James Mackintosh makes the case in the Wall Street Journal that today's market looks awfully similar to that of 1999-2000. He writes: Is the dot-com bust happening again right under our noses? It might seem an odd claim, but there is a remarkable resemblance between the speculative boom-to-bust of late 1999 and the first half of 2000 and what’s happened over the past nine months in the fashionable areas of clean energy, electric cars, cannabis stocks and SPACs. If the parallel continues it bodes ill for investors who joined the excess late. The trendy stocks—led by Tesla—are already down a … [Read more...]

For most of history, initial public offerings have been a walled garden for many investors, who were unable to gain access to their benefits. That may start to change if Robinhood and SoFi Technologies get their way. Telis Demos reports for The Wall Street Journal: Small investors seem more influential than ever these days. So as the initial public offering market heats up, efforts to get those investors a bigger seat at the table is a hot idea. It’s also not a new one. Upstart brokerages Robinhood Markets and SoFi Technologies recently said they would give their customers access to IPOs. … [Read more...]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has reached 125 years old. The index was created in 1896, and has evolved through Great Depressions, recessions, and booms to take on its current form. Karen Langley and Peter Santilli report in The Wall Street Journal: One hundred twenty-five years ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average made its debut. The index of 12 smokestack companies closed that first trading day, May 26, 1896, at 40.94. It included General Electric Co. as well as long-forgotten names like American Cotton Oil and Distilling & Cattle Feeding. Since then, the Dow has evolved with … [Read more...]

Gary Silverman interviews legendary Silicon Valley investor Sand Roberston for the FT. Silverman writes of the interview: Sandy Robertson is worried about what’s happening in the markets these days, and that matters. Few people in the financial world have seen more than he has. Robertson is best known as a pioneering dealmaker in Silicon Valley, where he helped start two of the “Four Horsemen” investment banks that dominated technology underwriting in the 1990s — Robertson Stephens and Montgomery Securities. But his career dates to the 1960s, when as a Smith Barney broker covering Nebraska … [Read more...]

Karen Ward, a chief market strategist for JPMorgan Asset Management has taken to the Financial Times to warn investors that current S&P 500 valuations suggest returns of zero-percent for the next ten years. She writes: How worried should we be about stock market valuations? In my day-to-day conversations with clients, it seems that investors are unsure. On the one hand, they can see the US economy is bouncing back quickly, vaccines are being rolled out more rapidly in continental Europe and both governments and central banks are in no rush to rein in stimulus. For the global economy, … [Read more...]

Recently AT&T released its first-quarter earnings report in which it notched more cellphone users, more fiber-optic customers, and more HBO subscribers. The company lauded its "stability" compacted to competitors. Drew FitzGerald reports for The Wall Street Journal: The Dallas company reported 44.2 million domestic HBO and HBO Max subscribers, up from 41.5 million three months earlier, as its media division sought to gain on rivals like Netflix Inc. NFLX -1.10% and Walt Disney Co. That figure included viewers who signed up for the company’s new online streaming video service as well as … [Read more...]

Originally posted on Your Survival Guy. … [Read more...]