[excerpt
from
Yahoo Finance: What to watch next week: TGT, HD, M, HPQ, GDP and Greece]
Next week will be a busy week on Wall Street with a raft of big earnings
reports including Target (TGT), Macy’s (M), Home Depot (HD) and
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) to name just a few.
Investors will also have a lot of economic data and geopolitics to digest this coming week and in the weeks that follow.
The Commerce Department will release the latest reading on third quarter Gross Domestic Product. Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman thinks investors will be watching that report closely, as well as the situation in Greece.
Newman predicts Greece will finally cave in its standoff with its European underwriters over the terms of its debt deal. “I think next week is going to be the week that Greece blinks,” says Newman. He believes Greek officials will “finally say ‘OK, we have to go along with the bailout terms.’” And Newman believes that will lead to a pop in European stocks.
Yahoo Finance’s Aaron Task is looking to our nation’s capital and a couple of looming deadlines as the next potential trouble spots that could rankle financial markets. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security will run out at the end of February unless Congress can come to an agreement to extend funding.
Task believes this is just the first in a series of contentious debates...
[snip]
...The Treasury secretary can use a number of gimmicks to postpone the day of reckoning, and experts think such gimmicks can carry us through September or October. Then we’ll witness a serious confrontation of the sort we’ve seen before—a game of fiscal chicken between Congress and the White House.
If Blinder is right and the United States does breach the debt ceiling, Task believes that will set off “all kinds of fireworks in the financial markets.”
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The recent drop in oil prices has created a situation that is very complex for investors. Oil has become cheap again and the stocks tracking the oil and gas sector have tanked to the point that at least ...
Why Female Investors Outperform Men - Heather Long, CNNMoney
Females typically save 8.3% of their income, while men only save 7.9%, Fidelity found after looking at over 12 million retirement accounts and adjusting for certain pay disparities between men and women.
That may not sound like a big difference, but it adds up over time. Consider that the median household income in the U.S. is around $50,000. If you apply those savings rates to the median income, women save about $200 more a year.
So if their returns are about the same, women would end up with more. ..[snip]
After
tight trading, volatility set to return to stocks
By Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK (Reuters) - After a holiday-shortened trading week that pinned stocks in a tight trading range, equities are poised for a bout of renewed volatility as investors watch the economy and the Federal Reserve for signs of policy changes and economic strength.
Through Thursday's close, the S&P 500 was held to its narrowest trading week since Thanksgiving as investors dealt with uncertainty regarding a forward path for the economy and a deal for Greek debt. Late on Friday, the European Union agreed to a four-month extension for Greece, and a late rally pushed the S&P 500 above technical resistance level of 2,100 after several failed attempts earlier in the week.
The index was up modestly for the week, building on a 5-percent gain over the prior two weeks.
"The market has done quite well this week holding things together," said Frank Cappelleri, technical market analyst and trader at In
