In today’s Steady Investor, we look at the current state of the market, what could be next, and key factors that we believe are currently impacting the market such as:
The U.S. Economy is Moving Again, But Slowly – Signs of life are starting to appear again across the United States, now that all 50 states have eased restrictions to varying degrees. Truckloads are starting to move and grow again; flight, hotel, and restaurant bookings are ticking up slightly; mortgage applications are up, and data compiled by Google shows that people are moving around more. On balance, however, the return of economic activity is happening at a much slower pace so far, and plenty of weakness remains – retail sales data for April showed steep declines, and Americans are still losing jobs, albeit at an increasingly slower pace.1 The bottom line is that the worst of the economic crisis may be over – which may help explain the ongoing stock market rally – but no one can know for sure at what pace the economy is likely to recover from here. According to the Fed’s recent beige book survey, many businesses “expressed hope that overall activity would pick up as businesses reopened, [but] the outlook remained highly uncertain and most [businesses] were pessimistic about the potential pace of recovery.” For stocks, the question may not be how quickly and/or robustly the economy recovers, but whether the economic recovery exceeds expectations.
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9 of the Biggest Financial Mistakes You Should Avoid During this Crisis!
Looking at the current state of the economy and the unknowns surrounding the pandemic and how quickly the economy can recover, many investors may be wondering what to do and how to prepare for what’s to come, especially when it comes to retirement planning.
While there are many unknowns at present, we believe there are nine common mistakes that many investors make when planning for retirement. In our guide, 9 Retirement Mistakes to Avoid, we outline these mistakes and how you can potentially avoid them.
If you have $500,000 or more to invest and want to learn more, click on the link below to get your free copy:
Learn About the 9 Retirement Mistakes to Avoid!2
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The Shaky State of the Shale Industry – Before the pandemic spread across the world, the US was producing a record of 13+ million barrels of oil per day. Many shale companies were slightly stretched with oil prices hovering in the $60 range, but times were largely good. Then the economic shutdowns happened, and large-scale demand disruption caused oil production to fall over 10% to 11.5 million barrels a day by mid-May. As a result, crude oil prices have sunk. According to Rystad Energy AS, U.S. companies spent an average of $35.60 to produce a barrel of oil, which is about where the price for a barrel of Brent Crude stands today. In other words, margins for shale producers are basically non-existent. As a result, several companies have had to file for bankruptcy, and even the bigger players, like Exxon Mobil, are making major cuts to capital spending. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), investment in the US shale sector is likely to fall by 50% in 2020. The IEA similarly expects global spending on oil and gas production to fall by a third, with financing for new energy projects also plummeting.3
The U.S. Population Keeps Getting Older – America is aging. In 2030, one in five Americans will be 65 or older, and immigration is projected to overtake births as the primary driver of population growth. By 2034, older adults will outnumber children for the first time in US history. Not helping matters is the fact that American women had babies at record-low rates in 2019, pushing US births to their lowest levels in 35 years. About 3.75 million babies were born in the US last year, which may sound like a lot, but actually represents the lowest fertility rate since the government started collecting data in 1909.4 The Millennial generation appears to be the culprit for the lower birth rates, as they have been slower to form families than previous generations and are less financially secure than the generation before them.
We can’t predict or control what is in store for
the market or how quickly the market will recover, but investors can stay
focused on making sure their own actions help guide their investments to
succeed. One way to do this is not to fall prey to common investing mistakes.
There are common mistakes and habits that we
believe can help some investors succeed while others fail. To help you
understand some of these mistakes and how to avoid them, we have created the guide,
9 Retirement Mistakes to Avoid.5
In this guide, we provide our thoughts on what
we believe are 9 of the biggest retirement mistakes investors
should avoid. If you have $500,000 or more to invest and want to learn
more, click on the link below:
Disclosure