Some 162 companies in the S&P 500 Index received target price reductions Thursday compared with only 62 increases, according to Bloomberg data. The difference marked one of the sharpest swings in analyst sentiment in the 11 years of the series.

Technology stocks have taken a deep dive, blue-chip stocks are ailing, stablecoins aren’t stable, and don’t even ask about traditional crypto. Art markets, however, are alive and well — and it’s worth asking why.

The parallels between the 2020s and the 1970s grow more numerous by the day. The economy faces the threat of stagflation. Fuel prices are surging, and shortages loom. Politicians are flailing. The international environment is deteriorating. The Supreme Court is revisiting the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

The rise in energy costs has contributed to rampant inflation, prompting central banks to raise rates and stoking investor concern growth will slow. The Biden administration is considering tapping a little-used emergency diesel fuel reserve to mitigate the supply crunch amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a White House official.

A fatal shortcoming lies beneath the academic papers that have relied upon “back-testing” to promote the 4% rule. Use our Premium membership service to add your logo and send this to clients.

There are thousands of mutual funds that offer to select stocks and bonds for your portfolio. But which ones are right for you? Use our Premium membership service to add your logo and a note from you and forward it to your clients.

It can take three years before a niche focus takes off for your financial advisory business. This article covers seven marketing steps for year one to ensure you lay a solid foundation for success.

Tesla has grown into a $735 billion company on the back of its breakthrough electric-vehicle engineering. Its own carbon footprint is a small fraction of its peers, and its success in the market has pushed the industry overall away from gas-powered vehicles.

So here we are: When investors aren't worried about inflation, they're worrying about recession. Tech companies are announcing hiring freezes and job cuts in growing numbers. Homebuilders are starting to talk about slowing demand and the supply of existing homes is rising. Walmart reported this week that it has excess inventories.

New graduates face fierce financial headwinds of soaring rent, ballooning student debt and inflation. The oft-repeated message to the young to “save early and often” may feel near-impossible. Still, it's worth highlighting the benefit of doing so for those who can somehow squirrel some money away.

The world economy is increasingly succumbing to the threat of stagflation reminiscent of its 1970s ordeal, a mounting headache for global finance chiefs already navigating the fallout from the war in Ukraine.

Treasuries gained for a second day as investors sought out the safest debt, driving the 10-year yield down 11 basis points to 2.77%, it’s lowest level since late April. Weaker than forecast US jobless claims and a sharp decline in a regional Philadelphia Fed survey spurred a burst of buying in Treasuries, with equities futures indicating that stock prices will open lower.

The Twitter spat about taxes and inflation involving President Joe Biden, Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has served mainly to prove that Twitter is a bad place to attempt intelligent debate. Still, the point at issue matters. It deserves a slightly less abbreviated treatment.

The terms "value" and "growth" have been blurred. What appears to be a value stock may be in its reputation only.

I understand why some advisors won’t achieve the success they deserve.

Do we respect ourselves and our family members enough to treat them like they are our clients?

Is it odd some newer people would have such negative things to say about me?

Like a supertanker, US debt-service costs only change course very slowly. But it’s happening now -- and from Washington’s point of view, the new direction is the wrong one: they’re heading up.

The world’s biggest retailer on Tuesday reported profit that fell short of Wall Street expectations and downgraded its outlook for full-year earnings per share from a mid-single digit increase to a 1% decline. Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon said the bottom-line results were “unexpected” and reflecte the “unusual” environment. Walmart shares tumbled more than 11% on Tuesday, the most in 35 years.

Whenever I surf television cable news channels, I see the plethora of ads for financial planning. But they are run by companies that sell financial products or are owned by huge insurance companies.

The US economy won’t be able to avoid a bout of stagflation and markets have yet to tune into the risk of a significant slowdown in growth, said Mohamed El-Erian, the chair of Gramercy Fund Management and former chief executive officer of Pimco.

Bearish investors are snapping up bullish options to ensure that their defensively positioned portfolios won’t be left behind if the latest rebound in US stocks proves persistent.

Bitcoin is nursing a 21% loss so far in May -- the worst monthly slump in a year -- following last week’s crypto sector turmoil over the collapse of the TerraUSD algorithmic stablecoin, also known by its ticker UST, and Tether’s brief dip from its dollar peg.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, in his most hawkish remarks to date, said the US central bank will keep raising interest rates until there is “clear and convincing” evidence that inflation is in retreat.

Plan for long-term Inflation that will be fought aggressively by the Fed, higher policy rates, and slower economic growth, according to Raghuram Rajan.

Advisors face an uphill battle to get attendance to their events.

No one likes being sold and advisors don’t like selling.

This article explores the benefits of annuities with lower explicit fees, a category I dubbed as “annuities Lite” in a previous article that focused on GLWBs.

The value of overall retail purchases increased 0.9%, after an upwardly revised 1.4% gain in March, Commerce Department figures showed Wednesday. Excluding vehicles and gas stations, sales rose 1% last month. The figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.

Local-currency debt from developing nations -- which is far more sensitive to a country’s domestic inflationary pressures than dollar denominated equivalents -- has slumped almost 9% this year, the most since at least 2008, according to a Bloomberg index.

The euro hasn’t been this cheap against the dollar for almost two decades, but it can get cheaper still. The tail risk of Russian gas and oil being suddenly shut off, most likely plunging the European continent into a sharp recession, is too unpredictable for investors to confidently bet on a rebound any time soon.

Elon Musk has a suggestion for entrepreneurs: Get into lithium mining for juicy margins. It’s a pithy recommendation, but it fails to grasp the complicated challenges for producing more of the metal.

It’s been a brutal stretch for retail traders. Stocks are approaching a bear market. A selloff wiped $200 billion off cryptocurrencies in a single day. And Morgan Stanley found that amateur investors who jumped into the market when lockdowns began in 2020 have lost all their gains.

Equities reversed course and came off highs after Chinese economic data released Monday showed a sharp contraction as Covid lockdowns stung. Wheat jumped after India restricted exports, adding to broader commodity price pressure.

The seasonally adjusted median home sale price jumped 3.6% in April from March, the biggest increase in Zillow data dating to 2012. Inventory is starting to rise slightly, but it’s still so low that it’s vastly outstripped by demand, fueling housing appreciation.

It has been a rough few months for US stocks but even rougher for shares of technology companies. The widely followed and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index is down about 30% since it peaked in November. Investors may be wondering whether tech stocks are a bargain.

The soaring dollar is propelling the global economy deeper into a synchronized slowdown by driving up borrowing costs and stoking financial-market volatility -- and there’s little respite on the horizon.

Advisors who use Dimensional funds are generally believed to more likely adhere to their investment strategies than their peers. A comparison of fund and investor returns calls this conventional wisdom into question.

Deep-seated trends in trade and demographics helped keep inflation in a comfort zone for decades, but both are now pushing in the opposite direction. Globalization was fraying even before pandemic and war made things worse. Growth in the world’s labor force has slowed.

Hundreds of billions of dollars in ephemeral wealth evaporated as the price of Bitcoin plunged to its lowest point since 2020, down more than 50% in about six months. The exchange Coinbase dropped to about a fifth of last year’s initial public offering price.

Historical data shows that stock markets have reacted poorly when the Fed has contracted its balance sheet and reduced liquidity – and the effect is more pronounced when Fed actions deviate from what the market expects.

In just more than a week, US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has gone from expressing confidence that policy makers will be able to avoid pushing the economy into a recession while rapidly raising interest rates to control inflation to remarking, as he did on Thursday, that a downturn is out of the central bank’s control.

Since the 1990s, the CalPERS sold LTC policies to its residents. The lawsuit over claims related to those policies illustrates the dangers clients face with government-sponsored insurance programs.

How do you re-engage your un-engaged clients to see if you can offer them expanded advisory services?

The U.S. debt cannot be paid, even in inflated dollars. Serious inflation is inevitable that will crash stock and bond markets, in addition to devaluing the dollar.

“That’s a great stock; I think I’ll take a big position in my portfolio.” That’s how all too many investors make their investment decisions. Mistake, big mistake. Use our Premium membership service to send this to clients and prospects with your firm’s logo.

The Fed is at a crucial junction, according to Lacy Hunt. It has to contain inflation. If not, the stability of the U.S. economy over the longer term is seriously in doubt.

In 1995, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin asserted that a strong dollar is in the US national interest, a mantra repeated by each of his successors. They’re partially correct since the effects of the robust buck, which has soared this year, help some while harming others.

Surging inflation showed little sign of abating last month, indicating that grocery bills will keep going up, markets will remain volatile and investors will continue to feel pain in their 401(k)s.

The latest US inflation report should be a reality check for Wall Street, but many investors are still wearing rose-colored glasses. Bond yields ticked slightly higher Wednesday after the Labor Department reported that consumer prices rose more than forecast last month, but they are still nowhere near reflecting the monetary policy path it may take to rein in inflation.