The
market is flat.
That’s
right. It’s a rare occurrence – something that has happened just 12 times since
1926, according to Fortune – but the
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500) has remained in a narrow trading range
for seven months. For every sector that has delivered performance gains (for
instance, healthcare, software, and consumer discretionary), there has been one
with losses that have offset those gains (for instance, energy, materials, and industrials).
The
S&P 500’s unremarkable gains year-to-date are owed to just a handful of
stocks, which Barron’s said means the
market has bad breadth. That’s not a good sign, but it’s not a bad sign,
either. Less breadth doesn’t always signal the end of a bull market:
“Big
downturns are almost always preceded by a lack of breadth, which is one reason
some folks are preparing for the end. There’s only one problem: Declining
breadth doesn’t always signal the end of a bull market. From September 4 to October
13 of last year, the S&P 500 outperformed the equal-weighted version of the
index by more than 1.5 percentage points [a measure indicating lack of breadth],
leading to similar calls that it was time to bail. The S&P 500 gained 8.5
percent during the next three months.”
Fortune’s analyst reviewed the historical data for the dozen years that
offered similar market performance during the first seven months of the year and
found that a range of outcomes is
possible. The S&P 500 Index could:
·
Remain
relatively flat: It happened in 1994.
·
Deliver a
loss over the full year: It happened in 1930, 1941, and 1990.
·
Deliver a
gain over the full year: It happened during the remaining eight years.
The
median return for the twelve years was 6 percent.
Reading
stock market tea leaves is no easy task. That’s why it’s important to remain
focused on your financial goals and the strategies you’ve selected to help
pursue them.
if you
sleep more, you may earn more money. Researchers were trying to evaluate the importance of sleep so
they focused on two American cities in a single time zone: Huntsville, Alabama
(on the eastern edge of the central time zone) and Amarillo, Texas (on the
western edge of the same time zone). The sun sets an hour later in Amarillo, so
the assumption was made that people get less sleep in Amarillo than they do in
Huntsville.
The findings reported in Time Use and Productivity: The Wage Returns to Sleep, by Matthew
Gibson of Williams College and Jeffrey Shrader of the University of
California-San Diego, were people who get one hour less shuteye, over a long
period of time, earn about 4.5 percent less.
From an economic perspective, the idea may
seem counterintuitive. After all, when you’re snoozing you’re not producing.
However, from a psychological point of view, it makes a lot more sense. A
British study of 21,000 employees found those who slept six hours or less each
night were less productive than employees who slept for seven or eight hours.
Of course, sleep wasn’t the only issue that
lowered productivity. According to the study, physical inactivity, financial
worries, mental health issues, musculoskeletal issues, bullying, impossible
deadlines, and unpaid caregiving all negatively affected workers’ output.
Sleep issues, however, may become more
important as we become attached to devices like tablets, laptops, and smart
phones. Research described in Scientific
American found two hours of tablet use before bedtime suppressed melatonin
release. Melatonin is a hormone that lets us know it’s time to sleep.
So, if you’re having trouble getting to sleep
and use a smart phone or tablet before bed, you may want to turn down the
brightness of your glowing screens before bed – or switch back to good
old-fashioned books.
Weekly Focus – Think About It
“I do not think there is any thrill
that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees
some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man
forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.”
--Nikola
Tesla, Inventor of the Tesla Coil
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