Many countries are on alert following President Trump’s inauguration, awaiting an announcement on whether he will impose the 20% universal tariff executive order on imports he promised during his campaign. The tariffs would have significant implications for major trading partners like Canada and Mexico but would also affect any nation that exports to the U.S. Switzerland is no exception. Behind pharmaceuticals and gold, watches are the third largest export to the U.S. Switzerland sells more than CHF 4 billion of watches to the U.S. every year or roughly 17% of total production. The U.S. is the largest export market for…

Key News Asian equities were higher, except for Hong Kong and Mainland China, which were off following President Trump’s 10% tariff threat, which prompted profit-taking after six days of gains. I would have thought that a 10% tariff was expected or would have been cheered, as 10% is better than 60%, which is why today’s market action could simply have been profit-taking. There was a fairly broad sell-off in both markets, less so because of Trump’s AI infrastructure effort called Stargate, which was cited for the outperformance of technology hardware and semiconductor stocks. CATL fell -2.34% after yesterday’s post-close financial…

Legendary investor Warren Buffett advises to be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. One way we can try to measure the level of fear in a given stock is through a technical analysis indicator called the Relative Strength Index, or RSI, which measures momentum on a scale of zero to 100. A stock is considered to be oversold if the RSI reading falls below 30. Start slideshow: 10 Oversold Stocks You Should Know About » In trading on Tuesday, shares of Apple entered into oversold territory, hitting an RSI reading of 28.2, after changing…

We are now officially into Trump 2.0, and here’s the first thing I can tell you: This new administration will hurt the returns of folks who simply buy an index fund like the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) and call it a day. What we’re now embarking on is a true stock picker’s market—a time when prudent moves into, and out of, individual dividend payers will be key. That puts holders of SPY, which has to represent the current makeup of the S&P 500 index, in a tough spot. Since it has no manager who can buy and sell…

They used to say, and still do, that there is no such thing as economics, only demographics. The idea is that whatever economic theory holds sway, it is overwhelmed by the effects of population. As a sidebar this is the key to predicting who will come out on top of the first world versus the emerging world economic dominance. India and China alone have populations approaching three times that of the U.S. and Europe, and that alone should indicate the outcome. In markets the same idea can be applied, “There is no stock market only money supply.” That is to…

If you take a journey down the rabbit hole of precious metals as currency you will note that it is not as stable as many of the precious metal lovers will have you believe. Gold and silver have no real intrinsic value. Value yes, use cases yes, but a God-given immutable value, no. The gold-to-silver ratio at the height of the Roman empire was about 15-to-1, which doesn’t seem so weird when you understand that silver took a lot more work to extract than much of the gold that was, at least initially, washed out of rivers or melted out…

I recently met a woman who, despite having a great career and a high income, could not afford to save money for the future because a variety of insurance policies were costing her thousands of dollars per month. Risk averse investors often tell me one can never have too much insurance coverage, but I would contend that isn’t the case. This is how to make sure you are balancing an appropriate amount of risk management with cost to achieve the appropriate amount of insurance coverage. Determining Your Needs Whether it is car insurance, homeowner’s insurance, health insurance, life insurance, or…

Key News Asian equities were mixed overnight as Hong Kong-listed growth stocks outperformed and India underperformed. Yesterday, Hong Kong-listed growth stocks had a strong day, as the Hang Seng Index gained +1.75% and the Hang Seng Tech Index gained +2.59% following President Trump and President Xi’s Friday phone call that took place after Asia markets closed and before the US markets opened. Vice President Vance and Elon Musk both met with China’s visiting Vice President Han Zheng, who is part of President Xi’s inner circle and a trusted advisor. This was in advance of Monday’s inauguration, which he attended. Chinese…

The S&P 500 has just concluded an extraordinary period of growth, posting returns of 24% in 2023 and 23% in 2024. This back-to-back performance is not just remarkable; it’s historic. As noted in The Motley Fool, such consecutive years of substantial gains have occurred only four times since 1935, placing the current market in rare company. The most recent comparable period of consecutive high-yield years was during the build-up to the dot-com bubble between 1995 and 1998. Today’s market draws parallels to that era, primarily due to the advent and early adoption of a transformative technology in artificial intelligence. Economic…

We launched our CEF Insider newsletter nearly eight years ago, in March 2017, and we’ve seen a lot since then: a pandemic, interest-rate swings, dramatic fights between fund managers and activist shareholders, and more. But for me, the most exciting event has been the over 200% profit one of our long-time picks, a closed-end fund (CEF) called the Adams Diversified Equity Fund (ADX), has delivered to shareholders as of this writing. With a 204.3% return, ADX actually beat the S&P 500 index fund that many American investors opt for: the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which is up just…