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Determining the Money Supply The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and associated economic advisers meet regularly to assess the U.S. money supply and general economic condition. If it is determined that new money needs to be created, then the Fed targets a certain level of money injection...

Supply and Demand Market interest rates are determined by the supply and demand for loanable funds. Businesses demand credit to finance new investments and ongoing operations. Consumers also demand credit for new purchases and to finance their expenses against their income on a revolving basis...

On top of the fiscal stimulus impasse in Washington, coordination between the White House and Federal Reserve is also breaking down during one of the most critical times in American history. Yesterday U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wrote a letter to Fed Chair Jerome Powell asking the...

Fast Fact Business school rankings remain fairly consistent over the years with the same schools appearing at the top year after year. The other schools ranked in the top five this year were the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management in second, the University of...

Strong Cash, Low Earnings Expectations When vetting dividend-paying companies, long-term profitability is a key consideration. Although any company can occasionally experience a profitable quarter, only those that have demonstrated consistent growth on an annual basis should make the cut...

Factor Investing Factor investing requires investors to take into account an increased level of granularity when choosing securities—specifically, more granular than asset class. Common factors reviewed in factor investing include style, size and risk. Here are some examples of ETFs using five...

What Is an ETF? Think of an ETF as a mutual fund that trades like a stock. Just like a mutual fund, an ETF represents a basket of securities (such as stocks) that reflect an index such as the S&P 500 or the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index. An ETF, however, isn't a mutual fund; it...

What Is a Mid-Cap? There is no single definition of a mid-cap stock. However, Standard & Poor's (S&P) defines mid-cap as a market capitalization of $300 million to $4 billion, where a large-cap has a market capitalization of over $4 billion and small-caps have market caps under $300 million...

Stocks will avoid suffering their worst December since the Great Depression provided that the S&P 500 closes above 2,594.56 Monday. Regardless of whether they do or don't, the issues that have plagued the stock market in the final few months of 2018 – such as the Federal Reserve's handling of...

Investors' optimism about a breakthrough in trade talks between President Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at the G-20 summit in Argentina was short lived, with the major market indexes plunging over 3% Tuesday on an ominous signal from the bond market known as "inversion of the...

After a bumper year of returns in 2017, emerging markets have copped a battering in 2018. From slowing economic growth in China to Turkey's currency, the lira, collapsing – all occurring in the backdrop of volatile Latin American presidential elections, trade wars and a buoyant U.S. dollar that...

U.S. small-cap stocks received substantial inflows of cash between May and September 2018 as investors saw them as less immune to geopolitical tensions, trade tariffs and a stronger U.S. dollar. Small- and mid-cap companies were also primary beneficiaries of President Trump's tax reform plan...

S&P 500 ETFs The Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P 500) is a market-capitalization-weighted index of some of the largest publicly-traded U.S. corporations. Most analysts see the S&P 500 as the best indicator of the U.S. equity market. This index is a commonly used benchmark for many portfolio managers...

While the ETF landscape is large and growing by the day, some funds can be considered the best—by a majority of investors—in their respective categories. Here is a comprehensive list of ETFs that are among the best funds across a wide array of asset classes. Best Technology ETF Technology is...

Vanguard Mid-Cap ETF (VO) The Vanguard Mid-Cap ETF (VO) delivers broad coverage of U.S. midcap equities by tracking the CRSP U.S. Mid Cap Index. 1 This benchmark was created by the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The index...

iShares Core S&P Small-Cap ETF (IJR) The iShares Core S&P Small-Cap ETF, created back in 2000, tracks the performance of the S&P SmallCap 600 Index. The fund achieves this by investing the majority of its massive $58 billion asset pool in securities that make up the benchmark index. These...

Range of Choices and Risks Luckily, there are a plethora of monthly dividend ETF funds offered by the major firms, including State Street Global Advisors, Vanguard Group, and BlackRock, Inc. However, there are also smaller firms such as the Global X Funds that have increased their presence in...

Index Funds Index funds are popular with both individual investors and financial professionals. They include exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds that are created to track a specific index like the S&P 500, the Russell 2000, or the EAFE. Index funds offer broad exposure to the market...