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Upcoming Correction or Stock Market Crash

September 20, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Here it comes. No, not the stock market crash. No, not a stock market correction, either. OK. Well, maybe those things are coming. But, what most definitely IS coming are the analysts’ notes, financial stories, and money website articles about a possible 10% correction, or even 20% crash. How To Get Credit For Predicting The Crash You’ve seen the ads a hundred times on the internet. “He predicted the real estate crash, now he recommends this one company!” So, how do you get credit for calling a stock market correction or stock market crash, anyway? The sad reality is that it doesn’t take much. As long as you have some sort of statement, article, analysis, or investor note floating around out there mentioning a crash or correction when one actually happens, you (and your PR department) simply rush out to take credit. Whether the financial media decides to buy it depends a bit on how long ago your “prediction” happened, and how accurate it was. But, as I’ve tried to point out time and again here on Finance Gourmet and other places I do financial writing for, these predictions aren’t always what they are cracked up to be. Often, the …

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell Second Term

September 14, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

I don’t like to write about politics, and certainly not speculation about politics, but the potential announcement of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell getting a second term is interesting. First off, Powell, is a Trump appointee. That gets people mad in certain quarters, like the Postmaster guy. However, Powell is a solid, seasoned hand acting as Fed Chief, and no one really cares who appointed him. In fact, Powell has done such a good job keeping the economy floating with minimum rocking that the only reason people were thinking there might be someone new was in order to make a “historic” appointment of someone who wasn’t a white guy — or white woman, since Janet Yellen already broke that ceiling. Now, it looks like President Biden has enough fights to pick with Congress, including ones within his own party (Dems really don’t know how to win, do they?). So, a sure thing like renominating Powell seems like a good way to be able to focus energy elsewhere. And, lucky for everyone else, he’s a good choice for the job. Check out my review of Acorns investing here. Then, look for my Capital One Miles redemption chart. You can read about …

Kroger Stock Dividend Value and Analysis

September 13, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Kroger stock reported strong earnings and raised its guidance for the coming year earlier today. At least some of this increase can be attributed to the fact that when people eat out less because of the pandemic, they have to buy more groceries to make up for that meals being made at home. Is Kroger a Buy Now? As always, the best way to invest for long-term goals is to create a diversified portfolio tailored to your risk tolerance and goals. Once you’ve gotten those set up and properly funded, you can look at other investment opportunities. Kroger is a nationwide grocery chain that includes many different brands including King Soopers here in Colorado. As a result, Kroger is not a growth stock, but it also has a large position in an industry that cannot be eliminated. People need food and they have to buy it somewhere. The stock’s price ranged from the low 20s to the mid-40s over the entire previous five year range. That said, the stock trades at a 22 PE ratio, which is high for this kind of company. As always, I believe in my stocks paying me money why I wait for them to appreciate …

Extra Unemployment Ends

September 10, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Here in Colorado several restaurateurs wrote a letter to Governor Jared Polis earlier this summer asking him to join the other states that ended the extra unemployment benefits enacted in response to the global Covid-19 panic. Their theory was that the higher unemployment checks were keeping restaurant workers on the sidelines making them unable to appropriately staff their restaurants. Extra $300 Unemployment Payment Ends Until earlier this month, many recipients of unemployment were getting an extra $300 per week. This is a substantial amount considering typical unemployment benefits are around $400 per week under normal circumstances. Another way to look at is that the $300 per week represents $7.50 per hour when compared to a full-time 40-hour workweek. The restaurant owners concluded that the ability to earn a total payment of approximately $700 per week, or $17.50 per hour as a 40-hour workweek. With numbers like that, it’s no wonder that hard working restaurant jobs paying near minimum wage of $12, or even $13 or $14 per hour would not entice workers to come back. Supporters of the extended benefits looked at the same data and concluded that it is the restaurateur’s own fault for paying such low wages. Who …

What Is Afterpay Scam Legit Worth It?

September 8, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

What Is Afterpay? Is Afterpay a good deal? How does After pay work, and what do Afterpay reviews say about the buy now, pay later, company? What Is Afterpay? Even before the Square buyout of Afterpay was announced, there was increasing buzz around the so-called buy now, pay later company, mostly in the form of breathless, Guess What Millennials are Doing Now? articles. So, what is Afterpay? Afterpay is a financial company. The Afterpay app is the main way of interacting with Afterpay, although many Afterpay stores integrate directly with the company. To sign up, you apply for credit with Afterpay. Afterpay sets a limit on the amount you can spend. When you buy something, the money doesn’t come out of your bank account, but rather goes on your Afterpay account as a debit that you have to pay back. Sound familar? If you said, “Hey, that’s what a credit card is,” then you have your money brain on this morning, but there are a few very important differences that make Afterpay not a credit card. How Is Afterpay Different from a Credit Card? The main difference between Afterpay and a credit card is that Afterpay charges no interest. However, …

Why Uber and Lyft Are So Expensive Now

September 7, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

I keep seeing articles explaining why Uber is so expensive and Lyft is so expensive when they used to be much cheaper. The answer is that as publicly traded companies, Uber and Lyft are no longer allowed to play the kind of funny-money games they did when first starting up where they covered part of the payment to drivers to make their service seem cheaper. Reality Catches Up to Uber and Lyft When Lyft and Uber were private companies swimming in piles of venture capital money, they paid drivers more than they could earn in order to attract enough drivers to their start up service. Once they were established, and knocked off the incumbent monopoly of taxi drivers, both Uber and Lyft tried to be real businesses by cutting the amount they were paying drivers in order to try and make rides profitable to the company. They never succeeded. Initially, Lyft drivers and Uber drivers didn’t have many alternatives, but the pandemic boosted the food delivery business enough that drivers found a way to make more money by delivering food. This cut the number of drivers willing to driver for Uber and Lyft as well as the number of hours …

Morningstar Reports Free!

August 31, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Morningstar Premium reports costs $29.95 per month for subscribers, but there is a way to get much of Morningstar Premium free! How To Get Free Morningstar Reports Stock research and mutual fund research are important ingredients of a successful investing portfolio. However, for investors who are not continuously adding new investments to their stock portfolio or mutual funds portfolio, the ongoing cost of Morningstar may not be worth it. Fortunately, there is a legal way to get free Morningstar access so you can see if that Coca Cola dividend stock is the way to go or if you should look for other dividend stock investing opportunities. Free Morningstar Access From Libraries It turns out that some public library systems offer Morningstar for free among their online database offerings. Here in Colorado, I know that both the Douglas County Library system and the Denver Public Library system offer free Morningstar reports for their library card holders as well as other free library perks. The Morningstar access is not easy to find on either library’s website, but it is there under Research or Databases. The free Morningstar access includes not just the usual online stuff, but the commonly used one-page report as …

You Can Do It Personal Finance

August 30, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Can you really do it? Sure, but probably not the way you’re reading about in that personal finance tips article. Real Do It Yourself Personal Finance I’m going to be honest. As a professional financial advisor and Certified Financial Planner for several years, I never helped anyone quit their job to pursue their passion, or side business. I helped plenty of people retire, but who kept working at something smaller, easier, or better liked. I could have helped someone do that, but that isn’t actually why people come to financial planners, or at least that’s not why people who are willing to pay for professional advice come to financial planners. The trick to financial planning is that it is all about achieving long-term financial goals. Long-term. That’s the catch. A lot of people are not interested in long-term. They want to get rich quick, but there is a problem. After a few decades of various get rich quick schemes being pedaled around, most people in their prime working years no longer believe in get rich quick. For them, it’s about get successful quick by retiring early, or passive income, or quitting to start their own business. The thing is though, …

Do I Need a Financial Advisor?

September 14, 2022August 28, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

To read financial advice magazines and websites, you might think that anyone who uses a financial advisor is either dumb, or very rich. These money publications all say that with a little research and education, everyone should be able to do all financial planning and investing themselves to achieve financial independence. In the real world, however, real finance doesn’t always work that way. Getting Stuck Doing Finance Theoretically, getting your finances in order and investing can be a fairly simple process. However, it turns out that in reality, there are all of these places to get stuck. Once you get stuck, you lose all of your forward progress. Eventually, enough time passes and you have to start all over. As a financial advisor, I met with dozens of potential clients who walked out of my office without signing up to work with me. The vast majority never went forward with doing anything. Chances are, they met with a different advisor years later having done nothing in between. This all occurred to me while trying to work with fellow writers to set up their own online writing businesses. No matter how straightforward the instructions seemed, folks kept getting stuck. What struck …

Why Invest In Dividend Stocks

August 23, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Why should I invest in dividend stocks? What Are Dividend Stocks? At the most basic level, dividend stocks are stocks that pay dividends. A dividend is a cash payment made by a company to shareholders. Dividends are set by the corporation’s board of directors. Why Invest In Dividend Stocks for Portfolios There are a lot of different reasons to invest in stocks. For many people, the purpose of investing in stocks is the capital appreciation that occurs over time. This is especially true for long-term investors constructing well diversified portfolios. Other investors invest in stocks in order to generate income. Dividend stocks pay a regular cash dividend to investors who own shares of the company’s stock. Putting together a portfolio of companies that pay dividends can generate income that investors can use for any purpose. Check out my Credit Karma review Get Paid To Invest For me, the best reason to invest in dividend stocks is to get paid while investing. Remember, for long-term goals like retirement, or college planning, a well diversified portfolio tailored to your risk tolerance is the best investing strategy. For investing beyond long-term goals, or for additional investing, dividend investing is a clever way to …