Monday, April 22, 2019
It was only six months ago that Fed Chairman Jay Powell said that the Fed was “a long way from neutral,” meaning that they were going to keep raising rates. How times have changed! In December, the central bank hiked rates and the market threw a fit, and the stock market plunged. Still, the Fed’s […]
This is an era of divisive U.S. politics. The House and Senate are split between Democrat and Republican control. President Trump has very firm ideas on policies he wants to implement. There will be another election next year (do they every stop campaigning?) which means less chances the two parties will want to give the […]
For income stock investors, the best defense against stock market downturns is to own shares in companies that periodically increase their dividend rates. Focusing on a growing income stream changes how you think about stock prices. REITs are active businesses where the good ones are managed to grow income and the dividends paid to investors […]
It is obvious that there is plenty of controversy surrounding the Donald Trump presidency. What is less visible and well known is that many of the policies Trump has put in place have been good for U.S. business as well as labor and wage growth. It’s not my desire to partake in the political debate. […]
It has been a challenging start to 2019 for real estate investment trust (REIT) investors. At the start of the year, the REIT indexes zoomed higher. The last few weeks have investors wonder if the party is already over for the year. The financial media is placing blame in many places including trade wars, slowing […]
While the Fed has for now put interest rate increases on hold, I continue to receive questions on whether REIT values will be hurt by rising interest rates. It is a widely held –but inaccurate– belief that REIT values must fall if interest rates continue to increase. The fact that many REITs increase their dividends […]
There is a tremendous appeal to owning shares of high-yield stocks. In a world where you are lucky if a bank account pays 2%, income stocks that pay 8%, 9% or even 11% can be very attractive. However, high yield stocks are not a bank account or government bond. Dividend cuts happen and when they […]
Over the last four months, the U.S. stock market has turned ugly and the fear of an economic recession is in the air. There are a lot of recession predictions coming out in the financial media. I have seen forecasts for an economic slowdown this year, next year, or further out on the future. Timing […]
When a new year starts it is common for investors and even financial experts to take what happened last year and extrapolate those results into their expectations for the new year. It’s human nature to view events as linear, when the reality is that they move in cycles. 2018 was the year of renewed stock […]
I receive a lot of questions about getting out of the market before the next economic recession or stock bear market. For many investors there is a constant fear that they will be too late to get out of stocks when the market starts into a deep decline, and much of their portfolio values will […]
