MarketWatch rounded up 10 of its most interesting topics over the past week.
1. Happy anniversary to the bull market
The bull market for U.S. stocks is now nine years old, measured from the closing bottom for the S&P 500 index SPX, +1.74% on March 9, 2009, in the wake of the credit crisis. But the market’s incredible performance from that date obscures the fact that many stocks are still very far below where they were before the financial crisis began.
More coverage of the nine-year bull market:
• Is this bull market really 9 years old?
• The other assets that are in a bull market along with U.S. stocks
• The best sector of this bull market is the ‘greatest investment story ever told’
• Here’s why you shouldn’t give up on the bull market in stocks as its path gets rockier
2. Bias in the news
The most popular MarketWatch story this week — garnering more than 400 comments from readers — is this one featuring a chart that attempts to illustrate not only how biased a news source is, but in which way it leans in the political spectrum.
3. Tariff time
President Trump announced his steel and aluminum tariff policy on Thursday. Here’s some of MarketWatch’s extensive coverage:
• Sen. Jeff Flake threatens bill to block Trump’s tariffs
• Trump tariffs may lead to rerun of 1980s-era ‘voluntary’ trade deals
• The U.S. is almost guaranteed to have large trade deficits year after year
• Trump tariffs set to fortify steel price’s gains
• Elon Musk to Trump on tariffs: an ‘Olympic race wearing lead shoes’
4. More earnings-season confusion
5. New Fed chairman raises an economic alarm and suggests Congress do something about it
Federal Reserve Jerome Powell questions why it is so difficult for bankrupt people to have their student debt discharged and says Congress can help prevent a crisis.
6. A fascinating career change
This professional investor went from trading gold to selling milk and oats.
7. How to make money from health providers’ urge to merge
Jeff Reeves suggests health-care investment plays during a period of accelerating M&A activity.
Also see: Multimillion-dollar drug yanked from market connected to dangerous brain inflammation cases in U.S.
8. Will aging baby boomers crush the stock market?
Ryan Vlastelica considers the theory that a combination of aging boomers moving from stocks to bonds and millennials not replacing their equity investments could place a huge drag on the market.
9. Here’s a way to get in on hot initial stock offerings
Have you been shut out of hot IPOs? Michael Brush offers a solution.
10. One way to become a better investor
Imagine what will happen if your strategy fails.
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