recession
How Can a Stimulus Help the Economy?
The Covid-19 pandemic sent the US economy into the worse fall since the Great Depression. Things have still not recovered and whole sectors of the economy suffer substantial, lasting unemployment. Congress is haggling over stimulus measures. How can a stimulus help the economy?
Stock Market Recovery Risks
The US stock market has miraculously regained all of its losses for the year despite a recession. What are the stock market recovery risks? There are three things that need to happen for the market recovery to hold. The first is that central banks including the US Federal Reserve need to continue their level of “doing anything necessary.” Second, there needs to be no second wave of covid-19. And, third of all, the shape of the economic recovery needs to be a “V.”
Stock Market Recovery Risks
CNN writes about these issues and says that […]
Is Now the Time to Invest in GE?
General Electric is an American conglomerate originally formed by a merger in 1880 of the Edison General Electric Company (started by Thomas Edison) and Thomson-Houston Electric Company. It was one of the original stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1898 where it was listed most of the time for the next 122 years. The high point for GE stock was $59 a share in June of 2000 before the dot com crash. It fell to $23 a share by late 2002, rose to $41 a share by 2007 and fell during that […]
Safe Investments for a Ten Year Recession
As the coronavirus continues to spread and claim lives across the world, the markets have plummeted and people in the “informal economies” of the world are without work or food. As we wrote in our article, How Far Could Stocks Fall, we reminded our readers that the stock market crash that started in 1929 did not end until 90% of market value was gone three years later. The economy was further damaged by an ill-advised trade war (Smoot Hawley Tariff) and the evaporation of credit. Historians may decide in years to come that the […]
How to Protect Your Investments from a Recession
The trade war shows signs of becoming long term and it is taking its first bite out of Chinese manufacturing. Many economists are predicting a global recession in the coming year and in this interconnected world the USA will not be immune. The question is how to protect your investments from a recession.
How to Protect Your Investments from a Recession
The first choice in protecting your investing capital is to convert to cash or cash equivalents such as we mentioned in our article about how to invest without losing any money. US bank accounts are protected by Federal Deposit Insurance and […]
How Will Higher Interest Rates Affect Your Investments?
The US Federal Reserve Open Market Committee raised interest rates again last week by a quarter of a percent. How will higher interest rates affect your investments? There are several ways that that higher rates will affect your portfolio both immediately and over the long term. Here are a few thoughts on the subject.
Immediate Effects of Higher Interest Rates on Your Investments
U.S. Treasuries
Corporate Bonds
Dividend Stocks
U.S. Treasuries and Corporate Bonds
If you currently have U.S Treasuries, AA, or AAA corporate bonds in your investment portfolio, they just became a little less valuable when the Fed raised rates last week. And, if the […]
How to Minimize Your Investment Losses in the Next Recession
The current volatility in the US stock market is reminiscent of the days preceding both the dot com crash and the 2008 market crash that ushered in the Great Recession. It may well be time to consider how to minimize your investment losses in the next recession. The 2008 crash destroyed about $7 trillion in equity value. A crash today might destroy as much as $20 trillion in equity value according to Investopedia.
The recent stock market retreat, which has sent the S&P 500 Index (SPX) down by 5.9% from its intraday high on Oct. 3, has intensified the debate between […]
Manufacturing Contraction Threatens Investments
The economic “chickens” may have come home to roost as a US manufacturing contraction threatens investments. The Institute for Supply Management report on the manufacturing sector shows that June of 2012 produced the first fall in demand in almost three years (July of 2009). ISM’s purchasing manager’s index is a closely watched measure of current […]
Sorting Through the Influenza News and More
The influenza news never stops. It has temporarily nudged the recession news aside. And when the recovery is complete there will be other news to nudge that aside. The electronic press swoops down upon a story and disseminates it at the speed of light and the public focus shifts nearly as fast. For the short […]
Home Builders in the United States Housing Market as the Recession Lifts
The United States housing market has perhaps bottomed out as the recession shows signs of being on the mend. Although United States housing prices are still down substantially from last year they are not dropping month by month. This may be a good time to look at the large home builders. Some of the larger […]