- - Page 3 of 11 The Finance Gourmet

Galera Therapeutics Decides Its Drug DOES Work

December 14, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

So, I’ve been examining (procrastinating by looking at other stuff) the various tools that come with all of these no-cost investing apps like Webull, Stash, Robinhood, and the like. I’ve also been playing around with the idea of delivering some micro-posts here on FinanceGourmet. Usually, I try and fully cover financial advice, or financial independence strategies and topics, in full detail. However, maybe some quick hits would be valuable along the way as well. We’ll see how it goes. Galera Therapeutics Stock Rises 100% On Error Typically, when a company reports a big-time error, its stock goes down. Not Galera Therapeutics. Today, the company issued a press release before the market opened stating that it’s Phase 3 drug trial DID achieve statistical significance after it reported earlier that it DID NOT achieve statistical significance. The Company previously announced the Phase 3 ROMAN trial of avasopasem in SOM did not achieve statistical significance on the primary endpoint. Upon further analysis, an error by the contract research organization (CRO) was identified in the statistical program. Correction of this error resulted in improved p-values for the primary and secondary endpoints. Galera Therapeutics – Galera Announces Primary Endpoint Met Statistical Significance in Corrected Topline Efficacy Data …

Tesla Shares Fall as Musk Offers To Sell

November 8, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

People are always saying things like Bill Gates is worth $XX billion based upon the current Microsoft share price times the number of shares Bill Gates owns. While this is a reasonable approximation –and unless Gates is going to throw open his books, the only one we have– it is actually completely unrealistic. The same thing is true of Elon Musk, even though he has two big chunks of stock. Big Sells Equal Big Falls One of the problems with deciding that anyone is worth their shares times the share price is that the reality is that their shares are at once worth both more, and less, than the current share price. Ever wonder is Zelle a scam? In sort of a Schrödinger’s Cat of stock prices one can see how someone like Musk’s stock is worth both more and less than the current price per share. We got a nice example of the “less” thanks to Musk’s weekend tweet. On Saturday, Musk proposed selling 10% of his Tesla stock, if the people voted for it. By the time the poll ended, over 3.5 million people had voted (or more specifically 3.5 million Twitter accounts had voted). The result was …

Dell Spins Off VMware

November 8, 2021November 1, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

It was kind of weird when Dell bought VMware in the first place. It was billed as sort of a move to get Dell into the enterprise space by having sort of an inside track with VMware. If that wasn’t weird enough the mechanics of the merger were even weirder, where Dell basically bought a lot of shares of VMware, but not all of them, allowing VMware to continue trading on the stock market, even though it was functionally a part of Dell… or sometime. Ironically, just when it seemed like VMware would be a significant part of the future of enterprise computing, it was made superfluous by the rise of cloud providers like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft providing their own virtual hypervisor platforms and management systems. Much of VMware’s market share these days is simply the inertia of companies that haven’t moved on. Anyway, Dell spun off VMware today by giving the 81% of VMware stock that it owned to Dell shareholders. For each share of Dell stock, shareholders get 0.440626 shares. In lieu of fractional shares, the company will pay out cash, so if you have 100 Dell shares, you’ll get 44 shares of VMware and cash for …

Is Verizon Stock a Buy Right Now?

October 20, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Verizon just reported its third-quarter results. As always, the finance news is reporting whether or not Verizon stock beat estimates. If that’s the kind of quick news you need to see, then yes, Verizon stock beat estimates for earnings, but revenue was slightly under estimates. Now that we’ve gotten the skin deep financial analysis out of the way, let’s dig in and see if Verizon stock will help us achieve financial independence. Verizon Stock Analysis I’ve owned Verizon stock forever. It pays a solid dividend and as an enormous telecommunications it isn’t going away without a big warning, so it fits perfectly in my non-retirement stock portfolio as a bond-stock, or value stock, if you prefer. Thanks to those decent earnings, Verizon stock is rising today, but it’s still down for the year, and year-to-date. As of yesterday’s close, the 12-month dividend yield stood at almost 5%, at 4.89%. You can’t get an interest rate like that anywhere today. So, if you’re willing to hold Verizon stock as a dividend paying bond-like investment for a few years, chances are good that you can at least get your principal (cost basis) back. And, if Verizon happens to have a good few …

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 …

Dividend Stocks Coca Cola

August 31, 2021August 18, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Dividend stocks are often an overlooked investment by many Main Street Americans. It isn’t hard to see why. A 3 percent yield on a $5,000 investment isn’t all that impressive, a mere $150 per year, or so. When you are thinking about turning a lifetime of 401k contributions into a retirement plan, that isn’t really the kind of number that gets your mind racing about possibilities. However, the more investable assets you actually have, the more dividend stocks start to look interesting. Consider that many dividend stocks are fairly safe from anything but the most catastrophic downturns. Stocks like McDonalds, and Coca Cola, for example. Those stocks can, and will, trade up and down, but if you don’t really plan on selling them anytime soon, they are sort of like corporate bonds where if you hold them until retirement (or just several years) chances are you will at least get all of your original investment back. What makes dividend stocks like Coca Cola so interesting in a growing portfolio is that they offer potential growth, plus the ability to outpace inflation, all while kicking off real income. Asset Allocation and Dividend Stocks As always, you shouldn’t be thinking about investing …

Baker Hughes Stock Buyback from GE

July 30, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

So, weird little bit of financial news today. There are a couple of moving parts, so let’s get those out of the way first. Last summer in July 2020, GE announced that intended to “fully monetized” its stake in Baker Hughes over the next three years. Fully monetize is lingo for sell. Earlier this year, GE said it sold $1 billion worth of Baker Hughes during the second quarter. GE also announced that it planned to sell another $1.3 billion worth of BKR during the third quarter. That brings us up to date. Baker Hughes announces a $2 billion stock repurchase program In part, the idea behind the share buyback is that Baker Hughes is using some of the profits it has reaped recently thanks to a recovering economy and a carefully controlled quota by OPEC. Buying $2 billion worth of stock would essentially soak up the $2 billion that GE is selling right now. In a world where supply and demand are the only factors that impact a stock’s price, GE’s selling would be pushing the price of BKR down. You can kind of see that in the April to May dip in BKR. Assuming that BKR sold its …

Wealthfront Review: Safe, Scam, or Legit?

February 9, 2021January 11, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

I keep getting questions about the pros and cons of Wealthfront, probably because they are advertising pretty heavily on Facebook and other platforms. So, it’s time for a Wealthfront review. The most important thing is to make sure Wealthfront is legit. It is SIPC insured (that’s like FDIC insurance for brokerages) so it at least has to be a real financial organization. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Wealthfront has good investment advice or good service advice, but it does mean that if they go under all of the sudden, then Wealthfront is safe insofar as your money is insured. Wealthfront reviews agree that Wealthfront is not a scam. Wealthfront Fees Wealthfront’s trademark is “Self-Driving Money.” It’s value proposition is that it will take care of your money, and manage it for you. Wealthfront is a robo-advisor, and one of the mini-investor platforms. Wealthfront fees are low. The main Wealthfront fee is the advisory fee of 0.25% on the amount deposited with Wealthfront. Of course, like any other wealth app, or brokerage, the investments Wealthfront uses have their own expenses. According to the company, the funds Wealthfront uses charge between 0.06% and 0.13%, which are very low fees for mutual …

Real World Retirement Planning

March 3, 2021November 3, 2020 by Finance Gourmet

If you’ve read much in the personal finance world, or even just the occasional news story from the business section of your local paper, you are probably well aware of the non-stop stream of headlines about how people are not prepared to retire. Chances are you have visions of old people shut up in their homes clustered around a single candle for light and warmth. But, is this reality, or just great financial copy? A recent Marketwatch article reports on a survey where almost 80 percent of retirees found it easier than they thought to adjust their lifestyle and spending for retirement. This matches more closely with my experience as a financial advisor than the alarmist headlines do. Some real world retirement planning is all you really need. Retirement Crisis for All? As is so often the case, the reality of finances is very individual. As a result, generalizations are often inaccurate for large swaths of people, even while being correct for many others. When I was a Certified Financial Planner, the reality is that I had a lot more clients who were planning for retirement than those who were actually retired. I never did a financial plan for someone …

What Does Oil Crash Mean for My Investments?

April 23, 2020 by Finance Gourmet

The expiring May oil contract trading for less than $0 made big headlines, but what is zero-dollar oil, and what does it mean for your investment portfolio? Zero Dollar Oil The trick to oil contracts, unlike similar stock options is that execution requires the delivery of a physical good. If you buy 100 options for IBM stock, on the day the contract expires, they put shares of IBM stock in your brokerage account. Obviously, this requires no effort, nor ability to “store” those shares somewhere. When an oil contract expires, its owner has to take possession of the barrel of oil. That doesn’t actually mean that an investor drives up a truck and loads it with barrels of oil. Instead, there are numerous storage and refinery facilities where that oil can usually be directed. However, as the May contract came up for expiration, there wasn’t any room for storage (which isn’t free), and there is no demand at the refineries, so investors were looking at having to take delivery of a good that they had no place to put, and no use for. In this case, it actually would cost such an investor less to dump his contract for pennies, …