Investing

Are Bank Stocks a Good Investment: Assessing Their Potential in Your Portfolio

by
are bank stocks a good investment now graphic

Deciding to invest in bank stocks is one way to add both dividends and financial growth to your portfolio. While finance stocks offer several advantages, they also come with unique challenges that warrant full consideration. Investing in bank stocks can provide long-term growth through consistent dividend payments, potential for significant capital appreciation, and they serve as a crucial component in diversified investment portfolios. Bank Stocks and Finance Stocks The financial services sector, which includes banks and other finance-related entities, plays a vital role in the overall economy, making it an essential segment to understand before diving into bank stocks. While investing in banks can provide a solid return on your investment, it’s important to keep in mind the risks associated with this type of investment. Banks can be sensitive to changes in interest rates, economic cycles, and regulatory changes, which can all play a part in determining their profitability. Assessing the Potential of Bank Stocks Determining the potential of bank stocks is a crucial step for those investing in the finance sector. Bank stocks, as key components of the financial industry, often display stability and growth that most investors seek for their portfolios. Assessments typically depend on various factors such …

Read More

Gold Investing Techniques

by
gold

Investing in gold has been a time-honored method of diversifying a financial portfolio and preserving wealth. From gold bullion to gold coins and gold bars, there are several ways to invest in this precious metal. As an asset that has held its value for centuries, gold offers investors security and has proven to be a hedge against inflation, economic uncertainty, and market volatility. Before beginning a gold investment journey, it’s essential to become familiar with the basics, such as understanding the gold spot price. This figure serves as the basis for pricing gold products and securities, and it’s usually updated every minute, fluctuating throughout the day like stock prices. Tracking gold spot prices allows investors to make informed decisions about buy and sell opportunities, as they’ll be able to identify price trends and determine their entry and exit points in the market. One popular option for investing in gold is through purchasing gold coins. These can include American Gold Eagles, Canadian Gold Maple Leafs, and South African Krugerrands. These coins not only hold value through their gold content but also serve as tangible assets that are easy to store and liquidate when needed. Physical gold coins are typically bought through a dealer such …

Read More

Stash Stock Back Card Review

by
stash stock back rewards card

Is Stash Stock Back Card a scam? Is the Stash Stock Back Card safe? Is the whole Stock Cash Back Card legit? We take a look. What Is Stash? Stash is one of many micro-brokers pushing the so-called fintech movement. We should start by asking if Stash is a legitimate company? Stash is backed by numerous well-known investors, and all of its customer accounts are SPIC insured which means even if you still wonder, is stash reputable, you can be assured that your money is safe in separate, insured accounts. Like other mini-brokers, Stash is entirely online and offers customers ways to buy stock without investing a lot of money and with minimal fees. The Stash Stock Back Card is a compliment to the online Stash brokerage service, and other Stash cash back rewards. Let’s get into this Stash Stock-Back review. What Is Stash Stock Back? Stash Stock Back comes from Stash stock rewards, Stash stock back bonus, and the Stash Stock Back Card. In each case, Stash deposits additional money into your Stash account in the form of stock shares and partial stock shares known as fractional stock shares. Alright, these are a lot of terms that all start …

Read More

Acorns Investment Portfolio Review

by
acorns investment performance

Recently, I did a review of the Acorns app. If you are not already familiar with the Acorns savings and investing app, you should read that for an introduction how to use Acorns first. It also covers questions like Is Acorns safe, What are Acorns fees, and If Acorns is legit. Essentially everything you would expect in an honest Acorns review. Now, let’s take a look at Acorns funds and how they invest your change. Are Acorns Investments Good Portfolios? The idea of the Acorns automatic money savings app is that it rounds up all of your transactions and automatically invests that money for you. There are some nuances about how Acorns works you should understand first. Money is only transferred once the minimum round-up amount is $5, and it only happens once per day, unless you use the Acorns debit card or Acorns checking account. Before we get too in-depth here, it is important to remember a few things. First, when you get started with Acorns, we are talking about a very small amount of money. That means that as far as real dollar amounts go, the difference in percentages won’t be big. For example, if you have $100 in …

Read More

Plynk Reviews – Plynk Invest Scam Legit Worth It?

by
plynk reviews

Plynk is another investment app similar to Robinhood, Wealthfront, and Webull. In our Plynk reviews we take a look with a Plynk investment app review to determine is Plynk a scam, is Plynk legit, and is Plynk worth it. As of today, Plynk offers a $20 deposit bonus and a $22 matching bonus for up to $42 in bonus cash upon deposit of $22. Let’s take a deeper look at the Plynk investing app. What Is Plynk? What is Plynk anyway? Plynk is another entry into the so-called world of fintech, or financial technology. With most standard online brokers like Schwab and Fidelity already offering free stock trades, apps like Plynk need to diversify further than just being free. Plynk’s attempt at individuality is that Plynk allows free stock purchases, or fractional share purchases with as little as $1. Then, there is a self-guided tool called Plynk Explore that will suggest investments based on the questions you answer. Finally, Plynk claims to be the most user-friendly interface by, among other things, “eliminating jargon.” There is also a Learn Plynk section that appears to be a bunch of blog posts about investing concepts. How Does Plynk Work? Like other micro-invest apps …

Read More

Cathie Wood and Ark Innovation Reviewed

by
Cathie Wood ARK Innovations ARKK

Cathie Wood is the chief executive and fund manager behind a series of tech-focused ETFs. The most well-known is ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK). The fund describes itself as investing in “disruptive innovation” which they define as companies with new technological products or services that “potentially change the way the world works.” That’s a pretty lofty description. In the vein of our popular look at the track record of Jeremy Grantham, let’s take a look at Cathie Wood and ARK Innovation. The ARK Innovation Fund There are two major pieces to the ARK Innovation Fund. One is an actively managed ETF that invests primarily in tech companies that have new, or “gee whiz” products. Main investments are unsurprising in companies like Tesla and Zoom (totaling almost 17.5% of investments as of 02/06/23). Another 7% in Roku makes me nervous for a company that seems to be running out of road on the way to a dead end. I mean, the Amazon Firestick is better than the Roku stick, and between Apple TV+, and smart TVs, and cable companies, I’m not sure where Roku fits in the rapidly consolidating future of entertainment. — Maybe that’s the point. Is Roku ready to be …

Read More

Dividend Kings 2023

by
dividend king investing

A somewhat overused concept, in my humble opinion, albeit a strong investing strategy is the Dividend Kings as derived from Dividend Aristocrats. The list of Dividend Aristocrats is made of S&P 500 companies that have increased their dividends for 25 consecutive years. The list of Dividend Kings is composed of stocks that have increased their dividends for 50 consecutive years. Whether or not Dividend Kings must be part of the S&P500 is up for debate. What is the point of Dividend Kings? Well, you see sonny, back in my day… No seriously, I just celebrated my 50th birthday. I was making investments when discount brokers were a new thing. Imagine the concept of not charging a huge commission on each trade. The horror! When I first started investing, there was no such thing as investing online, there was no such thing as the internet bubble, and there was certainly no such thing as buying fractional shares. What is my point? Well, back when those first three things were ramping up, there were people all over the internet telling you that you were a fool to listen to experts and that you should listen to them. As proof, they had portfolios …

Read More

How To Invest in Gold Bullion

by
How To Invest in Gold Bullion 1

You want to know how to invest in gold bullion. Investing in gold directly can be challenging, but if you understand the system, it is simple enough to buy gold you can hold in your hands. Invest In Gold Mutual Funds Beware mutual funds and indexes that have gold in their name but that mostly invest in companies that have something to do with gold instead of gold itself. A good option that actually invests in gold is SPDR Gold MiniShares (GLDM). How To Buy Physical Gold Bars Believe it or not, you can directly invest in real gold that you can hold in your own hands. If you are thinking of those big gold bricks you see in movies, that probably isn’t going to happen. Those bricks are 400 ounces. With gold prices in the $1700 per ounce range, which works out to $680,000. If you are looking to put that much money to work, contact me directly, or work with your existing financial professional. The cost of gold bars varies depending on the current market price of gold and the size and purity of the bars. As of 2021, the price of gold was around $1,800 per ounce, …

Read More

Is Disney Stock a Buy? A Quick Analysis

by
Is Disney Stock a Buy? A Quick Analysis 2

I don’t do a ton of individual stock analysis on Finance Gourmet because everyone’s investing goals are so different that when I’m saying Disney is a buy, I mean Disney is a buy for me based upon my investment objectives and existing portfolio. That might be totally different than other’s investing strategy. Is Disney a Good Company? Disney is a large, diversified company that operates in various industries, including media and entertainment, parks and resorts, and consumer products. However, Disney does not pay dividends, and in a world full of great companies, why would I pick one that doesn’t pay dividends? Like many other companies, Disney may choose not to pay dividends to reinvest its profits in the business or for other strategic reasons. Dividend policy is ultimately determined by a company’s board of directors and can change over time depending on the company’s financial performance and other factors. Is Disney the Biggest Media Company? Disney is one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the world. The company has a diverse portfolio of businesses, including its iconic theme parks, its film and television studios, and its consumer products division. Disney also owns several cable and television networks, including …

Read More

Making Money with Cryptocurrency

by
Making Money with Cryptocurrency 3

Okay! I get it. You are interested in investing in cryptocurrency. As the recent cratering of bitcoin prices, along with others, at least I won’t have to fight you on the it never comes down thing like I spent the last years of my financial planner days about real estate. So, making money with cryptocurrency is easy or hard, depending on your situation. How To Make Money with Cryptocurrency Alright. I’m going to start kind of from the beginning, but if you are looking for a cryptocurrency explained or cryptocurrency for beginners’ type of information, you’ll have to find that elsewhere. There are a few ways to make money with cryptocurrency. One way is to buy and hold the cryptocurrency, hoping that it will increase in value over time. This is similar to investing in stocks or other assets. Another way is to trade cryptocurrency on an exchange. This involves buying and selling different cryptocurrencies in an attempt to make a profit from the fluctuations in their prices. This is similar to short-term trading in stocks and bonds. Theoretically, you could try and buy cryptocurrency for less on one exchange and sell it for more on another, but this tactic …

Read More