The financial news that actually matters
This category analyzes global financial systems, macroeconomic trends, geopolitical impacts, and large-scale economic shifts that influence global markets and investment behavior.
Michael Burry’s warning about a dot-com-style market phase came in early May, not this week. The investor compared the surge in leading technology shares with the final months before the 2000 peak and urged caution around stocks rising at a parabolic pace. For retirees, the dated call is more useful as a stress test than…
A valuation measure associated with Warren Buffett remains far above its long-run comfort zone, but no single current percentage is an official Berkshire Hathaway statistic. The gauge compares the market value of equities with the economy that ultimately supports corporate earnings. Its useful message for retirees is about exposure and expected returns, not a precise…
A century and a half of stock-market history offers a rare vantage point, and right now it is flashing a warning. A widely followed valuation measure known as the Shiller CAPE ratio has climbed to nearly 41, a level it has reached only once before in more than 150 years of records. For anyone whose…
The single number Warren Buffett once called “probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment” has climbed to a level never seen before. The so-called Buffett Indicator, which stacks the total value of the U.S. stock market against the size of the American economy, now sits near 236 percent. At…
An investor famous for betting against the housing market before the 2008 crash has turned a skeptical eye toward the enthusiasm surrounding artificial-intelligence stocks. His warning, that the current market resembles the last stretch of the late-1990s technology bubble, has circulated widely because of who is making it. For retirees whose portfolios have ridden the…
A market yardstick that Warren Buffett popularized decades ago is flashing one of the most extreme readings in its history, and commentators have revived a warning he attached to it long ago. For retirees whose savings sit largely in stocks, the number is worth understanding, not because it predicts the next move, but because it…
After years of watching prices climb faster than their Social Security checks, older Americans got a rare piece of good news in the latest inflation report. The government’s June reading showed the annual pace of price increases easing, led by a sharp drop at the gas pump. For retirees on fixed incomes, a slower rate…
Michael Burry, the investor who made a fortune betting against subprime mortgages before the 2008 collapse, has turned his skepticism toward the artificial-intelligence trade that has helped push the stock market to record highs. In a late-June disclosure, he revealed wagers against Nvidia, Tesla and several other names tied to the AI boom, and cautioned…
Ray Dalio told Bloomberg Television on June 3, 2026, that his firm’s proprietary bubble indicators are approaching the extremes last seen before the 1929 stock market crash and the Nasdaq collapse of April 2000. Bridgewater Associates’ aggregate bubble gauge sat at roughly the 77th percentile, and its price gauge registered near the 82nd percentile, both…
Warren Buffett’s warning that finding value is difficult “when everybody is preferring gambling” has taken on fresh weight as a widely tracked market gauge, built from Federal Reserve data on the total market value of corporate equities relative to GDP, hovers near levels last seen during the dot-com bubble. The ratio, sometimes called the Buffett…
Retirement Shield
Free retirement updates
Social Security and Medicare change every year, and nobody sends you a memo. The free Retirement Shield newsletter breaks down what changed and what to do.