The Motley Fool reaches millions of people every month through our premium investing solutions, free guidance and market analysis on Fool.com, personal finance education, top-rated podcasts, and non-profit The Motley Fool Foundation. Once you reach your full retirement age, no amount of income, no matter the source, has an effect on the amount of your Social Security benefits. So a great year for the market and your portfolio could effectively reduce your benefits—by imposing taxes on them. However, the Social Security Trust Fund has no direct connection to the stock market. Funds left after payment of all benefits are invested in special-issue government bonds on a daily basis.
Sector adjustments can help you capitalize if the Fed continues lowering interest rates. Capital-intensive sectors like technology and industrials tend to get a lift when rates fall. Consumer discretionary stocks will also benefit if cheaper debt encourages spending growth. More consumers may, for example, splurge on luxury vacations or new cars if these can be financed affordably. If you have adjusted your income holdings to favor high-yield cash deposits and bonds in recent years, it may be time to unwind those changes. As interest rates fall, cash deposits will drop, too—making dividend yields look relatively more attractive.
While many analysts expect the year to be positive for stocks, several factors could introduce volatility along the way. Prepare yourself for what may lie ahead with this expert-informed overview of risks, sectors to watch and S&P 500 predictions for next year. As show above, there have been 10 presidential elections in the last four decades, and the S&P 500 returned a median of 17% during the 12 months following those events.
That way, if the sector only moves 5%, I can still make money provided the price increase moves quickly enough. Extensive regulation is the bane of businesses both large and small. The Republican sweep of the White House and both chambers of Congress holds significant potential for a trend of decreasing regulation – at least until the mid-term congressional election in 2026. Inconvenient and costly for big corporations, excessive regulations are especially burdensome to small businesses, which don’t have the resources of large companies to achieve compliance.
What Is the Average Social Security Benefit?
The company’s stock opened at $38 on its first day of trading in July 2021, shot up to $85 five days later, then plunged back to roughly $40 after just six weeks. Reddit had its initial public offering (IPO) and began trading on the stock market this morning, and shot higher out of the gate. The company had priced its stock at $34 per share, but the stock actually began trading at roughly $47 per share and reached as high as $57.80 earlier in today’s session. At its peak, the company’s stock had been up 70% from its IPO price. Markets operate on the premise that a rising tide lifts all boats, and one look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 1896 proves this to be objectively true. And while the stock market is not the regular economy, Trump is a corrupt disruptor who has proven to pretty consistently buck trends at this point.
- “If we fail to increase or retain our user base or if user engagement declines, our business… and prospects will be harmed,” it said in the filing.
- It is a priority for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges.
- Most national grocery store chains are open on Thanksgiving for those last-minute turkey day needs, although many close early.
- Many pundits are pegging a 10% increase as the most likely scenario.
- I haven’t counted it up, but it’s likely I encountered losses in excess of $150,000 from making mistakes that were easily avoided, rash decisions, and not giving myself enough time to test out strategies.
Amid the IPO announcement, Reddit is also looking to generate revenue from other sources beyond advertising. The social media platform reportedly struck a content licensing deal with Google, which would allow the tech giant to use Reddit’s data to train its artificial intelligence models. Reddit (RDDT) stock sank Friday on a report Advance Magazine Publishers planned to borrow against its stake in the social media platform and regulatory filings disclosed Chinese conglomerate Tencent Holdings sold shares. Perhaps most significant of all is that Reddit’s filing with the US financial markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), notes its users as a potential risk that comes with owning shares in the company.
Belongs in Portfolio Thread
A Montrealer based how to trade etfs in Toronto, Jenna holds a master’s degree in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. Valenzuela, who has been an active Reddit user for a decade, said he isn’t concerned about the user experience changing after the IPO — and he might buy the stock after the company has listed. That’s precisely what happened last summer, when many of the site’s mods restricted or locked their popular subreddits in protest of Reddit’s plan to charge businesses for access to its application programming interface (API).
Global Economic Developments
Despite all this uncertainty, the good news is that rate increases are highly unlikely for the foreseeable future, meaning companies’ cost of capital probably won’t rise. Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our review trade like a stock market wizard readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space. Ed Mahaffy, president and senior portfolio manager at ClientFirst Wealth, Legacy & Estate Planning, has a more bullish outlook. Citing ongoing innovation in AI and falling interest rates, Mahaffy expects the S&P 500 will end 2025 up 14.5% to 19.6%.
In between earnings seasons, there is less data from companies to review and investors pay closer attention to macroeconomic indicators like inflation, 10-year bond yields, and what the Fed is doing. This makes for a much jumpier market that’s more likely to pull back. It’s also a time when the large asset managers rebalance their portfolios. They manage billions, so this can cause large movements to stocks and indexes as they shift to be overweight in one asset class (e.g. value stocks, energy) and underweight in other asset classes (e.g. growth stocks, technology).
Martin points to the U.S. tariff policy and the national deficit as hot-button issues for the next president. New tariffs could slow the U.S. economy, Martin explains, which in turn could cause fxcm broker inflation worries to linger into 2026 and beyond. The deficit, unchecked, could contribute to the continued devaluation of the U.S. dollar.
And while the so-called “front page of the internet” certainly seems to have potential as a data source, some users appear frustrated with the idea of their content being sold off to train AI tools. The company recently announced an AI licensing deal with Google that’s said to be worth $60 million per year. The social media industry is bracing for a potential shakeup if a bill that could see TikTok banned in the United States — which has already passed the House — progresses further. ChatGPT users will potentially discover content and communities, which could grow Reddit’s active user base.