Tesla Splits Stock

 To make the stock more accessible to investors, Tesla is enacting a 5:1 stock split. Given that the recent share price was about $1,400, the split should reduce the stock price to under $300. This follows a similar move by Apple, which announced a 4:1 split. See article here, WSJ.

Gold Prices Soar

Uncertainty caused by the coronavirus, combined with a declining dollar, have propelled gold prices higher. See article here, Fox Business.

Hedge Fund Fees

While hedge funds, and other alternative assets, offer many potential benefits, one of the key drawbacks is the high level of fees they charge. For more on this, check out this article, WSJ.

Fiscal Stimulus

April sales experienced the largest monthly drop on record (-16.4%). However, following the fiscal stimuli, May sales posted the largest monthly increase (17.7%). This result illustrates the positive (short-term) impact of stimulus, but there is much more debate surrounding the long-term implications of the increase in government debt necessary to support the stimulus. For more, see this article (Yahoo!).

Unemployment Statistics

With the recent COVID-19 pandemic and related fallout, unemployment has been a hot topic, and there is much debate about the accuracy of the numbers. This stems from defining the participation rate and other factors that are subject to change. Check out this article (Yahoo!) for some additional insight.

Expected vs. Unexpected News

Private payrolls were announced, showing that over 20 million people had lost their jobs. But, the market didn't react very much -- likely because this was an expected number. Check out this article at yahoo! entitled: Why Wednesday's historic jobs data was 'not really news'

Negative Oil Prices

In the wake of a drop-off in the demand for oil, prices went negative for the first time in history. What does this mean? Like any asset, the price of oil is driven by supply and demand. With high supplies and effectively no demand, suppliers are now having to pay users to take oil off their hands since they have too much and nowhere to store it. In fact, on April 20, some oil prices actually closed at -$37.63. So, if you have any place to put it, you could get paid to takes some oil. See article here, Forbes.