Wealth Management News & Insights
The Tyranny of Inertia, What’s Wrong with Starbucks, The Voyage of The Altar Stone
Financial Markets
- Investors Borrowed Like Crazy During the Rally. Now They’re Paying the Price: Behind the market tumult of the past month: the rapid unwind of several popular trades and the heavy use of leverage. [WSJ]
- Merck Created the World’s Biggest Drug. Now It Has to Replace It: Keytruda will generate $25 billion in sales for Merck this year. But its patent is about to expire, leaving Merck with a gaping hole to fill—and a stock price that could be at risk. [Barron’s]
- Regulators Probing Big Banks’ Handling of Zelle Scams: Investigation examines whether JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and others do enough to shut down accounts controlled by bad actors. [WSJ]
- Inflation Hurts Most for the Things We Can’t Skimp On: Costs for child care, rent and car insurance are up. Inflation might be easing, but it doesn’t feel that way. [WSJ]
The charts above illustrate the fluctuations in the number of all-time highs (ATHs) for S&P 500 stocks over time. As of 2024, there have been 31 ATHs, indicating that numerous companies have achieved their highest-ever stock prices this year.
Financial Planning
- Why Everyone Needs a ‘Digital Death-Cleaning’ Plan: Nobody wants to leave heirs a confusing collection of files they can’t open, accounts they can’t access and assets they can’t locate. [WSJ]
- Recession Fears Have Gripped the Stock Market. Where to Find Safety: Investors have been counting on a strong economy to power the stock market higher, buying relatively riskier assets such as small-caps that tend to do well during periods of economic expansion. [Barron’s]
Retirement Planning
- Young and in Debt? You Still Should Be Saving for Retirement: Between her mortgage, credit-card balances, student and auto loans, Ivana Rosa has nearly $450,000 in debt. But she isn’t letting that stop her from a major goal: saving for retirement. [Barron’s]
The charts above illustrate various percentages of pullbacks and corrections in the S&P 500 since 1930. According to the top left chart, the S&P 500 experiences pullbacks of 5% or more more than three a year on average. A “pullback” is defined as a temporary decline in the price of a stock or index following a period of upward movement.
Business Strategy
- Inside Starbucks’s Surprising CEO Firing and Hiring: As the coffee giant’s shares sank and activists circled, the board arranged a cold call that brought dramatic change. [WSJ]
- What’s Wrong With Starbucks? Prices are up—and so are the wait times. But that’s just the tip of the iced-latte-berg. The coffee giant’s new CEO will have his work cut out for him. [WSJ]
- Mars, Maker of M&M’s and Snickers, Strikes Nearly $30 Billion Deal to Buy Cheez-It Owner Kellanova: M&M’s maker Mars has struck a deal worth nearly $30 billion to buy Kellanova, marking one of the food industry’s biggest deals and expanding the candy maker’s brand portfolio to include salty snacks such as Pringles and Cheez-It. [CBS]
- Chipotle to Splurge on Bigger Portions to Keep Diners Happy: Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. is making sure its diners are getting generous serving sizes — but there’s a cost to this. [Bloomberg]
- Disney+ to Introduce Continuous Playlists in U.S. Beginning on September 4: Disney+ announced it is adding continuous playlists to its core subscription on-demand offering in the U.S. Beginning September 4, ABC News Live and a playlist focused on preschool content will be available to all subscribers, with four additional curated playlists to follow later this fall. [Disney]
The chart above provides a comprehensive overview of Disney’s upcoming theatrical releases, covering the remainder of 2024 through 2025. This schedule includes all films that Disney has publicly announced for release in theaters during this period.
Life & Work
- Can the Olympics Unite Americans During a Divisive Election Year: Moments of unification and commonality during a divisive election year are few and far between, but one of them is happening right now, thousands of miles away. [USA Today]
- The Voyage of The Altar Stone: A Stonehenge Mystery Solved (Maybe): Researchers revealed that the long-mysterious Altar Stone at the heart of the world’s most famous prehistoric monument came from faraway Scotland. [Washington Post]
- Early Halloween Push Driving “Summerween” Trend: There’s a race to move out holiday merchandise early, aiming to get shoppers ready well in advance and, ideally, pushing them to spend more money. [Axios]
- Need a Cheese Plate at 4 a.m.? There’s a Vending Machine for That: Forget the bag of chips. The longtime snack dispensary is now spitting out cupcakes…and meat? [WSJ]
The Food at Home CPI tracks fluctuations in the prices of groceries purchased for home consumption. As shown in the chart above, there has been a notable decline in this index over the past two years.