Is The Stock Market Overly Concentrated Today?

Is The Stock Market Overly Concentrated Today?

That’s the title of an article that I wrote back in 2020 (https://www.cognizantwealth.com/2020/07/22/is-the-stock-market-overly-concentrated-today/) when the market capitalization of the top ten stocks in the overall U.S. stock market topped 20% (30% of the S&P 500 index). Today the contribution of the top ten stocks has climbed to 32% of the S&P 500’s market cap. The…
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Should You Invest After A New Market High?

Now that the stock market has reached new highs again after a dismal 2022, you might be thinking that this would be a bad time to buy stocks since they’re more expensive than they previously were. My recommendation is to buy anyway. Over the past ten years there were almost 260 days in which the…
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Can AI Be Used to Pick Winning Stocks?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is all the rage these days. Ever since ChatGPT was introduced by OpenAI and Microsoft, companies are falling over each other to find ways to apply AI to all kinds of activities. You may not recall it but IBM was actually one of the pioneers of AI. They designed a chess-playing computer…
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Spot Bitcoin ETFs Are Here. Should You Buy In?

Last year I wrote about the progress being made on the Bitcoin investment front (https://www.cognizantwealth.com/2023/07/07/is-bitcoin-almost-ready-for-prime-time/).  At the time there were only two ways to invest in Bitcoin: through a private exchange or via an ETF holding Bitcoin futures. Last week the SEC authorized eleven spot (current price) Bitcoin ETFs to begin trading. Is this the…
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A Review Of 2023 Stock Market Predictions

“It’s hard to make predictions. Especially about the future.” That’s one of my favorite aphorisms attributed to Yogi Berra. At the beginning of every year hundreds of economists, strategists, and self-proclaimed pundits announce their annual predictions for the capital markets, blithely ignoring their own past history. Let’s take a look back to see how well…
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Is Inflation Bad For Stocks?

Although inflation has been mitigated over the last couple of years, it’s still on the minds of many investors. Should we avoid stocks when inflation is high? Can inflation be used for market timing in some way? Unfortunately the answer is “no” in both cases. There is no demonstrable connection between periods of high inflation…
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