Month: June 2018

Shutterstock These exchange-traded funds own bonds with maturities averaging less than 3 years. If you want to limit your risk without erasing your yield, a portfolio of bonds maturing over the next three years is a way to do it. The cost winner here, iShares 1-3 Year Credit Bond (CSJ), has a duration of not
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Shutterstock These exchange-traded funds own municipal bonds, with coupons mostly exempt from federal taxation. Until a few years ago ETFs were a poor choice for investors seeking tax-exempt income. Their expense ratios ate up too large a chunk of your coupons. That changed in 2015, when cost-conscious Vanguard added a muni-bond offering to its ETF
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Shutterstock These exchange-traded funds own bonds with maturities averaging between 3 and 9 years. If you want a portfolio that mirrors the whole bond market—defined to exclude junk, foreign, tax-exempt and inflation-protected bonds—ETFs from four vendors will serve you well. The total-bond-market offerings from State Street, Schwab, BlackRock and Vanguard, in the third through sixth
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Shutterstock These exchange-traded funds own bonds from abroad, mostly those issued by governments. There is a case to be made for diversifying your bond portfolio globally, albeit not as strong a case as for diversifying a stock portfolio. Be prepared for meager returns. The largest fund in this category, Vanguard Total International (BNDX), tracks an
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Starbucks’ growth trends will not turnaround anytime soon after the company’s sales guidance reduction, according to Morgan Stanley. The firm lowered its rating to equal-weight from overweight for Starbucks shares, citing the deteriorating sales growth in China and the U.S. On Tuesday Starbucks lowered its global third-quarter same store sales growth forecast to 1 percent
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Interest rate volatility has dissuaded borrowers for months, but some returned to the mortgage market last week. Mortgage application volume increased 5.1 percent from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association‘s seasonally adjusted survey. The gain was driven by applications to refinance a home loan, which rose 6 percent for the week but
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U.K.-based cryptocurrency futures trading platform Crypto Facilities is launching a litecoin (LTC) derivative product. According to an announcement on Wednesday, the new U.S. dollar-denominated service will go live on Friday, June 22, and will allow investors to long or short futures contracts that have litecoin as the underlying collateral, with weekly, monthly and quarterly maturities. Timo
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Check out the companies making headlines after the bell: Walgreens Boots Alliance stock increased as much as 4.5 percent in extended hours trading, before giving up some of its gains. The pharmaceutical store chain is set to join the Dow Jones industrial average prior to trading on June 26, replacing long time Dow member General
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IBM partners with Mediaocean: IBM’s technology arm, IBM iX, and the advertising software company Mediaocean have partnered to create a blockchain solution and consortium for the advertising industry. IBM Partners with Mediaocean: Blockchain Solution The solution will be using the IBM blockchain and will “[aim] to provide transparency and build trust and accountability in the advertising
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Blockchain startup Circle has released new details about how it will select cryptocurrencies for its trading and investment platforms. On Tuesday, the firm published its Asset Framework, providing a rough outline of what aspects are evaluated when assets are added to the Poloniex cryptocurrency exchange, as well as its Circle Invest and Circle Trade product lines. These
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Wall Street. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg. SoftBank continues to make waves by underwriting the valuations of a growing number of turbocharged “unicorns” carrying private values north of $10 billion. It recently bought 15% of Uber at a $48 billion valuation. In partnership with GM, it paid $2.25 billion for a 19.6% stake in Cruise Automation. Masayoshi Son’s conglomerate
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