Wednesday Reading List

3 Things to do Now to Build Your Wealth in 2024 by Heritage Financial

Start your financial year off right with these three easy steps you can take today to build your wealth in 2024, and beyond. Increase your retirement plan contributions, contribute to an IRA/Roth IRA, and check your tax withholdings on your paystub.

Investors haven’t loved small-cap stocks this much in nearly 3 years. Here’s why. by Yahoo Finance

Small-caps went on a tear in Q4 2023 after underperforming for a while and now fund managers and market commentators are bullish on them due to their relative valuations, lower interest rates, a history of performing well during rate cuts, and a healthier economic outlook.

The Holy Grail of Portfolio Management by Ben Carlson

Building a diversified portfolio doesn’t mean finding investments that are negatively correlated to stocks. Stocks are up most of the time, so you don’t want to be adding investments that are down most of the time. Instead, “what you want is an asset that has a low positive or negative correlation to stocks with the understanding that correlation will change over time.” Bonds fit that bill even though stocks and bonds have moved together more often lately and belong in your portfolio.

The S&P 500 is officially in a bull market now. Here’s how long they typically last by CNBC

While the headline doesn’t make sense to me as I think we were in a bull market before this all-time high, for those wanting a quick take on how long bull markets last and their typical gain, the data in here is good:

“The index has surged 156% on average over the course of the typical bull market going back to 1947, with the median gain coming in at 101%…Bull markets on average last more than 1,700 days, or longer than four years, the data shows. The median length of a bull run is just north of 1,500 days.”

Why More People Owe the IRS Money, in Three Charts by The Wall Street Journal

Many taxpayers accustomed to getting a refund in April are finding they have a balance due instead. The main culprits are that people under-withheld on their paychecks, unaccounted for investment gains, and not factoring taxes owed on side-hustles in the gig economy.

The Best and Worst Airlines of 2023 by The Wall Street Journal

No surprise to travelers here, but Delta is the best and JetBlue is the worst.