Month: April 2022

Retirement Weekly: What value do mutual fund dividends provide?

Q.: Hi Dan – Thank you for writing Opinion: I just got a huge dividend payout from a mutual fund and my investment value dropped — what’s going on? What value do mutual fund dividends provide? If a dividend is paid out, the value of the mutual fund goes down to cover the dividend. In addition to the mutual fund value going down,

Read More »

The Conversation: The power plants of the future will be solar and battery hybrids — and it’s already starting

America’s electric power system is undergoing radical change as it transitions from fossil fuels to renewable energy. While the first decade of the 2000s saw huge growth in natural gas generation, and the 2010s were the decade of wind and solar, early signs suggest the innovation of the 2020s may be a boom in “hybrid” power plants. A typical hybrid

Read More »

Retirement Weekly: Seniors want to stay at home, but they may need help with daily living. Should they hire a concierge?

Over the last decade, a once-obscure business has gained popularity. Concierge services for seniors are easier than ever to find. A concierge supports a senior’s ability to navigate their daily life. That can mean driving them to the hairdresser and medical appointments, running errands for them and simply spending time with them at home or on outings. The convergence of

Read More »

The Margin: At the ‘Mall of Warren Buffett,’ Berkshire Hathaway encourages shareholders to shop till they drop

Most folks come to the Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B, -2.55% annual shareholder meeting in Omaha hoping to gain some financial wisdom from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, the respective chairman and vice chairman of the company. And they also want to learn what Berkshire has in store for itself. But first they must take care of business. As in shopping for

Read More »

Retire Better: Millennials are already thinking of retirement — but are they thinking about the right things?

Move over Boomers. Generation X, too. The biggest group in the United States is now millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996. According to the Brookings Institution, they’re now 22% of the U.S. population—roughly 74 million people—slightly more than boomers (born 1946-1964) and everyone else. The economic, electoral and cultural implications are enormous and will be for decades to come.  

Read More »

Market Snapshot: Rising real yields are threatening perennial `TINA’ trade favoring U.S. stocks — and put tech names further at risk

 Rising inflation-adjusted yields in the U.S. are undermining the long-running trade in which investors favor stocks over other asset classes, and are poised to hit the technology sector even harder. That trade — known as “TINA,” an acronym for “There Is No Alternative” to equities — is being increasingly tested by real yields, which have risen from below zero on

Read More »

: ‘Much of the process and decision-making about salary is hidden or secretive’: As New York pay transparency law awaits, here’s how to find out what your coworkers make

New York City job seekers are coming tantalizingly close an upfront answer for a critical question: how much money can I make in this position? At a time when more people are being more demanding about the salary they expect from a job, a New York City law would mandate employers with four or more workers to include a salary

Read More »

Deep Dive: FAANG stocks plus Microsoft lost $1.4 trillion in market value during April

On another difficult Friday afternoon for the stock market, the broad U.S. indexes ended with significant declines. One element that stood out during such a rough year for technology stocks was that the FAANG group (Facebook holding company Meta Platforms Inc. FB, -2.56%, Apple Inc. AAPL, -3.66%, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -14.05%, Netflix Inc. NFLX, -4.59%, Google holding company Alphabet Inc.

Read More »

The Ratings Game: Amazon stock suffers worst day in more than 15 years, wiping away more than $200 billion in market cap

Amazon.com Inc. shares suffered their worst day in more than 15 years Friday, after the e-commerce and tech giant reported its first quarterly loss in seven years. Amazon AMZN, -14.05% shares fell 14.1%, their biggest one-day percentage decline since July 26, 2006. The drop cost Amazon $206.41 billion in market capitalization, the second-largest total for a single-day market cap decline

Read More »

Market Extra: A rough 4 months for stocks: S&P 500 books the worst start to a year since 1939. Here’s what pros say you should do now.

To say that it has been a perilous stretch for bullish stock investors on Wall Street lately is a bit of an understatement. Marked by stomach-churning volatility and bruising losses in once-popular technology trades, the S&P 500 booked its worst start to a year, through the first four months of 2022, in over 80 years, with the steepest decline in

Read More »

Swiss National Bank (SNB) Opposes Using Bitcoin as a Reserve Currency

Thomas Jordan, the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) Chairman, stated on Friday during a meeting that the central bank is against buying and holding  Bitcoin  (BTC) as a reserve currency citing concerns that it doesn’t meet the requirements of currency reserves. Take Advantage of the Biggest Financial Event in London. “Buying bitcoin is not a problem for us, we can do

Read More »

: Skechers is a sponsor of the pickleball championships, a sport that will likely gain attention from more athletic companies

One thing that Skechers Inc. and the sport of pickleball have in common: both are expanding their appeal to wider audiences. These interests are coming together at the Minto U.S. Open Pickleball Championships, where Skechers is the official footwear sponsor. Pickleball combines parts of badminton, ping pong and tennis, the USA Pickleball website explains, and can be played by a

Read More »

The Ratings Game: Cable stocks continue slide as threat of wireless encroachment causes jitters

After a COVID-fueled hot streak, the cable industry’s broadband party is losing steam, and that continues to drag down shares of Comcast Corp., Charter Communications Inc., and Altice USA Inc. Charter CHTR, -6.07% and Altice ATUS, -5.78% both reported broadband subscriber numbers below expectations late this week, with Altice netting a loss of subscribers, and Comcast CMCSA, -4.10% posted a

Read More »

The Conversation: Ukraine was never a vital interest of the West, until Putin’s imperialist fascism made it so

President Joe Biden and NATO allies in Europe are trying to help Ukraine fight off Russian aggression—but not so much that Russia will retaliate militarily against them. These leaders’ deliberations and calibrations are all taking place against a fundamental background question: Is Ukraine a vital interest to my country? Breaking news: Biden asks Congress for additional $33 billion in Ukraine

Read More »

: Salesforce extends ‘Silenced No More Act’ protections to all U.S. employees

Salesforce Inc. has agreed to extend the protections of a California law to the rest of its U.S. employees, in another victory for a coalition that has set out to urge tech companies to adopt transparency in their employment contracts and essentially free employees from nondisclosure agreements. San Francisco-based Salesforce CRM, -5.28% said Friday that by the end of the

Read More »