PEEK OF THE WEEK
April 16, 2018
Leif Hagen & Donna Roberts
The Markets
• Are you bullish, bearish, or neutral about the U.S. stock market?
• Are U.S. stocks undervalued, overvalued, or fairly valued?
• What is the biggest threat the U.S. stock market faces this year?
During the first four months of 2018, U.S. stocks have experienced not one, but two, 10 percent declines. These short-term reversals are known as corrections. They occur relatively often, helping to wring out investor exuberance and, sometimes, to create buying opportunities as share prices drop.
The current twinset of corrections appears to have created a fair amount of uncertainty, according to Barron’s bi-annual Big Money Poll of professional investors. The ranks of the bullish have diminished, and the bearish remain relatively unchanged, but the number of those who are ‘neutral’ has swelled:
Professional investors say their clients are also unsure about stock markets. They indicated 60 percent of clients were neutral about stocks, while 23 percent were bullish and 17 percent were bearish.
When asked about market valuations, a majority thought U.S. stocks were fairly valued (57 percent) after the corrections. Thirty-five percent believe stocks remain overvalued, and 8 percent believe stocks have become undervalued.
If either ‘political/policy missteps’ or ‘rising interest rates’ was your answer to the biggest threat to U.S. stocks, then you’re thinking like a professional investor. Their list of worries included:
Last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.8 percent, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was up 2.0 percent, and the NASDAQ Composite rose 2.8 percent.
WHAT
DOES YOUR PLAYLIST SAY ABOUT YOU? Your preference for pop,
country, opera, classic rock, or some other type of music may provide clues to
your personality, according to an article in Psychological Science
entitled ‘Musical Preferences Predict Personality.’
Psychologists have been studying ‘personality’ for a long time. Their goal is to understand why people think, feel, and behave differently in the same situation. The prevailing personality model is called the ‘Big Five.’ It holds there are five factors that describe a broad range of personality traits and characteristics. No single factor describes personality by itself:
• Extroversion includes people on two ends of a spectrum, introverts and extroverts. Extroverts thrive on interactions with others while introverts thrive on solitude. This factor reflects a person’s tendency to be sociable, assertive, talkative, and friendly.
• Agreeableness describes how well people get along well with others. This factor encompasses altruism, trust, tact, and loyalty.
• Conscientiousness describes how well people control their impulses and act in socially acceptable ways. It encompasses persistence, ambition, energy, and resourcefulness.
• Neuroticism describes how comfortable and confident people are with themselves. It encompasses awkwardness, pessimism, insecurity, and wariness.
• Openness to experience describes willingness to try new experiences and think outside the box. This factor reflects perceptiveness, curiosity, insightfulness, and imagination.
As it turns out, musical preferences are pretty good predictors of some personality factors, especially openness, extroversion, and agreeableness. Openness is associated with a preference for ‘sophisticated’ music (classical, operatic, world, and jazz), extroversion is associated with ‘unpretentious’ music (country and folk), and, as you might expect, agreeableness is associated with liking all types of music.
It’s notable that musical preferences fail to predict conscientiousness.
Weekly Focus – Think About It
“Sometimes they would take two ropes and turn them as a single rope together, but you could separate them and turn them in like an eggbeater on each other. The skipping rope was like a steady timeline – tick, tick, tick, tick – upon which you can add rhymes and rhythms and chants. Those ropes created a space where we were able to contribute to something that was far greater than the neighborhood.”
--Kyra Gaunt, Professor, Songwriter, Performer
Psychologists have been studying ‘personality’ for a long time. Their goal is to understand why people think, feel, and behave differently in the same situation. The prevailing personality model is called the ‘Big Five.’ It holds there are five factors that describe a broad range of personality traits and characteristics. No single factor describes personality by itself:
• Extroversion includes people on two ends of a spectrum, introverts and extroverts. Extroverts thrive on interactions with others while introverts thrive on solitude. This factor reflects a person’s tendency to be sociable, assertive, talkative, and friendly.
• Agreeableness describes how well people get along well with others. This factor encompasses altruism, trust, tact, and loyalty.
• Conscientiousness describes how well people control their impulses and act in socially acceptable ways. It encompasses persistence, ambition, energy, and resourcefulness.
• Neuroticism describes how comfortable and confident people are with themselves. It encompasses awkwardness, pessimism, insecurity, and wariness.
• Openness to experience describes willingness to try new experiences and think outside the box. This factor reflects perceptiveness, curiosity, insightfulness, and imagination.
As it turns out, musical preferences are pretty good predictors of some personality factors, especially openness, extroversion, and agreeableness. Openness is associated with a preference for ‘sophisticated’ music (classical, operatic, world, and jazz), extroversion is associated with ‘unpretentious’ music (country and folk), and, as you might expect, agreeableness is associated with liking all types of music.
It’s notable that musical preferences fail to predict conscientiousness.
Weekly Focus – Think About It
“Sometimes they would take two ropes and turn them as a single rope together, but you could separate them and turn them in like an eggbeater on each other. The skipping rope was like a steady timeline – tick, tick, tick, tick – upon which you can add rhymes and rhythms and chants. Those ropes created a space where we were able to contribute to something that was far greater than the neighborhood.”
--Kyra Gaunt, Professor, Songwriter, Performer
Best
Regards,
Leif M. Hagen
Leif M. Hagen, CLU, ChFC
LP Financial Advisor
Securities offered through LPL Financial Inc., Member FINRA/SIPC.
P.S. Please feel free to forward this commentary
to family, friends, or colleagues.
P.S.S. Also,
please remind your friends and family members becoming Medicare eligible that
we offer Medicare insurance and Part D options with NO COST to work with Leif as
their agent
For more information and resources visit our website at www.HagenFN.com
For more information and resources visit our website at www.HagenFN.com
For Medicare supplement and part D information and
resources, please visit MEDICAREforSENIORS.info
Please FOLLOW and “LIKE US” on FACEBOOK.com/HagenFN
Please Read our Blog @ http://HagenFinancialNetwork.blogspot.com
Please Follow our Tweets on Twitter.com/SafeLeif
Check out this: http://www.MedicareForSeniors.info
* This newsletter was
prepared by Peak Advisor Alliance. Peak Advisor Alliance is not affiliated with
the named broker/dealer.
* The Standard & Poor's
500 (S&P 500) is an unmanaged group of securities considered to be
representative of the stock
market in general. You cannot invest directly in this index.
* The Standard & Poor’s
500 (S&P 500) is an unmanaged index. Unmanaged index returns do not reflect
fees,
expenses, or sales charges. Index
performance is not indicative of the performance of any investment.
* The 10-year Treasury Note
represents debt owed by the United States Treasury to the public. Since the
U.S.
Government is seen as a
risk-free borrower, investors use the 10-year Treasury Note as a benchmark for
the long-term bond market.
* Gold represents the
afternoon gold price as reported by the London Bullion Market Association.
The gold price is set twice
daily by the London Gold Fixing Company at 10:30 and 15:00 and is expressed in
U.S. dollars per fine troy ounce.
* The Bloomberg Commodity
Index is designed to be a highly liquid and diversified benchmark for the
commodity futures market. The Index is composed of futures contracts on 19
physical commodities and was launched on July 14, 1998.
* The DJ Equity All REIT
Total Return Index measures the total return performance of the equity
subcategory of the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) industry as calculated
by Dow Jones.
* Yahoo! Finance is the
source for any reference to the performance of an index between two specific
periods.
* Opinions expressed are
subject to change without notice and are not intended as investment advice or
to predict future performance.
* Economic forecasts set
forth may not develop as predicted and there can be no guarantee that
strategies promoted will be successful.
* Past performance does not
guarantee future results. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.
* You cannot invest directly
in an index.
* Consult your financial
professional before making any investment decision.
* Stock investing involves
risk including loss of principal.
* To unsubscribe from the
“Peek of the Week”, please reply to this email with “Unsubscribe” in the
subject line, or write us at: Hagen Financial Network, Inc. 4640 Nicols Road,
Suite 203; Eagan, MN 55122.
Sources:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/correction.asp
https://www.barrons.com/articles/big-money-poll-more-good-news-for-stocks-1523665374 (or go to https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/peakcontent/+Peak+Commentary/04-16-18_Barrons-Big_Money_Poll-More_Good_News_for_Stocks-Footnote_2.pdf)
https://www.barrons.com/articles/dow-closes-the-week-up-427-pointsthe-hard-way-1523664000 (or go to https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/peakcontent/+Peak+Commentary/04-16-18_Barrons-Dow_Closes_the_Week_Up_427_Points-the_Hard_Way-Footnote_3.pdf)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322506461_Musical_Preferences_Predict_Personality_Evidence_from_Active_Listening_and_Facebook_Likes
https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/big-five-personality-theory/
https://www.ted.com/talks/kyra_gaunt_how_the_jump_rope_got_its_rhythm/transcript#t-84378
https://www.barrons.com/articles/big-money-poll-more-good-news-for-stocks-1523665374 (or go to https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/peakcontent/+Peak+Commentary/04-16-18_Barrons-Big_Money_Poll-More_Good_News_for_Stocks-Footnote_2.pdf)
https://www.barrons.com/articles/dow-closes-the-week-up-427-pointsthe-hard-way-1523664000 (or go to https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/peakcontent/+Peak+Commentary/04-16-18_Barrons-Dow_Closes_the_Week_Up_427_Points-the_Hard_Way-Footnote_3.pdf)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322506461_Musical_Preferences_Predict_Personality_Evidence_from_Active_Listening_and_Facebook_Likes
https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/big-five-personality-theory/
https://www.ted.com/talks/kyra_gaunt_how_the_jump_rope_got_its_rhythm/transcript#t-84378
