Dogs of the Dow 2022

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Dogs of the Dow 2022 1

. I first heard of the Dogs of the Dow strategy back when Motley Fool was just becoming famous, largely based on the out-sized success of their investment in AOL as the Internet Bubble continued to swell. (Whew! There’s a lot of investing history, and investing lessons in that one sentence.) The Foolish Four was a supposed improvement on the Dogs of the Dow strategy. I never invested that way, and it turns out to have been a good move. As the year rolls over to 2022, there come the obligatory articles about which stocks are the 2022 Dogs of the Dow, and whether the Dogs of the Dow is a good investment strategy. So, I thought we’d take a quick look. What Is the Dogs of the Dow Strategy? The Dogs of the Dow is an investment strategy where an investor invests in the 10 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average that have the highest dividend yield as of 12/31 on the first trading day of the year in equal amounts and then holds the stocks for the full year before repeating the process. The idea (which used to be true, but is less so these days) is …

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Is Bitcoin Better Than Gold?

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bitcoin gold investing

Bitcoin was once a joke. Then, Bitcoin was a fad. These days, after proving some staying power beyond being the new tulips, Bitcoin gets respect. Bitcoin has become mainstream with financial publications publishing predictions and analysis without accountability, just like it does with more traditional types of investing. Articles breathlessly ask how high can bitcoin go. But is bitcoin better than gold, especially after the bitcoin crash? Is Bitcoin a Good Investment? As a former financial advisor, I’m always cautious about telling people what is or is not a “good investment.” The better option is often to present the realities of any investment and allow investors to draw their own conclusion. Why Invest in Gold? Of course, to understand whether bitcoin is the new gold, you have to know why people invest in gold in the first place. There are several reasons people invest in gold. One of the most well-known is as an inflation hedge. While governments can print money, and inflation can take off with, or without, monetary policy failures, gold prices are tied to a physical commodity whose supply cannot be manipulated by the stroke of a pen. You can really get cash back with Rakuten This …

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Inflation Is Real

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Some (me) people have been under the impression that the claims of inflation have been overblown. The December numbers suggest that I am wrong, even if the chicken-littles aren’t right. The numbers say core prices are up 5.5% year over year for December. Remember that this comes off an unnatural pricing environment during the pandemic, but these numbers are big enough to take seriously. The Labor Department reported Wednesday that excluding volatile food and gas prices, so-called core prices surged 0.6% from November to December. Measured year over year, core prices jumped 5.5% in December, the fastest such increase since 1991. https://apnews.com/article/consumer-prices-inflation-c1bfd93ed1719cf0135420f4fd0270f9 Supply chain problems are part of the cause, but the economy does have too much money sloshing about. The key is how much, and how fast should the Fed be raising interest rates. My primary concern is still that raising rates too fast could crush this unnatural economy still affected by Covid and its related problems. Unfortunately, there is no choice now. Runaway inflation will kill the economy just as dead as rising rates. The trick is still the supply chains. Prices won’t come down with less spending, unless the supply is there to react to lower spending. …

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Fed Raising Rates 2022 Inflation and Economy

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Fed Raising Rates 2022 Inflation and Economy 2

At all times the Federal Reserve’s Open Market committee has a dual task. One task is to guard against inflation. The other task is to not make the economy implode. In most cases, this isn’t as hard as it sounds as long as you have strong Federal Reserve bankers who don’t cave to Wall Street’s pressure (or dance like monkeys to in the first place.) For 2022, The Fed has one of the tricky times. This is what Wall Street pressure looks like: December payroll data showed a far fewer than Wall Street said it would be addition of 199,000 to payrolls, but wages did increase 4.7% year over year. There is a very big catch here. Remember that the economy got messed up rather good with Covid and it really isn’t done with Covid, so all of these numbers have to be taken against the fact that last year was not good and this year isn’t so much a raging economy as it is putting the pieces that fell off the board back up on it. Don’t forget to read our Zelle review. That being said, inflation is up, even compared to pre-Covid and you don’t want to fall …

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Acorns Review Automated Investing Made Easy?

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acorns app reviews

Note: This Acorns review article has been updated with the latest information as published on the acorns.com website. No sooner than I finished my Digit review, than I saw an ad for another automated savings app on Facebook that takes a different tack for building up your savings automatically with the help of an app and online financial service. This one is called Acorns. Let’s check it out. Is Acorn legit? Is Acorns a scam? Read on while I do my Acorns app review. Acorns Review – Legit, Scam, Worthwhile? Acorns vs Digit Whereas Digit monitors your bank balance and transfers money its algorithm determines is “extra” into a savings account for you, Acorns rounds up the change on every purchase you make to the next whole dollar amount and automatically saves that money for you. Another version of this type of automatic investing and savings app is Grifin. Grifin does away the clever sounding “round up to the next dollar.” Grifin is a user-controlled automatic app investing. Instead of gathering up a few dollars’ worth of transfers and sending them down into mutual fund land, Grifin take every transaction you make and invests $1 in the stock you just bought something …

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Dodge & Cox Stock Fund Analysis

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Updated January, 2022 Great Large Cap Value Stock Mutual Fund One of my favorite mutual funds is the Dodge & Cox Stock Fund (DODGX).  This isn’t some flashy hey-look-at-me mutual fund.  In fact, this is exactly the kind of fund that people started questioning during the Internet bubble, and that is a good thing. It did not get caught up in the Internet bubble like many other stock funds.  Its returns of just 5.4% and 20.21% in 1998 and 1999 respectively earned it a lot of scorn when Janus Funds were near 100% returns, but the proof of greatness isn’t riding along with crowd hysteria.  The proof of greatness comes in 2000 and 2001.  When other funds were getting crushed, DODGX was making money!  In 2002, it managed to drop just 10.5%, almost half of what others were losing. The real proof of greatness is that it did not achieve these results by hiding and investing in “safer” places.  In 2003, when the market turned back up, they were right there.  This is what a great fund looks like. Limited Time Offer? For the last several years, the Dodge & Cox Stock Fund has been closed to new investors, so …

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Finding a Good Stock Trade

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I preach that long-term investors should have a diversified portfolio tailored to their time frame and risk tolerance until I’m blue in the face around here. If you already have a that portfolio and you are fully funding it, only then should you think about shorter-term investing. Finding a good stock trade is the mission for short-term investing. What Is The Difference Between Trading and Investing? First, let me just say that day trading is a different thing. If you are interested in day trading, you’ll have to read about that elsewhere. Second, what is the difference between a stock trade and a stock investment? The answer is your intentions. A trade is something you plan to start and complete. If you plan to hold the stock without a trigger for ending your ownership, then that is an investment. For example, if I think XYZ Corp is trading too low at $50 per share, I might buy XYZ Corp with the idea of selling it for $60 per share. Whether or not this ends up being a good trade depends on whether I do get to sell it for $60 per share, and how long it takes for that to …

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What To Do After Identity Theft

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Identity theft is way too common. Knowing what to do after identity theft is critical. With the number of places that your information is stored online, identity thieves don’t even have to leave their couch to steal your identity. Add in the number of papers you throw away with your information, and the amount of mail that comes with everything an identity thief needs, and it is a wonder your identity hasn’t been stolen before. Unfortunately, the financial companies involved are big businesses and they don’t want any laws getting in the way of them selling new credit, products, and services. So, when it comes to protecting yourself after identity theft, you are on your own. Steps To Take After Identity Theft First, understand that you are now involved in what may be a long battle between you and identity thieves. Even if you shut down the first wave of thieves, stolen identities are sold, reuse, resold, and reused online and around the world. Basically, these steps to take after identity theft should be considered just the first steps to take after identity theft. Freeze Your Credit: – There are a million ways criminals can use your stolen identity to …

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Credit Karma Tax Review Free Scam or Good Filing?

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credit karma tax review free filing

Has it really been five years since Credit Karma started Credit Karma Tax? Credit Karma tax is a free-ish way to file your taxes for free. While Credit Karma tax started out with some bumps it is now old enough to have chased out a lot of the bugs. And it is time to update our Credit Karma tax review. Credit Karma Tax Reviews Complaints CreditKarma.com offers a free tax return service, so it’s time for a Credit Karma tax review. The Credit Karma tax scam concerns are pretty much the same as with the original Credit Karma. You are handing over a lot of personal and financial data. The company has been around long enough to have earned some trust, but concerns about all online financial offerings are real. One main difference between Credit Karma and TurboTax, or other offerings, is that you cannot buy and download an offline version. You will fill out all tax forms online and the hidden Credit Karma tax calculator will perform all the calculations online, behind the scenes. Initial Credit Karma tax reviews are mixed, so let’s take a look. (Make sure you are not on CreditCarma, KreditKarma, or any other variations which …

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