Alessandra Malito writes the Help Me Retire column, with answers to all sorts of questions about retirement planning, saving, investing and living. This week she helps a man who is 62 and single and has already decided that he wants to “go fishing for the next 25 years and forget about work.” He has prepared himself financially, but he can do more to make sure he doesn’t run out of money.
Short squeezes
The drivers of the meme-stock craze that began this year have been short squeezes brought about by traders banding together through Reddit’s WallStreetBets channel. Groups of individual traders have bought stocks that hedge funds had bet against, leading to massive price increases for some stocks. Here’s a list of the biggest short squeezes over a four-week period. And here’s a new list of potential short-squeeze targets.
More meme-stock coverage:
When to expect the new monthly Child Tax Credit
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The Internal Revenue System is readying monthly payments of up to $300 per child for families who qualify. Andrew Keshner explains what steps you might need to take now.
How to adjust your investments before the Fed tackles inflation
The Federal Reserve has kept the federal-funds rate in a range of zero to 0.25% since March of last year — part of a set of drastic moves the central bank took to prop up the U.S. economy during the coronavirus pandemic. Financial markets are very sensitive to any hint of a policy change by the Fed, and Jim Bullard, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said on Friday that the federal-funds rate target may raised next year. “It’s natural that we’ve tilted a little more hawkish to contain inflationary pressures,” Bullard said during a CNBC interview.
Michael Brush shares five smart ways to shift your investments as the Fed prepares to raise interest rates.
A warning about Medicare premiums
CD Moriarty has advice for people approaching retirement age. Medicare coverage kicks in at age 65, but certain financial moves you make as early as age 63 can greatly increase your Medicare Part B premiums. Here’s what to watch out for.
Is it time for a bitcoin ETF?
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VanEck has applied with the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to establish an exchange-traded fund to hold bitcoin and the regulator has delayed its decision twice. Roger Lowenstein argues that not only should the SEC disallow ETFs to hold bitcoin, people shouldn’t even consider bitcoin an investment.
When will you buy an electric vehicle?
Even if you have been thrilled when test-driving Tesla Inc.’s
TSLA,
Model 3 or another electric vehicle, chances are you haven’t bought an EV yet. Jeremy Michalek, a professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and director of the university’s Vehicle Electrification Group, explains why it may take longer than the expected for the bulk of the U.S. vehicle fleet to go electric.
Don’t worry about the housing market — look at this chart instead
You’ve seen plenty of scary coverage about the rapid increase in home prices as demand has outpaced supply, but Rex Nutting shares a chart that should ease your worry about a housing-bubble and crash.
5 things to know about an IPO
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Krispy Kreme is going public. Again. Tonya Garcia shares five things investors need to know before considering buying shares of this unprofitable player in the “global indulgence” market.
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