In the Netherlands, in 1602, the Dutch East India Company conducted the world’s first initial public offering. Then, in 1610, the Netherlands saw the issuance of the first ever stock dividend. And in 1611, when the Amsterdam Exchange opened, the Netherlands became home to the world's first stock [...]
Inflation answers
Open an economics textbook, and you’ll find this fundamental principle: When the money supply expands—that is, when the government prints more money—higher inflation is often the result. This topic has, for good reason, been on investors’ minds lately. Since the pandemic began, the Federal Reserve [...]
Staying positive
Earlier this week, the president again criticized the Federal Reserve. Calling chairman Powell and his colleagues “boneheads,” the president expressed frustration that they haven't done more to lower interest rates. Specifically, the president said, we should, “get our interest rates down to ZERO, [...]
What’s going to happen
This week I received some odd communications from mutual fund giant Vanguard Group. First, they sent a white paper titled, “Here today, gone tomorrow: The impact of economic surprises on asset returns.” As the title suggests, this paper examined the relationship between the economy and the stock [...]
Why you should care about the dullest headline of the week
This week the government issued its monthly inflation data report, and the headline could have put you to sleep: “Consumer Price Index Rises 0.2% in April.” It would have been easy to skip over this seemingly insignificant story for two reasons: First, the way the government reports inflation data, [...]
