Here is our Winter solstice roundup of recent reads on investing and personal finance. (Even if the market doesn’t bounce back right away, at least we know the minutes of daylight will grow from this point!)
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says market plunge on Fed rate hike ’is completely overblown’ (CNBC). You’d expect him to say that, of course. But he may be right.
5 charts that explain the global economy in 2018 (International Monetary Fund). Trade tensions, rising rates, and falling business confidence help tell the tale.
U.S. student loan debt sets record, doubling since recession (Bloomberg). These stats also show that 15% of the overall $1.465 trillion in school debt is owned by people between ages 50-61!
The simplest annuity explainer we could write (New York Times). Finance writer Ron Lieber defines immediate annuities, fixed annuities, variable annuities, and index annuities.
IRS issues standard mileage rates for 2019 (Internal Revenue Service). Starting January 1, the rate will increase to 58 cents per mile for business use and 14 cents per mile for charitable use.
And from the bloggers and pundits...
Surveying the damage (Michael Batnick, The Irrelevant Investor). Things sure have gotten ugly out there.
No place to hide (Charlie Bilello, Pension Partners). When one type of investment is going down, another is going up. At least much of the time. But not this year.
Once more, without feeling (Cliff Asness, AQR). Why do we find the 2018 stock market so stressful? We’re likely comparing it to last year’s abnormal calm.
A history of Fed rate hikes (Ben Carlson, A Wealth of Common Sense). Didn’t know this: "For a long time, the Fed didn’t even tell investors when they were changing rates.... It wasn’t until the 1990s that the Fed began communicating to the public in a meaningful way."
Using Tiller Money for cash flow tracking and budgeting (Lindsay Bourkoff, Kitces.com). A financial planner reviews Tiller, one of the four online budgeting systems mentioned in our new January article, 4 Options for Budgeting Online.
Have comments about any of the articles above? Please "Join the Discussion" below. And Merry Christmas!