Forbes: How COVID-19 Killed The Stock Buyback Program

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The COVID-19 pandemic may have torpedoed one of corporate America’s favorite activities: Buying back their own shares.

Since the end of the financial crisis a decade ago, each year the companies in the S&P 500 index have spent hundreds of billions of dollars conducting stock buybacks.

But this year the COVID-19 virus will likely put an enormous dent in those programs. Read more here.

WSJ: A 3x ETF Shows the Perils of Leverage

BY SIMON CONSTABLE

The market tumult has highlighted a potential double hazard for individual investors: the pitfalls of leveraged funds, and the need to read the fine print in any investment.

One particular fund provides an instructive example for both issues. It is Direxion Daily S&P 500 High Beta Bull 3X Shares (HIBL), which is designed to deliver three times the return of the daily move in the S&P 500 High Beta Index. Read more here.

NYSE Trading Floor 1963

pingnews.com, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes: April Will Bring Peak Virus Panic, Analysts Say

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Here’s some bad news and good news for investors.

First the bad news.

This month is going to look bleak when it comes to news about the killer virus COVID-19, experts say.

"We have been commenting for months that the month of April would be the key month where the virus panic would likely peak," states a recent report from financial firm Hackett Financial LLC. Read more here.

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash

Korn Ferry: The Risk of Cutting Dividends

By SIMON CONSTABLE

If there is one pattern that is holding true in the global pandemic era, it’s that one company after another is making some hard choices about paying. Pay employees? Pay vendors? And increasingly, the knife is hitting the once unthinkable: dividends. Read more here.

WSJ: These Robots Want to Make Sure You Don’t Do Anything Stupid With Your Money

By SIMON CONSTABLE

One of the most persistent problems for individual investors is that they do things to mess up their finances even when they should know better.

But don’t worry. Robots are coming to the rescue. Read more here.

WSJ: Gold Funds Fell 21.4% in the Quarter, Despite the Coronavirus Panic

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Why did gold prices fail to rally on news that the coronavirus had morphed into a pandemic? It’s the opposite of what many would have expected.

Gold-oriented mutual funds and exchange-traded funds posted average total returns of minus 21.4% in the first quarter, according to Lipper data—in line with or worse than many fund categories. The average U.S.-stock fund, by comparison, fell nearly 24.6%. Read more here.

Andrzej Barabasz (Chepry), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

WSJ: What Is ‘Buy the Panic’?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

What does it mean when investment professionals say, “Buy the panic”?

It’s a phrase that investors might hear frequently given the recent widespread selling in the stock market. Despite snapback rallies on several days, the S&P 500 is down 23% for the year so far. Read more here.

Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash