Well over half the adult population of the United States owns some stock, individually or in mutual funds or retirement plans. It has become cheap and easy to purchase stocks on your iPad or mobile phone without a traditional broker. Yet we seldom consider the fascinating mechanism by which stocks are created and traded. Just where do stocks come from?
It's hard to believe we are even having this discussion, but the threat of a destructive trade war with Mexico is suddenly a possibility.
The first American stock trades occurred under a Buttonwood tree on Wall Street in 1792. For most of that time, the principal attraction of owning shares has been the periodic cash flow paid out to the shareholders.
OK, it has probably been long enough since New Year's Day that most of our resolutions are toast. So now that the year is well under way and we are back to the day-to-day challenges of making ends meet, how about a few simple but powerful resolutions to start on now that can pay serious dividends in future years?
For a year that promised extraordinary uncertainty (and delivered in spades), 2016 delighted stock investors with a post-election rally that drove the S&P 500 index higher by nearly 12 percent.
Prognosticators relish the annual ritual of predicting the events that will shape the markets during the year ahead.
Successful investing necessarily includes the occasional stinker that didn't fulfill its manifestly obvious potential. It is axiomatic that deciding what to buy is inevitably easier than culling out the losers.
The uniquely American holiday we call Thanksgiving is a time during which we reflect upon our blessings and share with friends and family. It is also genuinely American in its commercial impact on the economy. Here are a few fun facts about Thanksgiving economics.
There are about 25 million Individual Retirement Accounts in the United States, representing more than $2.5 trillion in total assets. Given the fact that they can only be held by one individual, the odds are good that you may find yourself the recipient of an IRA account at some point.
Mercifully, the seemingly interminable 2016 election is behind us, and presumably we now know the name of the next Leader of the Free World.
