Bob's Journal
Found 587 Articles.
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Bob’s Journal for 4/18
Advance Indicators of Recessions Reverse Course The most-cited advance indicators of recessions recently became less gloomy after months of indicating a recession was imminent. The prominent Leading Economic Index from The Conference Board declined for 23 consecutive months, causing The Conference Board to warn for most of the last two years that a mild recession […]
Bob’s Journal for 4/11
Why the Economy is Harder to Read It’s no surprise that many economists, analysts and investors misread the economy the last few years, as did the Federal Reserve. There are good reasons for this. One problem that’s becoming worse is data collection. A good portion of the economic data released each month comes from surveys […]
Expect Medicare Advantage Changes in 2025
Medicare Advantage plan insurers are under fire, as I foretold in my Feb. 1 Bob’s Journal. Barron’s recently expanded upon the situation in a cover story. The problems became apparent when Humana, a major provider of Medicare Advantage plans, reported higher costs and lower profits, reporting it expected those trends to continue. While Advantage plans […]
Bob’s Journal for 3/28
Social Security to Reduce ‘Clawback Cruelty’ for Benefit Overpayments The Social Security Administration (SSA) finally is moderating its aggressive practices against beneficiaries who were overpaid benefits. It’s not unusual for SSA to make errors when calculating someone’s benefits and discover the error later, sometimes years later. Then, the SSA demands repayment. The longstanding SSA practice […]
17 Record Highs in 50 Trading Days
The S&P 500 set 17 record closing highs in the first 50 trading days of 2024 through March 13, according to Bespoke Investment Group. That’s the most record highs to start a year since the 20 in 1998. Here’s another bit of investment trivia: There have been only five years since 1953 that record highs […]
Bob’s Journal for 3/14
Bitcoin Hits New Record High The new exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have been good for the price of bitcoin. After a multi-year legal fight, ETF providers prevailed in 2023. A federal appeals court said the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) didn’t have a good reason to prohibit proposed ETFs that owned bitcoin. After all, the SEC […]
Bob’s Journal for 3/7
Fraud Losses Hit a Record in 2023 Frauds and scams took a record amount of money from U.S. adults in 2023, according to the Federal Trade Commission. While the media like to report about the big scams, most crooks seem to try to stay under the radar with smaller hauls. A total of about $10 […]
Bob’s Journal for 2/29
Artificial Intelligence Stocks Lead the Markets Stocks in general have had solid returns since November 2022, but artificial intelligence (AI) stocks are responsible for most of the returns of the major indexes. There are eight exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with investment strategies related to AI, and 67 stocks in the S&P 500 are in at least […]
