One of the oldest market sayings is: “markets climb a wall of worry”—needless to say, it is sometimes good to be cautious. We listed some of our worries recently in What Might Scare Markets, but the action in the S&P 500 Index over the past year—and so far in November—has that list growing. [...]
Remember that the major indices don’t represent the entirety of Wall Street. The S&P 500 is up about 10% YTD, why aren’t I? If your investments are lagging the broad benchmark, you may be asking that very question. The short answer is that the S&P is not the overall market (and vice versa). Each year, [...]
Patience & diversification matter in all manner of stock market climates. Stocks rise, fall ... and rise again. Volatility certainly came back to Wall Street during the first several weeks of 2014 in the form of a 7.2% descent for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a 5.9% retreat for the NASDAQ. The declines gave [...]
