Welcome to the end of the week and another edition of Happy Hour! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy your end of the week roundup of all things interesting in the land of money.
Fourth Of July
Happy B’Day America! Although falling on a Wednesday is not optimal for celebrating. Whoever is in charge of this calendar thing, needs to make sure that July 4 always falls on a Thursday or Friday (or Monday, but preferably Friday so there’s no vacation/sick days lost). There’s nothing wrong with a three or four day weekend. But five days, that’s pushing it. Anyways, hope everyone had a great Fourth of July!
Second Quarter Earnings Season
Well, we burned through half the year already. It’s earnings season again. The second quarter earnings season will kick off on Monday, July 9 with Alcoa’s earnings after the market close.
Since the first quarter ended, we’ve seen a small drop in the S&P500, but it’s still up about 9% for the year. There’s been the annual European and economic slowdown worries that have affected the markets. Hopefully the rest of the year is smooth sailing.
Since we can’t predict the future, we should focus on the long term plan for our money. It’s a great time to review all your finances, not just your investments. Make sure everything is aligned with your future goals. If you own stocks, listen to the conference calls as each earnings report is released. And make changes where it’s necessary.
Last Call
- Three Keys to Greater Wealth – If you just follow, and stick to, these 3 keys when you invest, you will find success down the road.
- Enough With The Negativity – I have to agree. A great post from a traders perspective, but the message might as well be for investors too.
- Should You Go to an Adviser or an Advisor? – An interesting take on how to spell advisor, especially since I just dealt with it recently. I went with the -or ending, since Google’s search autocomplete goes to advisor when typing in financial advisor.
- If you have a twitter account (or don’t) check out @NeedADebitCard. It’s an amusing, yet disturbing, account that retweets people who post pictures of their debit cards. Some people were smart enough to take the pictures down, most were not.
