Unfortunately, more Americans are using their 401(k)’s for financial emergencies I’m sure some will disagree with me based on the headlines arguing they were so happy that they had their 401(k) to tap for whatever their financial emergency was. In my opinion, people are thinking short term and not thinking about the long-term crisis when they retir…

Will the stock market crash? With the market continuing to march higher and setting record high after record high, I do worry more and more that a crash could be coming. It doesn’t mean it will happen tomorrow, next week, or maybe even this year, but I do believe the risk to reward of investing in the S&P 500 at this point is not favorable when you…

Should you be concerned by the jobs report? The July jobs report showed nonfarm payrolls grew by 73k, which missed the estimate of 100k. Unfortunately, the news got even worse as you dug into the report. The prior two months saw major negative revisions as June was revised from 147k to just 14k and May was revised from 125k to just 19k. This amount…

Big bank earnings give a cautious green light on the economy Every quarter we get excited about listening to and reading about how things went for the big banks in the most recent quarter as they release their earnings. I’m primarily talking about JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo. We have held a couple large banks in our …

Are tariffs impacting inflation yet? The Consumer Price Index, also known as the CPI, in the month of June showed an annual increase of 2.7%, which was in line with expectations. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, came in at 2.9% and was also in like with expectations. It was slightly above May’s reading of 2.8%, but given all the news aroun…

Crypto losses increase 66% in 2024 At first you may be saying I thought Bitcoin has been increasing in value? While that is true, you have to remember that is only one of the many thousands of cryptocurrencies that are available. According to the FBI in 2024, there was 149,686 complaints for total losses of $9.3 billion. It was somewhat surprising …

The June jobs number looks stronger than it really is I want to be clear; I wouldn’t say this was a bad report, but the headline number that showed an addition of 147,000 jobs in the month of June doesn’t show the full picture. The number did come in well above the estimate for 110,000 jobs and it follows upward revisions in the months of April and…

Watch Out For This Chinese Stock Scam! Yes, there’s another scam out there trying to part you from your hard-earned money. This has happened many times in recent years and it’s occurred in very small Chinese stocks that are vulnerable to manipulation. For some reason some US investors see these and think they’ve hit it big. US regulators try their …

May retail sales look stronger than headlines show After seeing headlines from several media outlets, I was worried May retail sales were slowing to a problem point, but I would say they actually looked quite strong. Compared to April, sales did fall 0.9%, which was larger than expectations for a 0.6% decline. It’s important to point out though tha…

Alternative Assets Appear to Be a House of Cards I remember using that same terminology back before the tech bust about 25 years ago. I was maybe a little bit early back then, but the house of cards collapsed. The more I read about alternative assets the more I scratch my head and ask how is Wall Street getting away with this? In the end, I believe…

Jobs market remains in a good spot Headline nonfarm payrolls increased 139k in the month of May, which was above the estimate of 125k, but below April’s reading of 147k. A big negative in the report was the fact that March and April saw negative revisions that caused payrolls in those months to decline by a combined 95k versus what was previously r…

First Time Homebuyers Hit a Record Low With the high cost of housing and higher interest rates, people trying to get their first home dropped to a record low around 23% in 2024. The average age of the first-time homebuyer has increased 10 years over the historical average to 38 years old. The median income is now $97,000 and the first-time home buy…

The U.S. just received a downgrade to its credit rating, should you worry? Last week, Moody’s announced it downgraded the United States sovereign credit rating from AAA to Aa1. While a downgrade is important to understand and can have negative consequences for interest rates, this downgrade did not seem too problematic. I mainly say that because Mo…

U.S. Tariffs are hurting China Exports from China have dropped dramatically which has weighed on China’s economy. This has caused protests due to lost jobs and wages in their economy. Exports from China to the United States dropped 20% in April, but China did pick up exports from other countries like Indonesia, Thailand and Africa. While this may h…

Why I won’t be buying Palantir technologies anytime soonWhen I’m out in public many times people ask me what my opinions are when it comes to investing, the markets or individual stocks. I have to say the one stock that people seem to be asking the most about recently is Palantir Technologies, their ticker symbol is PLTR. I believe I’m asked about …

Should the United States delist Chinese stocks? At first thought with all the craziness of the trade war it sounds like delisting all the Chinese companies from the American stock markets may be a good idea. It is important to know that there are 286 Chinese companies listed on major US stock exchanges. You’ll recognize some of the names like Aliba…

Should you invest in gold for the long term? Gold has been a great asset to hold over the last year, but I remain a skeptic of investing in gold long term. I personally don’t own any gold nor would I recommend buying gold at this point in time. While the recent gains in the price of gold look attractive, given the fact it is up over 20% so far this…

Can the heartland states save our country? The heartland states are 20 states pretty much in the center of the country. They have been regaining economic strength over the years and currently about 39% of the US population lives in these states, according to the census bureau for 2024. The population growth in this area was above the rest of the co…