This week was packed\nwith big tech news:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read on to see how\nthese stories and more will unfold, and how they could impact the market:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Big Tech Fuels the\nS&P\u2019s 2019 Rally \u2013 <\/strong>It\u2019s been a theme for much of the current bull\nmarket: the biggest technology companies have been outperforming during rallies,\npulling the broad index higher. 2019 is no exception. Through last Friday,\nMicrosoft, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook have delivered combined performance that\naccounts for 19% of the S&P 500\u2019s total return for 2019. Big tech\u2019s\noutperformance has helped boost equity investor returns for the year, but it\nalso exposes weaknesses elsewhere in the stock market. Seven of the S&P\n500\u2019s eleven sectors are well below all-time highs, a signal that investors are\ncomfortable paying a premium for rapid growth while often shunning solid and\nstable earnings. Because technology could arguably be labeled a \u201ccrowded\ntrade,\u201d it is increasingly important for investors to scrutinize earnings, in\nour view. Netflix recently disappointed with a rare decline in total\nsubscribers, and Facebook was recently slapped with a $5 billion Federal Trade\nCommission fine as fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Eyes will be\nlocked on Apple, which reports earnings on July 30.1<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Investors Flock into\nBond Funds in Record Numbers \u2013 <\/strong>Even as U.S. equities continue to rally in\n2019 and flirt with record highs, investors are also pouring into bond funds at\nrecord pace. For 28 consecutive weeks, there have been net inflows into bond\nmutual funds and bond ETFs \u2013 for a grand total of $254 billion of inflows so\nfar in 2019. At this pace, bond inflows for 2019 could approach $500 billion,\nwhich is a staggering figure when knowing that the total over the last ten\nyears was $1.7 trillion. Investors appear to be hedging against the possibility\nof an economic slowdown, as global economic data has noticeably softened over\nthe past two quarters.2<\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n ________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n How Can You Prepare for Retirement Uncertainties?<\/a><\/strong> If you have $500,000 or more to invest, download our <\/a><\/strong>Retirement Uncertainties\u2026and How to Breeze Through.<\/a><\/strong><\/em>3<\/sup><\/strong> ________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Cause of the\nRetail Apocalypse Isn\u2019t Just Amazon \u2013 <\/strong>The rise of Amazon has no doubt\nshifted consumer preferences and habits in such a dramatic way that malls\nacross the country have been closing at a record pace. Brick and mortar stores\nhave struggled to attract customers into stores as shopping online has become\nthe default choice for many. But Amazon should not be solely blamed for the\n\u201cretail apocalypse.\u201d Rising rents are to blame, too. A high-profile example of\nrising rents was reported in The<\/em> Wall\nStreet Journal <\/em>this week: Barneys New York reportedly is considering a\nbankruptcy filing in the face of a 72% rent bump at its Madison Avenue flagship\nstore. On a national basis, commercial retail rents are off recent peaks, but\nthey have not fallen as quickly as sales and revenue at national chains. This\ntrend underscores how critical an ecommerce platform is to retail businesses in\nthe modern economy.4<\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n More Technology\nScrutiny, Which Now Includes Antitrust Review <\/strong>\u2013 Technology companies have\nenjoyed a long period of little to no regulation and explosive growth, but the\nplaying field may finally be shifting. Facebook was hit this week with a $5\nbillion fine from the Federal Trade Commission for the Cambridge Analytica\nscandal \u2013 and in a sign of doubling down on scrutiny, the Justice Department\nalso announced it would be opening a broad antitrust review of some of the\nbiggest names in tech, like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple. At the heart\nof the review is whether these companies have too much dominance in search,\nretail, and social media, and whether their monetization of customer data\nviolates privacy laws. Regulation and law-making is often a glacially slow\nprocess, so we would not expect any major changes coming down the pipe anytime\nsoon.5<\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Just as we cannot predict exactly how these stories will pan\nout, we also cannot predict life\u2019s uncertainties when it comes to retirement\nplanning. No matter how carefully you prepare for retirement, life\u2019s unknowns\ncan throw your plans off track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But you can take steps to prepare yourself and help protect\nyour secure and comfortable retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have $500,000 or more to invest, get our free guide, Retirement\nUncertainties\u2026and How to Breeze Through Them.6<\/sup><\/strong> It provides\nadvice, based on our decades of experience, that we believe can help ensure\nthat your golden years will be comfortable and secure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tech giants power rally even as government puts biggest names under antitrust microscope <\/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":[71,73,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-private-client-group","category-steady-investors-week","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8130","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=8130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10731,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8130\/revisions\/10731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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There are so many unknowns that come with planning your retirement \u2013 what if the market crashes or a medical emergency arises?<\/strong> No one can predict if these what-ifs will materialize\u2014but there are simple steps you can take NOW to help ensure your secure and comfortable retirement.
Get our practical advice that is based on decades of experience and can potentially guard your retirement assets against the \u201cwhat ifs\u201d in life, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n