2<\/sup><\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n__________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n
President Trump Steps-Up Rhetoric Against Fed Chairman Powell \u2013 <\/strong>in an interview with the Wall St. Journal <\/em>this week, President Trump continued his streak of negative comments regarding Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell. President Trump remarked that \u201cevery time we do something great, he raises the interest rates,\u201d adding that Fed Chairman Powell \u201calmost looks like he\u2019s happy raising interest rates.\u201d President Trump noted to the Wall St. Journal <\/em>that he acknowledged the Fed\u2019s independence in establishing monetary policy, but he also made it clear that he intended to send a message to Mr. Powell perhaps in hopes of influencing future interest rate decisions. The Federal Reserve declined to comment on the matter.3<\/sup><\/p>\nHuge Profits, Tiny Stock Gains \u2013 <\/strong>the biggest players in the oil business \u2013 which include Exxon, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, and Equinor \u2013 are set to post their best profits in five years. While one might expect that reaching such a milestone would imply strong or at least firm stock price performance, it simply has not been the case. Shares of the energy giants are fairly flat on average since the beginning of the year, even while the price of crude oil has surged some 20%. Energy stocks have historically been fairly tightly correlated to the price of crude oil in the past, but some believe that the lag this time around may have to do with energy companies having a history of misappropriating cash when profits are running high. Oil executives may be wising up to this tendency, as instead of increasing capex they are seen upping shareholder payouts, reducing debt and ratcheting share buybacks.4<\/sup><\/p>\nYour FICO Score May be Changing Soon (For the Better) \u2013 <\/strong>For most of the time we\u2019ve known credit scores, they\u2019ve been based on payment histories. American borrowers know it as the FICO score, created by the Fair Isaac Corp., which has served as the foundation for lending and credit-related decisions for decades. But perhaps the biggest change since the inception of the FICO score is on the way, with a new scoring system set to land in early 2019. The new system will be designed to factor-in how consumers manage cash in their checking and\/or savings account (your choice), and early reports show that consumers who maintain an average balance of at least $400 and haven\u2019t overdrawn in three months could get a credit score boost. It will be known as the \u201cUltraFICO Score,\u201d with ultimate design to increase the number of approvals for credit cards, personal loans and other debt. The traditional FICO score will not necessarily go away, and may continue serving as the standard bearer. But applicants who perhaps get rejected for a line of credit or a loan using simply their FICO score may see lenders offer to calculate an UltraFICO score, in an effort to reconsider \u2013 and recalibrate \u2013 someone\u2019s credit worthiness.5<\/sup><\/p>\nThis week once again shined a light on a challenge many equity investors face \u2013 how to react to volatility<\/strong>. In our view, it is important to remember that volatility is a normal part of the ebb and flow of the markets. We believe the key is not to look for ways to eliminate it, but developing a mental approach to dealing with it.<\/p>\nOur Volatility guide, \u201cHelping You Manage Market Volatility,\u201d6<\/sup> will provide you with insights and tips to do just that. Get answers to questions like:<\/p>\n\n- Market downturns can and will occur, but what should you do?<\/li>\n
- How can diversification help you manage volatility without compromising your returns?<\/li>\n
- When volatility is too much for you to handle, how can a money manager help?<\/li>\n
- Can volatility actually be an opportunity?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
If you and $500,000 or more to invest and want to get answers to the questions above, click on the link below to download this guide today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week we saw more drops in the market, but is this a sign of a bear rearing its head? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10823,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7803\/revisions\/10823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}