In the past two weeks the market decidedly took a sharp turn for the worse. The world seems to be falling apart with out-of-control inflation, the war in Ukraine, UK enacting suspect fiscal policies, Europe in the midst of energy crisis and contentious midterm elections at home.
Investing
Where is Your Cash?
This table shows rates on select cash alternatives as of 8/29/2022. Traditional banks are still paying nothing, which is unlikely to change anytime soon. FDIC-insured cash deposits at most brokerage firms aren’t particularly appealing either with 0.25% at Schwab. With a little extra work, moving your money to a High Yield Online Savings account, such as Ally or Marcus, might be a good option for many savers.
2022 Mid-Year Review
This time of the year I like to look through some of my performance spreadsheets to see how things are going in various investment areas.
What’s Eating Bonds?
In this post I look at how bond prices have reacted to recent Fed policy changes
What’s the Fed up to These Days?
Fed’s toolkit in fighting inflation – what can they do, what have they done so far, what are they likely to do in the near future.
2021 Review: Sectors, Stocks & International
In a major change of leadership, energy, real estate and financials had a phenomenal year. On the bottom of the table we have gold miners (gold price dropped in a high inflation year), biotech and internet which slowed down after years of torrid growth.
2021 Review: Significant Events and Major Asset Classes
Reviewing major stories of 2021 and how they affected the major asset class performance
Do Market Fundamentals Support Price Run-Up?
Strong recent returns ARE a combination of earnings growth (expected to remain robust in the next few quarters as shown in Exhibit 2) and investors’ willingness to pay more for each dollar of those earnings (likely helped by Fed policies and lack of attractive alternatives).
What’s Driving The Market This Year?
S&P 500 index is up 19% so far this year, here I dig into the data on what’s driving it and what’s going on under the surface of the index.
2021 Mid-Year Review
S&P 500 has been steadily trending up all year and hasn’t been too far from all-time highs.