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Making America Great Again. Really?
Funny how a slogan can get people all jazzed up and believing things that may or may not be true. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” is one such slogan.
America from where I sit, even with its warts and all, was pretty much of a terrific nation before Donald Trump became president. Now, there are more warts.
That said, if individual voting citizens think that Trump is going to make America great again, they are fooling themselves if the greatness they are thinking of is money related.
The chart above shows how wealth gets distributed during times of economic expansions like the one we’ve been living in for a decade. As you can see, it’s not the bottom 90% of us who have gained economically, in fact we’re losing our economic strength—it’s the top 10%.
The way things stand, there is no way an average person can accumulate enough money to live okay today and be able to save a bundle large enough to cover their 30-40 years in retirement if that gap between the top 10% and the lower 90 doesn’t change. And change dramatically in the working man’s and working woman’s favor.
Until that happens, there can be no “great again”.
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Market Quick Glance
Down. Down. Down. And down.
Not one of the four indices below had year-to-date or a 1-year return at the end of this week that was higher than that of the previous week.
On Thursday the week before last, a voice inside of my head was telling me to sell, sell, sell. And I didn’t, didn’t, didn’t.
Selling when your inside voice is telling you to act takes courage. Courage I didn’t happen to act upon. And it has cost me—on paper.
Deciding when to sell a stock is perhaps one of the two biggest challenges stock investors are faced with. The second is, deciding what to do with the proceeds after selling.
Look for more about this subject in an upcoming piece.
Below are the weekly and 1-year index performance results for four major indices— including the dates each reached new highs—according to CNBC.com based on prices at the close of business on Friday, June 29, 2018.
–DJIA -0.56% YTD down more from the previous week’s return of -056%.
- 1 yr Rtn 14.88% down from the previous week’s 14.88%
Most recent DJIA all-time high was reached on January 26, 2018 of 26,616.71. The previous high was reached January 18, 2018 was 26,153.42.
-S&P 500 1.67% YTD down a lot from last week’s 3.04%
- 1 yr Rtn 12.34% down more from last week’s 13.16%
The S&P 500 reached its most recent all-time high on January 26, 2018 of 2,872.87. The previous high was reached on January 19, 2018 of 2810.33.
-NASDAQ 8.79% YTD down plenty from last week’s 11.44%
- 1yr Rtn 22.23% down from last week’s 23.35%
Nasdaq reached a BRAND NEW ALL-TIME HIGH on June 20, 2018 of 7,806.6. The previous highs was reached on June 14,2018 of 7,768.6.
-Russell 2000 7.00% YTD down a big chunk from last week’s 9.77%
- 1yr Rtn 16.02% wat down from last week’s 20.01%
The Russell 2000 reached a BRAND NEW ALL-TIME HIGH on June 20, 2018 of 1,708.1. The previous high was reached June 12, 2018 of 1,686.37.
-Mutual funds
Below is a repeat of data from the week ending June 21, 2018:
The total return performance of the funds under the U.S. Diversified Equity Funds heading had an average return of 5.04% at the close of business on Thursday, June 21, 2018, according to Lipper. That’s up from the June 7, 2018 average total return of 5.11%.
Yes, it’s still a small cap world and will likely continue to be for the near future with Small-Cap Growth Funds up on average 15.66% followed by Mid-Cap Growth (10.56%) and Multi-Cap Growth Funds (10.55%).
Of the 25 largest funds, based on asset size, the two big winners were the Fidelity Contra Fund, 11.77%, and the American Funds Growth A Fund, 10.52%. Both are large-cap growth funds.
Visit www.allaboutfunds.com for more information about how various equity and fixed-income funds have rewarded investors over the short-and long-term, based upon Lipper data. Short-term meaning weekly and monthly performance returns; longer-term includes quarterly, year-to-date, 1-yr, 2-yr, 3-yr and 5-yr returns.
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Global Investing gone South
All the hoopla about investing overseas in 2018 has proven to not be such a hot idea.
According to CNBC, investors have taken $12.4 billion out from global stock funds in June.
That’s the most money withdrawn from global funds and ETFs since October 2008, according to TrimTabs data.
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allaboutfundsdotcom 