Happy April Fools’ Day! (Of course, these days, it’s not easy to tell what’s a joke and what’s not! )
Here’s our weekly Roundup of articles on investing, personal finance, and stewardship.
Commodities finish best quarter in 32 years (Wall Street Journal). Commodities were up 29%(!) in the first quarter, as measured by the Goldman Sachs Commodities Index.
Bond market suffers worst quarter in decades (Wall Street Journal). There’s no joy in bond-ville.
Some reminders about the stock market (Ben Carlson, A Wealth of Common Sense). "I don’t know any investors who survive in the markets by guessing what’s going to happen next. I know plenty of investors who survive by creating a repeatable rules-based process that takes away the need to guess what’s going to happen next."
2-year Treasury yield tops 10-year rate, a ’yield curve’ inversion that could signal a recession (CNBC). It’s an imprecise indicator, but one with a pretty strong track record.
The Fed has made a U.S. recession inevitable (Bill Dudley, Bloomberg). The author of this piece was the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for nearly a decade.
401(k) savings plans get a boost in bipartisan retirement bill (Wall Street Journal). Congress is considering raising the threshold age for Required Minimum Distributions from 72 to 75. The legislation also would allow older workers to make even larger contributions.
Couples who pool their money are more likely to stay together, research finds (CNBC). Who knew?
Home prices soar at one of the fastest rates on record, but higher mortgage rates should slow future growth (MarketWatch via Morningstar). The Case-Shiller home price index was up 19.2% between January 2021 and January 2022.
The rules for making a medigap switch (Kiplinger). You can switch medigap plans any time, not just during Medicare’s annual open enrollment.
If you’re a new retiree whose income has dropped, you may need to appeal Medicare premium surcharges (CNBC). You can appeal if your income is lower now than it was when Medicare calculated the surcharge.
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