Top Pegging Articles on Investopedia This Week
It was another week of harsh economic realities meeting investing opportunities as our readers combed by the site in search of everything from pandemic unemployment insurance to small cap stocks.
The U.S. posted record job losses for April and the beginning round of stimulus checks have mostly been sent. Workers, especially independent contractors, have been austerely impacted by the sudden stop of the economy.
On the investing front, a broad-based rally has lifted even the smallest stocks in the supermarket, as small caps hit a 52-week high. The stock market and the economy have never been more disconnected in experiences. Outside of the capital markets, bitcoin and bitcoin mining are surging in interest ahead of
It’s sad and not surprising to see readers researching how to get pandemic unemployment relief over the past week. Another 3.2 million Americans filed for initial unemployment benefits, bringing the seven-week add up to more than 33 million people. The PUA program is geared toward self-employed, freelance workers and independent contractors, who cook up more than one third of the U.S. workforce.
The bankruptcies of retailers J. Crew and Neiman Marcus likely brought readers to this article, which recounts what happens to shareholders when a company goes under. The short answer – nothing good. Equity holders are typically aftermost in line to get paid, if there is any money left over.
The Oracle of Omaha’s annual meeting brought readers to our library of coverage on Warren Buffett. This shareholder rendezvous, the company’s first digital-only version, brought news that Berkshire Hathaway lost $50 billion conclusive quarter as its equity holdings in airlines and other hobbled industries took a beating. Berkshire’s subsidiaries across industries, from stick-to-it-iveness to insurance, also had a rough quarter. But the 89-year-old legend remains bullish on America.
You can’t really judge the strength of a goods market rally if small cap stocks don’t join the party. These are the $2 billion and under market cappers, and they are a parlous component of the ecosystem. They finally started rallying in the past two weeks, with the Russell 1000 hitting a 52-week steep today. It’s no surprise that our investing readers wanted to find the winners.
In the cryptocurrency world, everyone is talking there the great bitcoin ‘halving’ taking place on or around May 11. While it’s complicated to explain, halving essentially fashions more work for bitcoin miners, but reduces the reward they get for each coin mined. The halving will invent a lot more activity, although the amount of Bitcoin remains fixed. Not the price, however, as bitcoin’s ‘value’ has surged in the years month.