Saving for an Emergency, Part 1
Political Calculations
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2d ago
Life happens. And when it happens, it will often come with an unexpected price tag. Is that extra bill something you can afford to pay? Even on top of all your other bills? Wouldn't it be nice if you already had the cash to pay that unexpected bill? Without having to borrow any money from family, friends, professional lenders, or your neighborhood loan shark? Or set up a GoFundMe fundraiser? Or count on winning the next lottery drawing? If it's not obvious already, having cash saved and ready to use in case of emergency is a real solution to the money problems posed by potentially unexpected ..read more
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Gold Prices and the Fed
Political Calculations
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2d ago
What drives the price of gold? That's a fascinating question, which is the subject of an article asking that exact question at Investopedia. We're going to cut straight to their bottom line answer: Today, the demand for gold, the amount of gold in the central bank reserves, the value of the U.S. dollar, and the desire to hold gold as a hedge against inflation and currency devaluation all help drive the price of the precious metal. We have a unique perspective on this topic because of the fortunate timing of a snapshot we took mapping the recent historic relationship between the spot price ..read more
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S&P 500 Rockets to New High as Fed Confirms Rate Cuts Are Coming
Political Calculations
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4d ago
For S&P 500 (Index: SPX) investors there was one, and only one, market moving headline during the week that was. The Federal Reserve confirmed on Wednesday, 20 March 2024 that interest rate cuts are coming in 2024. That confirmation was like lighting off a rocket on Wall Street. The index rose nearly 0.9% after the Fed's "dot-plot" projection of future interest rates was released on Wednesday afternoon, closing at an all-time record high. The index would proceed to reach its current new record high of 5,241.53 on the following day, but dipped slightly on Friday, 22 March 2024 to close ou ..read more
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Outside the Box Thinking: Flying Robotic Firehoses
Political Calculations
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5d ago
If you're a firefighter, one of the biggest hassles you have involves directing the water from a firehose to where a fire is burning. That's not an easy job because of the high pressure of the water flowing through the firehose. For traditional firehoses, once the water is turned on, firefighters are limited in how they can direct it. They can angle the end of the hose within a small range and they can move the hose laterally along the ground to some extent, but doing so takes a lot of manual effort as you can see in firehose handling training videos. But what if you could fly or steer the ho ..read more
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Small Changes in Trends for U.S. Teen Employment
Political Calculations
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1w ago
Ernest Hemingway wrote one of the great lines about how change happens in The Sun Also Rises. Here is the set-up and delivery: “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” The phrase "gradually and then suddenly" captures the nature of how real world change happens in ways that go far beyond the context of bankruptcy discussed by the characters in Hemingway's 1926 novel. Applied to the employment situation of U.S. teens, that phrase is relevant because we're seeing some small changes in the trends being reported in the employment data for thi ..read more
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Quarterly S&P 500 Dividend Futures Rise, Signal Potential Turbulence Ahead
Political Calculations
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1w ago
If you want to explain why the S&P 500 has been rising, you don't have to look far beyond how the expectations investors have for the index' dividends have been changing over the last several months. We last presented our regularly scheduled winter snapshot of the expected future for the quarterly dividend payouts for the S&P 500 (Index: SPX) just under six weeks ago. Within those six weeks, the outlook for the index' dividends has continued to improve. With that fundamental underlying support, it's no wonder the index has been recording a series of new record highs. The developing t ..read more
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U.S. Recession Probability Nears a Double-Top
Political Calculations
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1w ago
The odds the U.S. economy will see a recession start at sometime in the next twelve months continued to rise during the past six weeks. Since our previous update, that probability has risen a couple of notches to just over 76%. This resurgence began after the recession probability bottomed at 67% at the end of November 2023 after having previously peaked at 81% in July 2023. The rebound in the odds of recession is nearing what might be described as a double-top. These probabilities are based on a recession forecasting method developed for the Federal Reserve Board in 2006. As such, they refl ..read more
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S&P 500 Investors Riding a Disappointing Roller Coaster
Political Calculations
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1w ago
As trading weeks go, the second week of March 2024 resembled a disappointing roller coaster ride for investors. The S&P 500 (Index: SPX) climbed to a new record high of 5,175.27 on Tuesday, 12 March 2024, but then went on to lose 1.1% of that new high value by the end of the week on the downhill part of its ride. The index closed at 5,117.09, a small 0.13% decline from the previous week's close. What made the week disappointing for investors is a shift in expectations for how frequent interest rate cuts will be during 2024. Higher than expected inflation reports drove the change. While t ..read more
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What Separates the NBA's Top and Bottom Teams?
Political Calculations
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2w ago
What separates the top teams in the National Basketball Association from the bottom teams in the league? If you answered "their scores", you're right. But you might be surprised by how seemingly little difference there is between teams. The offensive performance of NBA teams can be summarized in a figure known as the offensive rating. This statistic combines several different scoring statistics into a single measure that can be used to rank teams. According to the available data at StatMuse, at this point of the NBA's 2023-2024 season, the Boston Celtics have the highest offensive rating of ..read more
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Atmospheric CO2 Increases with Chinese Coal-Fired Emissions
Political Calculations
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2w ago
The pace at which the concentration of carbon dioxide increases in the Earth's atmosphere rose again for the sixth consecutive month in February 2024. Since last bottoming in February 2023, the trailing twelve month average of the year-over-year change in the parts per million of CO₂ being added to the Earth's air has increased by 58%, rising from 1.89 ppm to 2.98 ppm. Only the months of August and September 2023 have seen a small pause in that otherwise upward trend. That trend continues to be dictated by China's emissions of carbon dioxide, which is primarily produced by its coal-fired pow ..read more
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