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Vote! Even if it’s at the graveyard.
I’m a big believer in exercising my right as a U.S. citizen to vote.
Ya sure the idea that the Electoral College winds up with the biggest say when it comes to who actually becomes president adds a wrinkle of its own but even so, never forget that my vote –your vote—everyone’s vote— counts. No matter if it was sent in by mail or done in person during early voting days or on Election Day.
That said, last week I learned about a polling location I would never would have believed was real until I researched it: Graveyards .
Okay, not really in the graveyard–although aren’t there bunches of jokes about the dead voting? But I digress.
Apparently in states like Alabama or Indiana it’s not all that unusual to have the living show up to vote at graveyards—I mean at cemeteries.
Polling spots located at a designated cemetery are, and have been, very real official spots where the upright, breathing, and those with the proper ID may go to place their votes provided that’s the voter’s designated voting location.
Really. And you thought polling locations were just schools, or community centers, or fire stations or libraries, etc.
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Market Quick Glance
Markets don’t like uncertainty. Never have. Never will. As a result, this contentious presidential campaign has shown an ugly side that has impacted stocks and bond prices all around the globe. The result? The indices have basically been on a downward slide for weeks now— and last week was no different.
At this point in time, it’s anybody’s guess as to how the markets will react to the Tuesday’s election results. Or, whether the indices will end the year in positive or negative territory. One thing we do know, however, is how they fared the last week.
On that note, below are the weekly and 1-year performance results for four popular stock indices along with their respective P/E Ratios. Data according to Bloomberg and based on prices at the close of business on Friday, Nov.4, 2016
-Indices:
-Dow Jones +4.91% YTD down from last week’s 6.47%
- 1yr Rtn +2.28% down from last week’s 5.60%
P/E Ratio 17.05 down from last week’s 17.30
-S&P 500 +3.38% YTD down from last week’s 5.88%
- 1yr Rtn +1.50% down from last week’s 4.51%
P/E Ratio 19.49 down from week’s 19.94
–NASDAQ +1.93% YTD down from last week’s 4.76%
- 1yr Rtn -0.61% down from last week’s 4.10%
P/E Ratio 29.43 down from last week’s 30.64
–Russell 2000 +3.69% YTD down from last week’s 5.83%
- 1yr Rtn -1.55% down from last week’s 3.77%
P/E Ratio 41.25 down from last week’s 41.84
-Mutual funds
Below is a quick look at the performance results of the top 5 Lipper Indices. Each index is composed of the top 15 to 30 funds within a Classification.
-Precious Metals Equity
85.84%
-Lipper Pr Metal Eq Fd IX
77.20%
-Latin American Funds
35.43%
-Lipper Glbl Nat Res IX
22.60%
-Commodities Precious Metals
21.64%
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.
•Cash rules
No matter how popular plastic has become, people still prefer using cash instead of credit or debit cards.
According to a recent Money.CNN.com report that focused on a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Cash Product Office, of the 150 billion transaction last year, “Cash was used in 32% of all transactions last year, the highest of any payment method. Spenders used debit cards for 27% of purchases and credit cards 21% of the time.”
Claire Wang, a policy analyst at the San Francisco Fed said, “We still see significant cash preference despite rumors that everyone is switching over to cards.”
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allaboutfundsdotcom 