Free Republic

Americans are reaching retirement age in worse financial shape than the prior generation, for the first time since Harry Truman was president. This cohort should be on the cusp of their golden years. Instead, their median incomes including Social Security and retirement-fund receipts haven’t risen in years, after having increased steadily from the 1950s. They have high average debt, are often paying off children’s educations and are dipping into savings to care for aging parents. Their paltry 401(k) retirement funds will bring in a median income of under $8,000 a year for a household of two. In total, more than...

For the first time in 110 years, General Electric will not be a member of the elite Dow Jones Industrial Average. S&P Dow Jones Indices announced on Tuesday that the iconic maker of light bulbs and jet engines will be replaced in the 30-stock index by Walgreens Boots Alliance. GE (GE) was an original member of the Dow in 1896 and has been in it continuously since November 7, 1907. Being ousted from the Dow is the latest indignity for GE, which is dealing with a serious cash crisis caused by years of bad deals. GE has replaced its CEO,...

* Industrial giant General Electric is out of the Dow Jones industrial average and will be replaced by drugstore chain Walgreens Boots Alliance. * GE was one of the original components of the Dow Jones industrial average of 30 stocks in 1896.

The S&P 500 rose 0.9% to close at 2,772.35 as financial stocks gained 1.9%. The 10-year Treasury note yield benchmark rose to 2.98% following European yields after the European Central Bank talked about exiting its asset-purchasing program. JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley stock were all up more than 2% while Goldman Sachs also posted solid gain at 1.7%. The Dow Jones industrial average closed 346.41 points in the green at 25,146.39 as Boeing soared 3.2% contributing to most of the gains. The Dow Jones closed above 25,000 for the first time since mid-March. The 10-year Treasury...

The U.S. economy added 223,000 jobs in May, while economists polled by Reuters expected a gain of 188,000. Stocks rose on the news, with the Dow Jones industrial average gaining 188 points. Bank stocks followed rates higher. J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America all at least 0.9 percent. ___________________________________________________________________________ A stronger-than-expected jobs report pushed stocks higher on Friday as Wall Street recovered some of the losses seen in the previous session. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 188 points, with Goldman Sachs among the biggest contributors of gains in the index. The S&P 500 gained...

U.S. markets have been roiled in recent days by political and economic turmoil in Italy. Is it an overreaction? Not at all. Markets are right to be worried. Much of the U.S. has been fixated on President Trump's on-again, off-again decision to impose tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese goods. But Italy's crisis, now at a rolling boil in the background, has spooked the markets too. Markets plunged Tuesday, before rebounding on Wednesday. That should be a warning. Italy has had a rough two decades, but is now undergoing dangerous political turbulence that risks Italy's social and political stability, and...

U.S. economic growth slowed slightly more than initially thought in the first quarter amid downward revisions to inventory investment and consumer spending, but income tax cuts are likely to boost activity this year. Gross domestic product increased at a 2.2 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said in its second estimate of first-quarter GDP on Wednesday, instead of the previously reported 2.3 percent pace. The economy grew at a 2.9 percent rate in the fourth quarter. There are signs GDP growth gathered momentum early in the second quarter, with solid consumer spending, business investment on equipment and industrial production in...

It seems to me the stock market is dragging and performing poorly. Unemployment is historically low. Manufacturing is doing well I think the stock market should be exploding. Instead it opened -200 this morning because a few people in Italy are arguing. This just seems strange. What do you think?

Multiple signs of inflation in freight-related industries are at or near historical highs, in what could be an early sign that price pressures are building and ready to reverberate around the economy. Freight marketplace DAT keeps track of supply and demand in the freight industry through a bulletin board that matches companies with loads to be delivered to the vehicles that will take the goods to the marketplace. The measures are in the spot market, where vendors that don't contract their deliveries find drivers for their products. Recent readings show demand for vehicles skyrocketing, a sign that generally points to...

Dow Jones futures today rose modestly vs. fair value, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures. President Donald Trump tweeted that it "will all work out" on U.S.-China trade. He also tweeted that he wants to help China's ZTE "get back into business, less than a month after the U.S. banned domestic companies from selling components to the telecom gear giant. That could be good news for U.S. optical stocks such as Oclaro, Finisar, Acacia Communications and Lumentum Holdings which also is an Apple iPhone supplier.

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article explaining why I thought the stock market would have one more major rally before the end of this economic cycle. In that article, I explain that jobless claims are still shrinking, the yield curve is still flattening, and investor sentiment is not euphoric. All of these can be thought of as bullish in the short to medium-term. This week, we continued to get bullish signs (technically and fundamentally) and might be about to go on a quick ride upward. Here is what the stock market looked like two weeks ago: The price was...

< Snip >Shares in Charter Communications (CHTR) plunged after the cable TV firm reported first quarter earnings and lost more video subscribers than expected, also sparking a sell-off in Comcast (CMCSA) and Altice USA (ATUS). Charter plummeted 11.7% to 263.33 on the stock market today. Comcast fell 4.6% to 31.81. Altice dropped 9.3% to 17.59.

I stopped to grab a burger in Marin County today and was kind of shocked to see the following posted on the front door. That is a pretty steep starting wage for nonskilled labor, and $5.00 more than the California minimum wage. In-N-Out does pay their employees well. The private burger chain pays store managers an average yearly salary of more than $160,000 with no college degree or previous management experience required. Facebook engineers soon to be flipping burgers. Nonbinding It is clear the minimum wage in California is nonbinding — that is irrelevant — and all the bluster about...

Goldman Sachs joined a somewhat awkward club Tuesday morning, delivering better-than-expected quarterly earnings only to see its shares sink when the market opened. The Wall Street firm reported earnings of $6.95 per share, compared with analyst expectations of $5.56. This was the third-best earnings-per-share ever for Goldman. Revenue of $10.4 billion topped estimates of 8.54 billion, a 25 percent increase from a year ago. Yet investors were not in the mood to pop champagne corks. Goldman shares fell by 1.6 percent Tuesday morning even as the broader market moved up, with the S&P 500 rising by 1 percent. Year to...

The US tech sector does a great job of exchanging photos and recipes and family photos, but it doesn’t do much for overall productivity, which is stagnant as investment goes into apps rather than plant and equipment. This is how it always happens. Late Tuesday an obscure short-seller, Citron Research, announced that Twitter was the social media platform most vulnerable to privacy regulation – and its stock plunged 12% in the course of the day. All the other tech names followed, including the whole of the FANG+ Index (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google, along with a half-dozen other big names,...

Stocks in the U.S. are rising Thursday and major indexes in Europe are surging as global markets continue a rally that began late the previous day. Wall Street is getting more optimistic that a trade dispute between the U.S. and China, the two largest economies in the world, will be resolved without too much pain. Some of the biggest gains are going to technology companies, retailers and banks. The S&P 500 index climbed 18 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,662 as of 12:45 p.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 237 points, or 1 percent, to 24,501. It...

U.S. stocks were higher in afternoon trading on Wednesday, with the major indexes recovering from earlier losses as investors’ fears eased over a trade conflict between the United States and China. Beijing hit back against U.S. plans to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods, with proposals for a list of similar duties on key American imports including soybeans, planes, cars, beef and chemicals. However, investor concerns appeared to ease after Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the administration was involved in a “negotiation” with China rather than a trade war. The market also seemed to take comfort...

Trade war fears and a presidential attack on Amazon are rocking Wall Street. The Dow dropped more than 700 points and the Nasdaq plunged 3% on Monday. All three major indexes are now in the red for the year. The sell-off on the first day of the second quarter came after President Trump once again attacked Amazon on Twitter. Amazon (AMZN), one of the biggest drivers of the 2017 market rally, tumbled 5%, wiping out more than $37 billion of its market value. Trump once again accused Amazon of taking advantage of the US Postal Service, and he suggested that...

The highly anticipated yuan-backed crude oil futures have been launched in Shanghai. China is the world’s biggest oil consumer, with eyes on rival benchmarks Brent and WTI as well as the US currency. Trading of the new oil futures contracts for September settlement started on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange at 440.20 yuan ($69.70) per barrel, reports Chinese daily the South China Morning Post. Some 18,540 lots have reportedly been sold and purchased so far. long-awaited step evoked a surge in global prices for oil with Brent Crude soaring to $71 a barrel for the first time since 2015. US...

U.S. economic growth slowed less than previously estimated in the fourth quarter as the biggest gain in consumer spending in three years partially offset the drag from a jump in imports. Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.9 percent annual rate in the final three months of 2017, instead of the previously reported 2.5 percent, the Commerce Department said in its third estimate for the quarter on Wednesday. That was a slight moderation from the third quarter’s brisk 3.2 percent pace. The upward revision to the fourth-quarter growth estimate also reflected less inventory reduction than previously reported. Economists polled by...