S&P; Cuts U.S. Debt, Should You Care?
Uncle Sam's AAA rating lowered to AA+.
Steve Schaefer, Forbes Staff Active conversation: 6 commentsUncle Sam's AAA rating lowered to AA+.
Steve Schaefer, Forbes Staff Active conversation: 6 commentsHard assets are the likely benefactors of the US sovereign debt downgrade on Friday. US Treasury debt get sent to the minor leagues on Friday by Standard & Poor's and is now rated AA+. read »
A potent stew of troubles from jobs to the national debt is eating away at the country's financial strength. read »
High-yielding dividend stocks for opportunistic investors.
To understand the implications of Standard & Poor's lowering the credit rating of U.S. government debt by one notch to AA+, we first have to understand why U.S. debt was downgraded, and maybe more importantly what was not part of the reason for the downgrade. Let’s start with the latter. read »
Late Friday evening, S&P downgraded the U.S.'s long-term debt rating to AA+ with a negative outlook. If that downgrade has no economic impact, it will fade from the headlines. And that is the most likely scenario. read »
The U.S. credit rating is no longer impenetrable, after Standard & Poor’s cut Uncle Sam to AA+ late Friday, from its prior rating of AAA. read »
Friday 8.5 at the Close Are we heading into another Bear Market? – Relieve your Anxiety; Focus on out-performance via “Pair Trading”. During the last few weeks, being long individual stocks has most likely had a negative impact on your portfolio by a margin of anywhere from negative 7% -15%. Dynamically speaking, this is due to the fact; being long stocks in your portfolio has a strong correlation to the Dow Jones and S&P 500 Index, in general. In other words, as the broad markets (Indices)[...] read »
As the politicians in Washington DC take time off for their summer vacations, many of us on the Left and Right alike believe that it's pretty hard to make their recent handiwork look like much of an achievement. Not only did the stock market continue its miserable performance today, but we also learned that the official US unemployment rate for July 2011 remains stuck at 9.1 percent. Indeed, the 117,000 net new jobs recorded last month lagged way behind the 200,000 that we need just to keep pace[...] read »
“Fundamental Indexing is really a very simple idea,” says Rob Arnott, the founder and chairman of Research Affiliates. Arnott is the forefather of fundamental indexing, a strategy that refines the indexing pioneered by Vanguard founder Jack Bogle. Rather than using market-cap to determine the weight of each equity in the index, fundamental indexing looks at the economic footprint of companies in the index. The strategy, which has been around for five years, has outperformed over the past half-d[...] read »
The S&P 500, Dow Jones industrial average and Nasdaq were all sharply lower for the week as an anxiety-riddled market cratered Thursday before somewhat stabilizing Friday. read »
This volatile thirty first trading week of 2011 comes to a close leaving investors with a lot of [...]
Wall Street swung between gains and losses Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average trading in a 416-point range as the market sorted through July’s jobs report, rumors of a cut to America’s credit rating and the latest bid to stem the tide of Europe’s debt crisis. read »
Did your retirement assets take a beating in this week’s stock market nosedive? If so, you may be able to turn adversity into advantage by converting a traditional IRA to a Roth, or undoing a Roth conversion done previously. read »
As if there isn’t enough bad news hitting the markets, another nail in the coffin today was Fannie Mae’s just released Form 10Q, its second quarter results. read »
Boeing may well have to bear the brunt of the U.S. debt deal, which plans to cut government spending by $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years. This includes a planned cut of $350 billion in the U.S. defense budget, a figure that many speculate will rise further. For Boeing, this can translate to reduced government contracts and more stringent Federal procurement policies both of which can hurt revenues and margins for its defense, space and security division. Boeing competes in the commercial aircraft[...] read »
According to Dividend Channel, in trading on Friday, shares of Gladstone Commercial Corp (GOOD) were yielding above the 9% mark based on its monthly dividend (annualized to $1.50), with the stock changing hands as low as $16.00 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market's total return. To illustrate, suppose for example you purchased shares of the iShares Russell 3000[...] read »
Research in Motion recently announced plans to launch 5 new smartphones based on BlackBerry 7 operating system in a bid to revive its declining fortunes. Although these smartphones have some advanced features like HD video recording capability and 1.2 GHz processor, it may still not be enough to make a meaningful run at Apple iOS and Google Android in the battle of smartphone operating systems. read »
According to Dividend Channel, in trading on Friday, shares of NACCO Industries Inc. (NC) were yielding above the 3% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $2.13), with the stock changing hands as low as $69.63 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market's total return. To illustrate, suppose for example you purchased shares of the iShares Russell 3000 ETF[...] read »
According to Dividend Channel, in trading on Friday, shares of Investors Real Estate Trust (IRET) were yielding above the 9% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $0.69), with the stock changing hands as low as $7.57 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market's total return. To illustrate, suppose for example you purchased shares of the iShares Russell 3000[...] read »
According to Dividend Channel, in trading on Friday, shares of Golar LNG Ltd (GLNG) were yielding above the 3% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $1.00), with the stock changing hands as low as $29.12 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market's total return. To illustrate, suppose for example you purchased shares of the iShares Russell 3000 ETF (IWV)[...] read »
According to Dividend Channel, in trading on Friday, shares of Southwest Gas Corporation (SWX) were yielding above the 3% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $1.06), with the stock changing hands as low as $35.16 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market's total return. To illustrate, suppose for example you purchased shares of the iShares Russell 3000[...] read »
According to Dividend Channel, in trading on Friday, shares of Senior Housing Properties Trust (SNH) were yielding above the 7% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $1.48), with the stock changing hands as low as $20.69 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market's total return. To illustrate, suppose for example you purchased shares of the iShares Russell[...] read »
According to Dividend Channel, in trading on Friday, shares of Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (DLR) were yielding above the 5% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $2.72), with the stock changing hands as low as $53.62 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market's total return. To illustrate, suppose for example you purchased shares of the iShares Russell 3000[...] read »
According to Dividend Channel, in trading on Friday, shares of Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI) were yielding above the 4% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $1.24), with the stock changing hands as low as $30.62 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market's total return. To illustrate, suppose for example you purchased shares of the iShares Russell 3000 ETF[...] read »
CNBC's Strategy Session segment Friday focused on Italy's equity market decline of 20% year-to-date and then juxtaposed that with the performace of Brazil's market, down even more in local currency terms. Is Brazil the new Italy? read »
According to Dividend Channel, in trading on Friday, shares of TECO Energy Inc. (TE) were yielding above the 5% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $0.86), with the stock changing hands as low as $16.87 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market's total return. To illustrate, suppose for example you purchased shares of the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) back on[...] read »
According to Dividend Channel, in trading on Friday, shares of Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (HIG) were yielding above the 2% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $0.40), with the stock changing hands as low as $19.88 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market's total return. To illustrate, suppose for example you purchased shares of the S&P[...] read »
Morgan Stanley officials have great expectations for their firm and they're buying up shares to prove it. read »