First-quarter 401(k) account statements will be arriving in mail boxes in a few short weeks. When they do, a lot of Americans will wonder why they even bothered contributing. For all of the day-to-day noise, the market is going to finish the quarter pretty much where it started. And to think, the market hasn’t even crashed…
Large-cap blend mutual funds seek to offer value appreciation through capital gains with relatively less volatility by investing in both value and growth stocks. Blend funds, which are also known as “hybrid funds”, owe its origin to a graphical representation of a fund’s equity style box. In addition to diversification, blend funds are great picks…
BlackBerry (BBRY) is expected to report fourth quarter earnings before the open on Friday, April 1, with a conference call scheduled for 8:00 am ET. BlackBerry manufactures and markets mobile devices, such as smartphones, and creates software and services for those devices. EXPECTATIONS: Analysts are expecting losses per share of (10c) on revenue of $563.18M….
Kiss your cash goodbye! The word is that things would be more convenient, crooks would be confounded and diseases might be thwarted if we’d just get rid of filthy currency as the most essential form of personal financial liquidity. Currently circulating in the corridors of world financial powers, it may appear as an enlightened technical…
The Sentier Research median household income data for February, released this morning, came in at $57,129. The nominal median declined $159 month-over-month but is up $2,562 year-over-year. That’s a decline of 0.1% MoM and 4.7% YoY increase. Adjusted for inflation, the latest income was down $63 MoM but up $2,031 YoY. The real numbers equate to increases…
Fed Levitation What is going on at the Federal Reserve? On Tuesday, Janet Yellen comes out and announces that despite inflation being on the rise and employment below 5%, she is not going to raise the Fed Funds rate 4-times this year, nor even two times this year, but rather most likely none. Of course, this “one…
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International (VRX) continues to be in news. On Wednesday, the stock dropped more than 6% even as the company announced that it has initiated the process to secure an amendment and waiver to its credit facility. The amendment will allow VRX to extend the deadline to file its 10-K to May 31 (from…
Week 12 of 2016 shows same week total rail traffic (from same week one year ago) declined according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR) traffic data. All rolling averages are negative. The deceleration in the rail rolling averages began one year ago, and now rail movements are being compared against weaker 2015 data. There were port…
The floating bridge, which crosses from Seattle on one side of Lake Washington to Bellevue on the other, has been rebuilt and is almost completed. To finance the new bridge, a toll has been placed on its use. The other bridge, the I-90 bridge, requires no toll but takes you much farther out of your…
Retail is a very difficult business. There are no customer switching costs, there are high fixed costs and there are few barriers to entry. One look through my Value Fail page makes it evident that a number of retailers have played a key role in my losses. And yet I just haven’t learned this lesson fast enough….
