The goal of many (or most) savers and long-term investors is to achieve financial independence. The combination of building up a nest egg, paying down debt and eventually receiving Social Security payments or another source of retirement income might put you in a comfortable position, but even people who have worked together to achieve financial independence may disagree on what to do after their careers end.
Quentin Fottrell — the Moneyist — heard from one couple who are facing a quandary. They have been financially responsible, but as they near retirement, the wife wishes to be very careful with their combined investment portfolio, while the husband wants to begin spending a significant portion of it. They both make reasonable arguments. Here’s what they should do.
From the Help Me Retire column: My 57-year-old husband works three shifts and is burned out. Can he retire?
You have to get there first
Doing this even once might help encourage you or someone you know to begin saving and investing for the long term.
The ‘Magnificent Seven’ stocks may not remain at the top
Even an index that includes hundreds of stocks can be heavily concentrated. Large technology-oriented companies have led this year’s 16% rebound for the S&P 500
SPX,
following last year’s 18% decline (both with dividends reinvested). But the index is weighted by market capitalization, which means the “Magnificent Seven” — Apple Inc.
AAPL,
Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
two common share classes of Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL,
GOOG,
Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
and Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
— make up 27.9% of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust
SPY,
In the Need to Know column, Barbara Kollmeyer lists companies that might turn out to be among the next Magnificent Seven, based on a Goldman Sachs screen.
Getting back to the current Magnificent Seven, you may be surprised to see which of the stocks is cheapest — by far — per one commonly used valuation metric.
Related: Top investment newsletters aren’t bullish on tech, Tesla or Meta Platforms. Here’s what they do like.
A thrill ride for EV makers
There has been a lot of news in the electric-vehicle space this week. Here are lists of coverage organized by topic.
Rising unit sales among EV makers:
- Tesla just walloped delivery expectations, but there’s still one big unknown
- Rivian’s stock has best day in eight months after EV production more than triples in latest quarter
Legacy automakers report sales increases, including a tremendous increase in EV unit sales for Ford
F,
:
Reaction from analysts and investors:
In other news, Mullen Automotive Inc.
MULN,
has started to deliver electric vehicles. Further developments for the company this week included the announcement of a stock-buyback plan and possible action against naked short sellers.
A changing job market
The employment numbers for June from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the lowest level of job creation since late 2020. Then again, the demand for labor in the U.S. remains high, despite the Federal Reserve’s efforts to slow economic growth.
If you are looking to make a career change, what does all this mean to you? Andrew Keshner points to a development in the employment market that may have you thinking twice about jumping ship.
Threads and Twitter
Meta rolled out its new Threads service on Wednesday to compete directly with Twitter and has already signed up 50 million users, according to some reports.
Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino was quick to respond.
More reaction:
Consumer spending may spike
U.S. shoppers have been taking it slow during a period of high inflation, but the overall economy has been stronger than expected even as the Federal Reserve continues tightening its monetary policy.
The coming flurry of July sales events at Amazon, Walmart Inc.
WMT,
and Target Corp.
TGT,
could signal a turnaround for consumers, as James Rogers reports.
Financial crime
Lukas I. Alpert writes the Financial Crime column. Have you ever wondered how you might steal a lot of cash from a company that is likely to have rather tight accounting controls in place? This week Alpert explains how the manager of an Amazon warehouse managed to scale the heights of criminal achievement to collect $10 million — and a 16-year jail sentence.
Also read: Silver dealer ordered to pay $146 million in case of 500,000 missing coins
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