Steadfast Finances

 Personal Finance         4 comments

Grandpa might have been on to something when he liquidated his stock holdings and invested in a bond ladder. At the time you didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but you were quite tired of hearing him talk about the risks associated with the stock market. After the reinvestment, you hardly heard a word about his retirement. His risky investments turned into an income-producing bond ladder and money troubles went away. Now that you’ve got a little money saved up, you’re wondering if a bond ladder might be a good choice for you.

 Investing 101,Mutual Funds         No comments

Mutual funds are professionally managed funds that have been pooled together from a big number of people. Some are managed by investment firms and others may be managed by investment subsidiaries of your banks. You may not be aware of it, but your bank will probably have some form of investment product into which you can enter. Mutual funds are appealing because of their higher returns as compared to regular savings account and certificate of deposits. You also don’t see the money in your savings account; therefore, you cannot withdraw it because you want to buy that bag that you saw in the mall.

 Investing 101         No comments

Predictably, a vast majority of people thought the markets would soar after a verbal agreement had been reached on the debt ceiling fiasco. Err, wrong. The bigger problems, at least in my opinion, is a potential breakdown of a 2 and 1/2 year support trendline in the S&P 500 index and a potential close under [...]

 Infographics & Chartology,Investing 101         1 comment

Image Source: Chart of the Day If you’re an avid follower of the financial markets, no doubt you’ve heard a money manager make the claim that “this market is cheap” as a reason to get you, or keep you, invested in the stock market after it’s doubled from March 2009 to present. Truth is, that [...]

 Infographics & Chartology,Investing 101         4 comments

Two years after making the observation that terrible earnings news was the time to buy (see first chart), it looks as if the billions of taxpayer dollars (via future earnings) have gotten corporate earnings back to credit bubble highs (see second chart). From May 18, 2009: An Index Fund Investor’s Dream: S&P 500 Earnings Nearing [...]

 Index Funds,Infographics & Chartology,Investing 101,Investor Psychology         No comments

Remember that thing known as the “Sell in May and Go Gway” effect? It has a flip side, known as the the Halloween Effect, where the majority of all S&P 500 gains have been made between November and April. Image Source: Chart of the Day I also refer to the Halloween Effect as the “cold [...]

 Infographics & Chartology,Investing 101         No comments

[click chart to enlarge] With QE2 (almost) a certainty, many traders have bid up equities well in advance of the Federal Reserve’s official announcement. Only problem is, when a major event is telegraphed weeks/months in advance, Wall Street has a nasty way of invoking the “buy on the rumor and sell on the news” tactic, [...]

 Infographics & Chartology,Investing 101,Investor Psychology         No comments

One of my favorite religion (or mythology if that’s how you roll) based quotes goes something like: Don’t believe in the devil? You should… he believes in you. From my vantage point, the same goes with technical analysis in the financial markets: Don’t believe in technical analysis? You should, it, and thousands of it’s followers, [...]

 Business Trends,Investing 101,Politics         No comments

George Celente of the Trends Research Institute is among the top 5 people in the world I’d like to have a beer with because he’s a master of big picture thinking. He’s one of the most pragmatic, read between the BS analysts in the world who can take information from multiple sectors and piece them [...]

 Economy,Infographics & Chartology,Investing 101         5 comments

Spooky similarities between The Great Depression stock market crash and the current path of The Great Recession stock market crash. Will we continue on the path that led the correction of 1937 into a collapse in 1938? This question would be nothing more than a technical curiosity for chartists if it weren’t for alarmingly similar [...]

 Investing 101         3 comments

One of things that still baffles me about the stock market is the vast sum of money that exchanges hands (electronically of course) at such a blistering pace. In the blink of an eye, a few million dollar orders can be quietly executed in any given stock and no one pays it any attention. It’s [...]

 Index Funds,Investing 101,Strategic Planning         2 comments

I knew the aughts decade, the bubble decade, the lost decade, or whatever you choose to call it was a bad time for stock market performance, but I really didn’t think it was this bad. Image from Chart of the Day Pretty depressing stuff when you consider that we started the decade with such optimism, [...]