No Longer Make Much Sense for Savers”.  Susan Tompor, a columnist for the Detroit Free Press disagrees and has written an exceptional rebuttal titled, “Does a 401(k) plan still make sense for you? It might, or … Continued

Election Confusion?

It hardly requires a stretch of the imagination to consider the possibility that the 2020 presidential election will be accompanied by a degree of confusion.  We are already witnessing the difficulties in quickly determining results for recent primary elections.  Problems include; safely conducting in-person voting, recruiting polling location staff, timely delivery of absentee ballots, agreement … Continued