Bob's Journal
Found 587 Articles.
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Bob’s Journal for 9/7
Lessons from the Nvidia Surge The top-returning stock of the year so far is NVIDIA (NVDA). The second-best stock isn’t even close. NVDA also is the top-performing stock of the last 10 years, according to Bespoke Investment Group. Again, second place isn’t close. NVDA was up 230% in 2023 through the end of August. Over […]
Bob’s Journal for 8/31
IRS Delays New 401(k) Catch-Up Contributions Rule The IRS recently announced that it was delaying the effective date of a rule on catch-up contributions enacted in late 2022 as part of the SECURE Act 2.0. The new rule provides that any catch-up contribution to a 401(k) or similar plan made by an employee earning more […]
Bob’s Journal for 8/24/23
Long-Term Returns Are Driven by Very Few Stocks Treasury bills earn higher returns than most stocks, according to a recent update and expansion of a classic study. A group of economists led by Hendrik Bessembinder of Arizona State University surveyed returns of 64,000 global stocks from January 1990 to December 2020. The research found that […]
Bob’s Journal for 8/17/23
Household Allocations to Stocks Near Record Highs The percentage of household assets invested in stocks is near all-time highs. The other periods when stock ownership was this high turned out not to be good times to own stocks. At the end of the first quarter of 2023, households had 16.57% of their total assets invested […]
Bob’s Journal for 8/10/22
Why Interest Rates Could Move Higher Soon We’re probably at a turning point in the treasury bond market. Over the last 18 months, interest rates on treasury bonds didn’t increase as much as many observers expected. The Federal Reserve rapidly increased the short-term interest rates it controls. Other interest rates increased, but not as rapidly […]
Bob’s Journal for 8/3/22
How Inflation Distorts Data In times of elevated inflation, we need to be careful when examining economic and financial data. Inflation distorts a lot of numbers, including gross domestic product (GDP) and corporate earnings. It is important to look at the real changes after adjusting for inflation and also consider the time period involved and […]
Bob’s Journal for July 27, 2023
Producer Prices Near Deflationary Levels, Consumer Price Inflation Remains High Producer prices increases have slowed to almost 0% while consumer price increases remain high. The Producer Price Index (PPI) for June increased only 0.1% after declining 0.4% in May. Over 12 months, the PPI increased only 0.1%. The core PPI, which excludes food and energy, […]
Bob’s Journal for July 19, 2023
IRS Issues New Guidance on RMDs The IRS isn’t ready to issue final rules on the changes made to required minimum distributions (RMDs) under the SECURE Act and other recent legislation, but it issued new short-term guidance last week. RMDs were changed in significant ways the last few years. One major change is that the […]
