Stock market peak? ‘Easy money’ has been made but room for more gains, strategists say - MarketWatch

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MARKETWATCH FRONT PAGE

The “easy money” stage of the U.S. stock market rally is likely over, but there's still room for gains as economic growth steams ahead in 2021, bullish investors say. See full story.

Big tech’s trillion-dollar pandemic year may be just the beginning

This week concludes the first quarter earnings reports of the five biggest giants in tech, illustrating how much bigger Big Tech actually grew since the pandemic began a year ago, and their results are mind-numbing. See full story.

If you think inflation poses a long-term threat, you might want to make these portfolio moves now

Shift bond exposure, add gold and other commodities, and look for dividend increases in the stock market. See full story.

Berkshire Hathaway returns to quarterly profit on insurance and stock-market gains

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway swung to a quarterly profit on stock-market gains and better results from its insurance business. See full story.

Avoiding Biden’s proposed capital-gains tax hikes won’t be so easy—or will it?

Many taxpayers could avoid the tax by timing the realization of capital gains, but the elimination of the stepped-up basis loophole could mean the government would collect a lot of revenue. See full story.

MARKETWATCH PERSONAL FINANCE

'Just when you think we've hit rock bottom when it comes to the complete mismanagement of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, you see reports like this.' See full story.

The Link Lonk


May 02, 2021 at 04:00AM
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-market-peak-easy-money-has-been-made-but-room-for-more-gains-strategists-say-2021-05-01-1710305

Stock market peak? ‘Easy money’ has been made but room for more gains, strategists say - MarketWatch

https://news.google.com/search?q=easy&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

Portland Timbers gift FC Dallas easy win, prioritize CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal vs. Club America - OregonLive

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If fans wondered whether the Timbers would punt Saturday’s MLS game against FC Dallas, they didn’t need to wait long for the answer.

If a starting lineup devoid of several available stars hadn’t already made it clear beforehand, then FC Dallas’ opening goal within two minutes of the opening whistle sure did.

In the end, the Timbers lost 4-1 in Dallas but it wasn’t exactly a shock. With a CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal set for Wednesday against Club América, Saturday’s MLS match just didn’t seem nearly as important. Coach Giovanni Savarese opted to rest his key players, including Diego Chara and Diego Valeri.

“We have a limited roster right now, we have a lot of injuries, and our main focus is Club América,” Savarese said. “We want to go through and fight to make sure we can compete in the CCL, and with the amount of consecutive matches we have, we have to make some decisions.”

Savarese’s rotation included one surprise: Hunter Sulte, a local homegrown goalkeeper, made his MLS debut and started ahead of Jeff Attinella. Sulte turned 19 last week, making him the second-youngest goalkeeper to ever start in MLS.

FC Dallas took advantage within the first 90 seconds Saturday. Racing upfield, Freddy Vargas and Ryan Hollingshead sliced through the Timbers’ defense with a one-touch give-and-go before Hollingshead knocked the ball into the path of Andrés Ricaurte, who finished with a one-time strike.

In the 14th minute, Dallas capitalized again. Dallas goalkeeper Phelipe Megiolaro punted the ball up the field as Jáder Obrian chased. Obrian let the ball bounce three times in front of him until he chipped Sulte off a half-volley.

FC Dallas eventually went on to score two more, including one from 18-year-old homegrown Dante Sealy, but the match felt decided after that second goal.

“I take full responsibility of everything we did today because it’s not the fault of the players,” Savarese said. “It’s on me having to make these rotations, having to pick the match against Club América.”

The Timbers will face the powerhouse Liga MX team Wednesday in the second leg of the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals, a chance to extend Portland’s best-ever campaign in the competition. The Timbers’ two previous Champions League appearances ended in the group stage under a different format.

Last week, the Timbers earned an important 1-1 draw at Providence Park in the first leg against Club América. That sets up a scenario where Portland will either need to win at the storied Estadio Azteca or earn a draw with multiple goals. Fans will not attend the game in Mexico, setting a favorable environment for the Timbers compared to non-pandemic times.

The aggregate score of both home-and-away legs determines the winner, but in the case of a tie, the team with more away goals advances. If the away goals are equal, a penalty kick shootout after the second leg will determine the winner.

It’s easy to see why Savarese and the Timbers would prioritize the CONCACAF Champions League: while the tournament’s winner gets a chunk of a prize pool — last year’s champion netted $500,000 — the bigger reward is a spot in the FIFA Club World Cup. Prestige aside, simply qualifying for the Club World Cup is worth a prize of $2.5 million.

Despite prioritizing the upcoming Club América match, Savarese was still visibly upset with Saturday’s lopsided loss in Dallas. When asked for his post-game opening statement, which has become customary at remote press conferences where reporters can’t as freely ask questions, Savarese declined and said he wanted to go straight to questions.

“I feel out of the four goals, we kind of gave away three of those goals in an easy way and we could’ve been better,” Savarese later said. “Ultimately, with the limited roster that we have, I had to make decisions so it is my responsibility.”

In all, Savarese made seven changes Saturday from the starting lineup that faced Club América three days earlier, but reinforcements later helped the match look closer on paper than it felt.

Eryk Williamson, Dairon Asprilla and Valeri all came on at halftime, and Williamson pulled a goal back in the 62nd minute. With the ball at his feet, Williamson drove into the box and dribbled through traffic. He dished it to Valeri, who tapped it back, and Williamson finished with a well-placed shot inside the far post.

“I think we had a lot of focus on this game,” Williamson said when asked how he approached the game knowing Club América loomed around the corner. “They (Dallas) kind of surprised us with the way they came out and they switched things up.”

Perhaps the best Timbers news out of Saturday’s loss was the return of Jeremy Ebobisse, who made his 2021 debut after recovering from a hamstring injury. Ebobisse, who has been one of the Timbers’ most reliable goal-scorers, came on as a substitute in the 75th minute.

Saturday also marked the season debut of midfielder Renzo Zambrano, as well as midfielder Andy Polo, who has been out for weeks dealing with a green card issue. Center back Zac McGraw made his MLS debut.

The Timbers were still without Sebastian Blanco, who Savarese has said is close to a return after tearing his ACL in September, but has yet to dress for a game.

Cristhian Paredes had to be stretchered off the field last week against Club América in what appeared to be a serious injury, but Savarese said Friday it was a thigh injury that should keep him out for six to eight weeks.

Injuries aside, it’s still early in the MLS season to manage simultaneously playing in a high-stakes tournament, and the players who had to be rotated in Saturday aren’t yet 90-minutes fit, Savarese said.

“We thought about everything and, at the end, some players like McGraw and Pablo (Bonilla) were cramping — they haven’t played 90 minutes,” Savarese said. “(Blake) Bodily is getting there.”

Savarese added: “Polo gave me more (minutes) than what he could give because he’s right now getting back into form. We hoped for 45 and he was able to do it, thank god.”

Four days after Wednesday’s match in Mexico, the Timbers return home to host the Seattle Sounders at Providence Park on May 9.

-- Caitlin Murray for The Oregonian/OregonLive

Twitter: @caitlinmurr

The Link Lonk


May 02, 2021 at 09:16AM
https://www.oregonlive.com/timbers/2021/05/portland-timbers-gift-fc-dallas-easy-win-prioritize-concacaf-champions-league-quarterfinal-vs-club-america-instead.html

Portland Timbers gift FC Dallas easy win, prioritize CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal vs. Club America - OregonLive

https://news.google.com/search?q=easy&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

Buffett to new investors: 'It's not as easy as it sounds' - Yahoo Finance

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The New York Times

Want to Move to Our Town? Here's $10,000 and a Free Bike.

Jennifer Hill Booker has spent much of her professional life on the road. Booker, 45, a chef and entrepreneur, is the author of two cookbooks, and her travels on the lecture circuit have taken her around the country — but always back to Atlanta, where she lived with her two children. Then, last year, with her daughters off at college, she realized there was nothing keeping her there. “I am an empty nester looking for that next stage in my life,” she said. Last winter, as the pandemic kept most Americans confined to their homes and flattened local economies, she learned that the Northwest Arkansas Council had launched a program offering select remote workers $10,000 and a free bicycle (the region has 322 miles of biking trails) if they relocated there within six months. Booker had been to the area a few times and found the budding restaurant scene exciting, so she decided to give it a shot. “The $10,000 would give me an opportunity to put down a down payment on a small little bachelorette pad,” she said. “I also like that the program introduces you to other transplants, plus people who are already residents of northwest Arkansas. They can tell me where to shop, where to eat, where to worship.” Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Nearly 30,000 people applied for the Life Works Here initiative, said Nelson Peacock, president and chief executive of the Northwest Arkansas Council, with slots for only a few dozen in the first round of selections. Booker was one of the winners and is preparing to move this summer to Springdale, a small city outside Fayetteville, home to the University of Arkansas and about 85,000 residents. She will have to stay for at least a year as part of the program, which is fine with her. “Seeing people who are so excited to welcome me into the community, it’s like, I want to go there,” she said. The Fayetteville region — including Bentonville, best known as the home of Walmart’s global headquarters — is one of several smaller metro areas and states across the country, from Georgia to Hawaii, trying to lure high-net-worth workers who can increasingly do their jobs remotely. The idea is that they will shop in local stores and pay real estate taxes, but they will not take jobs away from locals. For regional economic development organizations, it is an effort to build communities with high skill sets to attract startups and larger companies in the future. For the migrating workers, it is a chance to try out an up-and-coming place alongside other newcomers. Peacock said the program has been overwhelmed with interest. “We had 29,000 people apply for our first round, from every state and also multiple countries around the world,” he said, including James Beard-nominated chefs and Emmy Award-winning artists. “We never expected this response. The problem was figuring out how to choose.” The council, with philanthropic assistance from the Walton Family Foundation, currently has $1 million set aside for the program. “We’re looking at awarding multiple dozens of people,” Peacock said. “We aren’t sure exactly how far the money will stretch.” Although that money is intended to spur the local economy, some area residents argue that it is being spent in the wrong place, especially as Arkansas continues to live under a public health emergency order. “I could probably get a lot of my life together with $10,000,” said Justin Ratliff, 31, a Fayetteville resident who has been a vocal opponent of the initiative. “When they announced it, it was the thing everybody was talking about. It made a stir.” As these initiatives have picked up steam around the country, so have their detractors, who push back against the idea of giving much-needed financial assistance to prosperous out-of-towners. “The money can be rerouted to help people who are struggling,” Ratliff said. “This program is spitting in the face of people who are already here and doing the best they can. They are graduating from university and getting degrees.” He said he understood that the goal was to attract prized talent to the region, but he rejected the notion that people should be paid to move there. “We have more and more people moving here without the incentive,” he said. “The town has expanded so much in the past few years just from people moving here.” (Indeed, the Northwest Arkansas Council estimates that 32 new people moved to the region every day in most of 2019 and into early 2020.) Peacock acknowledged the backlash and pointed to the program’s long-term goals. “There were a few local organizations that felt we should be investing in some of the businesses that were being harmed during the pandemic,” he said. “I think they made a fair point, and we have invested in a lot of our small businesses, but what we are trying to focus on here is: What does the future look like?” He added, “We don’t need any individuals to move here. We need the people working in the right types of industries.” In Georgia, the city of Savannah is aiming specifically for tech professionals. Last June, the Savannah Economic Development Authority announced that it would award $2,000 to selected tech workers who committed to living in the city, Georgia’s third-largest, for at least two years. Applicants had to have at least three years of work experience and move from a destination at least 60 miles from City Hall. “We don’t want to steal from our neighbors,” said Jen Bonnett, who oversees the program. City officials consider the Savannah Technology Workforce Incentive a chance to import residents who might one day build Savannah into a tech hub. “When COVID hit, we thought this was a unique opportunity to get the right people with skills here so when the world opens up again, we will have more skilled labor in our community,” Bonnett said. “If the next tech company wants to move here and hire 30 people, we want to have people already here who can do the job.” Those people are typically young and middle-tier economically — an age group the city felt it was missing. “It’s $2,000, which is not enough for recent graduates, but it’s also not for someone who wants to move a five-bedroom house from California to Savannah,” she said. Thus far, she said, 26 recipients and their families have moved to Savannah under the program, including Bridget Overson, 41, who was living in Concord, New Hampshire, and works in user engagement for Updater, a company that streamlines the moving process. As the pandemic stretched on, Overson realized she was hungry for more space and warmer weather. “I had been to Savannah a few times on family vacations, and it’s a beautiful city,” she said. “The weather is great, and the property values are amazing. It’s such an appealing environment: the parks, the trees, the nature, the history, the culture.” She is now living in a three-bedroom ranch with a big yard that costs less than her two-bedroom townhouse up north. The $2,000 did not make her decision — she probably would have moved anyway — but it felt like a present. “It cost me around $6,000 to move my things down here, so I was happy for the stipend for sure,” she said. “It just made it feel easier.” Other programs have more short-term goals. At the end of November, a group of business and community leaders in Hawaii launched Movers and Shakas, which is designed to encourage professionals to live in their state for at least 30 consecutive days. Recipients receive a free plane ticket as well as discounted long-term hotel rates. In exchange, they must commit to 15 hours of community service each month mentoring local businesses and nonprofits and participate in group activities where they learn about Hawaii’s culture and ecosystem. The initial goal was simple: to replenish revenue for a state that lost countless tourism dollars in 2020. Beyond that, Movers and Shakas hopes its participants will provide needed guidance and skills to local professionals who might not have regular access to tech conferences, networking events or graduate courses. “We talk a lot about brain drain, about people who go to the mainland for college and careers,” said Nicole Lim, the director of the program, who used to work for eBay out of San Francisco. “We hope to promote brain gain, where our locals can build professional collaborations.” Lim hopes some recipients will stay in Hawaii long-term and help diversify the economy. But those who leave can serve as ambassadors for the state. “We want to create a sense of shared stewardship for Hawaii’s culture,” she said. As in Arkansas, the local community is not entirely on board with the initiative, especially during the pandemic. “Certainly we are getting backlash, and it’s something we take superseriously,” Lim said. “Here in Hawaii, it’s a small community, and we care about our elders.” She said the program is following the state’s travel guidelines, including a 10-day quarantine or a pretravel testing regime. Lim said nearly 90,000 applications poured in for the Movers and Shakas program, which currently has 50 slots. One of them went to Krist Wong-Yamamoto, 51, an Oahu native who moved to the mainland to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. She has lived in the Salt Lake City area ever since and now works as a corporate communications manager for JetBlue. She had always wanted to return home one day; her parents still live there, and she missed the lifestyle. But she could not bring herself to take the needed steps. “I looked at this like a trial,” she said. “I needed to understand how this would work and get a feel for what the lifestyle will be if I move back.” She spent a month networking and socializing with fellow participants and business leaders to see if it could be a stimulating professional home for her. After completing the program, she said she was still interested in moving back home if her company would allow it. For some cities, appealing to outside talent with development programs is nothing new — but the volume of interested applicants is. Tulsa Remote, a program that offers people $10,000 to move to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for a year, started in fall 2018 but has seen a spike in demand during the pandemic. Of the nearly 800 people who have moved there as part of the program, 380 arrived last year. “We had 50,000 applicants in 2020,” said Ben Stewart, executive director of Tulsa Remote. “We are more selective than Harvard.” The program has no age or industry specifications; the main requirement is articulating why you want to call Tulsa home. While participants are required to stay for a year, the vast majority have remained after that deadline, Stewart said, adding that the program organizes regular events, including drive-in movies, cooking classes, historic tours and volunteer opportunities. Alana Mbanza, 35, applied for the program mostly because she was looking to move somewhere new with a built-in community. “I moved to Chicago 10 years ago from a small town, and I really struggled to break into social networks,” she said. “But literally two months into moving to Tulsa, I had enough friends to host a Super Bowl party.” She moved into a cute brick house in Tulsa and met some new friends on her first day in the city. “There was a street party, and I reached out to a few people on the Tulsa Remote Slack channel to see if anyone was going,” said Mbanza, a writer and educational leadership coach. “Those people are still my friends.” Locals are, in turn, making friends with the transplants. “Everyone I have met has been really freaking cool,” said Darku Jarmola, 30, a DJ and program manager at a dance club in Tulsa. “One of them has even become one of my best friends.” Still, he said he resented the notion that the city felt it had to import culture. “I have been throwing parties in Tulsa since 2008 and putting all my money into creating this culture of disco and house music,” he said. “I don’t understand this mentality that if you have a stamp of New York City or Los Angeles or a major city, your product is infinitely better than what we have here. It’s a little confusing.” For the people organizing these programs, the bottom line is the investment in talent growth. Peacock, of the Northwest Arkansas Council, reiterated that the pandemic, for all its devastation, has created a moment worth seizing for local economies — namely, expanding the workforce with remote workers who will not take jobs from locals. “When the pandemic hit, we had to make sure we had visibility for individuals who were leaving the Bay Area or New York City or other metro areas, who were looking to reset their lifestyles,” he said. “We wanted to take advantage of those migration patterns.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company

The Link Lonk


May 02, 2021 at 02:06AM
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/buffett-shares-lessons-for-new-retail-investors-190611968.html

Buffett to new investors: 'It's not as easy as it sounds' - Yahoo Finance

https://news.google.com/search?q=easy&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

3 Easy Decorating Tips to Use After Your Next Military Move - Military.com

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After the movers have left and everything is unpacked, you might be left wondering how to make your new space feel like a home. Military life is infamous for bringing with it odd-sized carpets, living rooms that don't quite fit your sofa and windows that use the only curtain size you don't have on hand.

Maria Reed, an Army spouse who runs the military makeover show Moving With the Military, joined us on the PCS with Military.com podcast to talk about interior decorating. She suggested three easy things every military family can do after a move to make their new housing their own. Here are her tips.

Listen now: No Sectionals or Crazy Curtain Sizes: How to Design Your Home for Any Move (With Maria Reed)

Don't be afraid to paint or use wallpaper. Changing the color on your walls can go a long way in sprucing up a room or making it feel more like your own. Even on-base housing will let you paint the walls, and it even could have options that don't require you to paint them back later.

"Yes, you can paint walls and military housing," Reed said. "Many military housing offices offer pre-approved colors. So take a look at that. ... Paint is the lowest-cost way of changing up your walls. And that way if you use a pre-approved color, you don't have to paint it back."

For a bolder look, try using peel and stick wallpaper, she said. Gone are the days of wallpaper requiring a major glue project and a long removal process. Instead, removable wallpaper works a lot like contact paper, sticking right to the wall and easily peeling off later.

"It's a little more costly, but it makes such beautiful bold statements and it's easy to take down: removable wallpaper," she said. "You don't want to do your whole house in removable wallpaper because it will get really expensive. ... We can do that with fun things like even adding chalkboard removable wallpaper so they can write on it. And then when you're getting ready to PCS to the next one, hey, you know what, just take it down, throw it in the trash, done, walk away."

Buy used or get it free. If you're moving in or out of an area and dealing with furniture problems, so is someone else. Reed said she leans on local thrift shops and Facebook marketplace to find cheap furniture. Even if it's not exactly what you want, a coat of paint on an old furniture piece can go a long way, she said.

"Find a piece that you can repurpose, reuse, repaint. And that can make such a big difference in your home," she said. "Especially if you're trying to add ... something with a proper color and not spend a lot of money. Finding a piece painted red, why not paint it aqua? Have fun with that. And that's something that people can do quickly."

Ugly floors? Hide them. Military housing is infamous for its ugly linoleum floors. Solution? Hide them with rugs.

"I am not a fan of the peel and stick linoleum, schoolhouse floors that are often in military housing," she said. "Large area rugs ... make such a difference in the room, because you're definitely not looking at the peel and stick floor."

Keep Up-to-Date for Your Next PCS

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The Link Lonk


May 01, 2021 at 08:45PM
https://www.military.com/pcs/3-easy-decorating-tips-use-after-your-next-military-move.html

3 Easy Decorating Tips to Use After Your Next Military Move - Military.com

https://news.google.com/search?q=easy&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

5 Easy Steps to Help You Delegate Like a Boss - Pet Age

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From the day you hire your very first employee, your role as a business owner or manager changes. You suddenly go from “doer” to “leader of those who do” and it’s critical that you make that transition by delegating. However, if you’re like many leaders, you may struggle to let go of things you’ve always done yourself because you’re convinced you can do it better than anybody else, right? After all, this business is your baby, your responsibility and no one else cares about it as much as you.

Unfortunately, when delegation doesn’t happen, too many leaders are left overwhelmed, too many employees are left under-empowered and too many businesses don’t reach their potential because critical tasks don’t get done. When I was asked to present several education sessions at Global Pet Expo in March, I knew delegation had to be one of my topics.  If you viewed my program, this article will be a reminder of what you learned. If you didn’t, then I wanted to be sure you could learn to “Delegate Like a Boss,” because I know how much delegation benefits not only business leaders, but also their staff and the business itself.

Step 1: Identify Tasks You Can Delegate

The first step to delegating effectively is knowing what you should and shouldn’t delegate. Ask yourself, “What short- and long-term tasks or projects can I take off my plate?”, “What things are others capable of doing?” and “What things should others become capable of doing?”

More often than not, leaders only delegate simple things or things that nobody wants to do. Delegation is not just a way to shorten your to-do list. It’s an opportunity for your staff to develop new skills that will not only make them more valuable to you, but more dedicated to your business and more empowered to do what’s needed to help the business succeed. When you answer the questions above, you might have a long list of things that could be delegated to the right person. However, keep in mind that there should always remain the responsibility of the business owner or manager, such as hiring, firing, morale issues, etc.

Step 2: Clearly Convey the Outcome You Seek

Business leaders often say, “I don’t delegate because the last time I did, the person didn’t do anything right and the outcome wasn’t at all what I wanted.” My question to them is always, “What did you tell them about the outcome you expected?” When they’re asked to explain the specific, detailed outcome, many people can’t. This is one of the biggest reasons delegation fails. If you can’t clearly explain the end-result you’re looking for, then how will a delegatee be able to achieve it? For example, what do you think would happen if you asked two different staff members to write up a step-by-step plan for hosting an adoption event? My guess is each staff member might have very different ideas for the event. One might have one cat rescue coming to your business for an evening event. The other might envision renting a venue and inviting 20 rescues to bring animals for the weekend. Although you shouldn’t dictate every step or detail of a task, it’s critical to paint a clear picture of the end result so employees can figure out how to bring that picture to life. A better explanation of the outcome you seek might be telling a delegatee to plan a four hour, Saturday adoption event in June to be held indoors at your facility with one local cat rescue.

Step 3: Choose the Right Person for the Task

Choosing the right delegatee doesn’t always mean choosing the most experienced person. However, delegating a task to a less-experienced person requires planning on your part. If you only delegate when you run out of time to do something yourself, you won’t have time to provide the proper training and guidance for someone taking on a new task. In addition to looking at those who could benefit from learning a new skill, it never hurts to see if there’s someone who delegate might actually want to take on the task. It’s easier to delegate to someone who actually wants to do the task than to someone you have to convince to do it.

It is important to realize that delegating doesn’t always mean giving someone a task and letting them “run with it.” There are degrees of delegation you can choose from. A first-degree delegation might be telling someone step-by-step how to do something and then letting them do it. A third-degree delegation might be sharing the outcome you seek and asking someone to research options and get back to you so you can make a decision. A fifth-degree delegation would be giving someone a task and letting them take it from there without your further involvement. Knowing the skill and experience of the employee is critical in determining the degree of delegation you give them.

Step 4: Ensure Delegatees Have Everything Needed to be Successful

Whether it’s training, a proper budget, enough time or feedback along the way that keeps them on track, you need to provide everything possible to give the delegatee a fighting chance of success. If you don’t, you’re setting the delegatee up for failure. Additionally, it’s critical to provide a safety net, especially when a giving someone a task for the first time. A safety net could be a mentor who has done the task before and is available for on-the-job-training and guidance. Pre-planned check-ins are also an important safety net. If someone is new at something, you don’t want to find out the day before the task deadline that they’ve gone off course. Having pre-planned check-ins, such as once a week or as they complete 25, 50 and 75 percent of a task will help ensure they’re progressing in the right direction and will give you peace of mind along the way.

Finally, a critical safety net for all delegation is making it safe for people to fail. This means accepting that mistakes will happen and reassuring delegatees that you expect mistakes to occur. It also means when mistakes occur, you respond calmly and focus on what the delegatee learned and what they’ll do to avoid the mistake in the future.

Step 5: Review the Results

At the end of any delegation, take the time to review the results from your perspective and from the delegatees. What went well and what could be improved next time? What challenges arose and how did the delegatee tackle them? Be sure to also get recommendations for the future, not only for how the task could be performed more effectively, but other ideas or innovations that arose during the project.

For tasks or projects that will be repeated, be sure to have the delegatee document processes and best practices. For example, if this is the first time you’ll host an adoption event with a rescue partner, documenting the steps taken, resources needed, budget, timeline and more, is critical to the success of future events.

The Link Lonk


May 01, 2021 at 06:08PM
https://www.petage.com/5-easy-steps-to-help-you-delegate-like-a-boss/

5 Easy Steps to Help You Delegate Like a Boss - Pet Age

https://news.google.com/search?q=easy&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

Make Dream Getaway #53 Yours with These 3 Easy Steps - WJON News

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Whether you've had it with this cool, wet spring, or you've reached the end of your rope staying home during the pandemic -- we have the cure for what ails you. Dream Getaway season is here!

Want to know how you could win Dream Getaway #53 on May 21st and depart on the trip of your dreams? Just follow these three easy steps.

Don't think you'd ever win something like this? Neither did the fifty-two other Central Minnesotans that have won a Dream Getaway of their own since 2015.

1. Listen to WJON weekdays through May 20th for your daily code words.
2. When you hear a code word, enter it right here.
3. Download the WJON app (App Store or Google Play), and opt in for 'Contest Alerts' to get a daily bonus code every afternoon. You can enter your codes on the app too.

It's that easy! Plus, we are doing this THREE TIMES EVERY DAY. These three easy steps could get you one big trip of a lifetime. A trip to Alaska? A tropical beach? The road-trip of a lifetime? If you win, it's all up to you.

IslandLeigh/ThinkStock

Insider Tip: Each code word is worth triple-entries on Thursdays.

The more code words you enter, the better chance you will have to getaway on your own dream vacation, so be sure to listen all day, every day.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER EACH CODE

Stay safe, stay healthy, look for your luggage -- and get ready to depart on your dream vacation. Your adventure awaits!

LOOK: Here are the 50 best beach towns in America

Every beach town has its share of pluses and minuses, which got us thinking about what makes a beach town the best one to live in. To find out, Stacker consulted data from WalletHub, released June 17, 2020, that compares U.S. beach towns. Ratings are based on six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. The cities ranged in population from 10,000 to 150,000, but they had to have at least one local beach listed on TripAdvisor. Read the full methodology here. From those rankings, we selected the top 50. Readers who live in California and Florida will be unsurprised to learn that many of towns featured here are in one of those two states.

Keep reading to see if your favorite beach town made the cut.

LOOK: Stunning vintage photos capture the beauty of America's national parks

Today these parks are located throughout the country in 25 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The land encompassing them was either purchased or donated, though much of it had been inhabited by native people for thousands of years before the founding of the United States. These areas are protected and revered as educational resources about the natural world, and as spaces for exploration.

Keep scrolling for 50 vintage photos that show the beauty of America's national parks.

The Link Lonk


May 01, 2021 at 01:01PM
https://wjon.com/make-dream-getaway-53-yours-with-these-3-easy-steps/

Make Dream Getaway #53 Yours with These 3 Easy Steps - WJON News

https://news.google.com/search?q=easy&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

Stock market peak? 'Easy money' has been made but room for more gains, strategists say - MarketWatch

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Another week of booming U.S. economic data and strong corporate earnings, including blowouts by some of the world’s largest technology companies, is in the books, yet stocks still managed only a mixed performance, feeding fears that market participants have already priced in a post-pandemic economic boom.

“The way the markets are behaving has to do with investor concerns over whether the easy money has been made,” Saira Malik, chief investment officer for Nuveen’s $420 billion global equity division, told MarketWatch in an interview.

Those concerns aren’t necessarily misplaced. “A lot of easy money has been made,” Malik said, but there is still scope for gains. Investors, however, will need to be more selective, focusing on companies and sectors more likely to top rising earnings expectations, she said.

Related: Stock market will struggle as bullish earnings expectations get out of hand: economist

The past week was hardly a disaster. The S&P 500 index SPX, -0.72% and Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.85% both traded in record territory, but no breakouts were to be had. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.54% ended the week down 0.5%, while the S&P 500 was virtually flat and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.4%.

Monthly performance was nothing to sneeze at, with the S&P 500 rising 5.2% in April for its strongest month since Novembe. The Nasdaq’s 5.4% rise for the month was the strongest since December. The Dow rose 2.7% in April.

The week ended with data that showed a 21.1% rise in personal income in March, fueled by fiscal stimulus checks, and accompanied by a 4.2% jump in personal spending. It followed an estimate of gross domestic product data that showed the U.S. economy grew at a rapid 6.4% annual pace in the first quarter.

Read: Americans have a few trillion in extra savings to keep the economy going strong

And the strong economic readings are almost certain to continue in the week ahead, with the Institute for Supply Management set to release its manufacturing index for April on Monday and its April services sector gauge on Wednesday. Friday will bring the May jobs report, with some economists seeing the potential for nonfarm payrolls to rise by more than 1 million.

Questions about whether this is “as good as it gets” are understandable, given that booming data, particularly for purchasing managers indexes, often herald monetary policy tightening by the Federal Reserve that lead to a slowdown, said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial, which has $1.721 trillion in assets under management.

But the Fed remains committed to allowing the economy to run hot, she noted.

Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday reiterated that it remains too early to even consider talking about pulling back on the central bank’s extraordinary monetary stimulus measures, arguing that signs of inflationary pressures remain “transitory.” And while some employers are complaining about labor shortages, the jobs market is still far from tight as the economy continues to recover from the pandemic, he said.

See: What’s next for Fed? A signal of ‘taper’ from Powell in late August at Jackson Hole

A Fed on hold bodes well for interest rate-sensitive stocks, particularly those tied to the consumer as the economy continues to reopen, Krosby told MarketWatch.

Travel and leisure stocks and some other consumer-oriented parts of the market “can still do extremely well,” she said. Add in President Joe Biden’s infrastructure spending proposals and there’s room for industrials as well as clean energy names, which have already done well, to benefit, Krosby said.

Malik is also upbeat on consumer-oriented companies, while industrials are set to benefit from continued economic growth and infrastructure spending. Financial firms should be poised to beat earnings expectations and should benefit from higher interest rates as inflation pressures push yields higher, she said.

Malik is also bullish on small-cap stocks. While the small-cap Russell 2000 RUT, -1.26% has outperformed the large-cap Russell 1000 RUT, -1.26% by more than 2 percentage points in the year to date, the small-cap index still looks undervalued, she said.

The 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio for the Russell 2000 stood at an 18-year low versus the Russell 1000 at the end of March, Malik noted, and record inflows into equity funds over the past five months have gone almost solely to large-cap stocks while small-caps have seen marginal outflows.

Over the past month, small-caps have underperformed thanks to the rising number of COVID-19 cases around the globe, especially in Asia, and questions over whether the economic reopening has been priced in, she said. But small-caps should be able to benefit from rising commodity prices and inflation.

And then there’s politics. Stocks wobbled on April 22 after a news report highlighted Biden’s plan to propose a near-doubling of the capital-gains tax rate on investors making more than $1 million a year to 39.4%. But those losses were soon erased.

Investors overall seem unfazed by Biden’s call for personal income tax hikes on the wealthy and a rise in the corporate tax rate. Stock market performance over Biden’s first 100 days in office, which ran through Thursday, was among the best of any presidency.

In part, that’s because market participants expect pushback by some Senate Democrats, where the party has a razor-thin majority, to water down the proposals, analysts said. Also, the economy-boosting spending proposals are also expected to provide a lift to the economy and earnings, particularly for companies that stand to benefit from infrastructure spending and other programs.

But tax hikes and the prospect of increased regulatory scrutiny will add to a more selective environment more favorable to stock- and sector-picking, analysts said.

Those factors and the fading of other “systemic tailwinds,” such as falling interest rates will contribute to a transition away from a backdrop that saw “everything being favorable from a Wall Street perspective” to an environment with more differentiation, said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial Network, in an interview.

The market, meanwhile, could be due for a pullback, analysts said.

Given the scope of gains, it wouldn’t be a shock to see investors get spooked by any near-term, negative surprises on the tax front or talk around when the Fed will begin to taper its bond purchases, Krosby said, but added that at this point “all pullbacks are healthy.”

The Link Lonk


May 01, 2021 at 07:00PM
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-market-peak-easy-money-has-been-made-but-room-for-more-gains-strategists-say-11619835288

Stock market peak? 'Easy money' has been made but room for more gains, strategists say - MarketWatch

https://news.google.com/search?q=easy&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en