Crystal McMahon

Crystal McMahon, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™
Great Life Investing

Markets and Investing

Whack-a-Mole Market

The Whack-a-Mole Market

The Whack-a-Mole Market May 1, 2023 The Current Market Grind As I had forecast when I wrote to our clients in early February, we gave back some of the quick gains we saw in January. And over the past few weeks, trading transitioned to almost a zero-sum game with stocks and bonds grinding up and …

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Thriller Movies graphic

Same Bubble, Different Script

Lately I feel like I’ve been living in a reality-TV show. The script reads like the housing bubble of the late 2000s when over-leveraged, highly speculative activity in real estate and the unwinding of massive debt collided with crashing home prices to create one of the biggest economic shocks the US had experienced since the …

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inflation

Inflation: Persistent or Transient?

Inflation seems to be everywhere. Prices for lumber, plastic, oil, and other commodities are rising due to supply chain bottlenecks and worker shortages. Just as Covid became more manageable, many businesses have begun passing those costs to their customers. With most of us feeling the sting of rising prices for gas and groceries over the …

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momentum

Momentum – Friend or Enemy?

You can’t time the market On Wall Street, a common saying is “you can’t time the market” and last week was a harsh reminder of that for those of us who own ViacomCBS (VIAC) stock. We saw firsthand how momentum can take our stock from rising more and more, to seeing our stock fall back …

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meme stocks

Bots Pumping Up Meme Stocks?

Game Stop meme stocks The GameStop (and other “meme” stocks) saga continues… Online security analysts have recently uncovered evidence that Bots (software that can impersonate hundreds or thousands of people online) were pumping up GameStop and some other buzzy stocks on popular social platforms. While this might partly explain why the prices of some out-of-favor …

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Trading mania

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Trading mania Gravity is a force of nature, and it’s also often a force in the markets.  I could see that the trading mania in red-hot Reddit wallstreetbets (WSB) stocks were peaking late last week when a couple of 30-somethings asked me if they should buy GameStop. At almost $400 per share. Yikes. My answer …

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