(Washington)

One of Biden’s most important campaign promises was that he would not raise taxes on the middle class…see the full story on our partner Magnifi’s site

(New York)

Wells Fargo’s head of real asset strategy John LaForge says gold could hit…see the full story on our partner Magnifi’s site

(Shanghai)

Chinese technology and financial regulation have been on the rise. And big tech companies such as…see the full story on our partner Magnifi’s site

(Washington)

It is not even close to approved yet, but the Biden infrastructure deal has been making serious waves. The implications of the deal are large and would send trillions of government dollars flowing into the private sector. With that in mind, here are four stocks that look like big winners from the package: Eaton Corporation (ETN), Jacobs Engineering Group (J), Herc Holdings (HRI), Mastec (MTZ). Three of these companies (other than HRI) are engineering/construction oriented, which makes sense. Herc Holdings is a rental company that leases vehicles (yes, the Hertz that went bankrupt last year).

FINSUM: Herc is interesting to us because they rent construction and earth-moving equipment. This injection of government dollars would flow through to them and provide a nice hedge against the headwind of the pandemic, which has slowed down retail car rental.

(New York)

Data from 2020 is in and it is clear: annuities are increasingly popular among advisors, and we mean that in the strictest sense of “advisors”. Annuities sales have not just grown with broker-dealers, but also with RIAs. For many years RIAs shunned annuities, but recently two major changes have made RIAs warm to them. Firstly, annuities compensation has become more aligned with RIA pay models, and secondly, with so many clients retiring in a period of high volatility, there is a greater need than ever before. According to David Lau, CEO of DPL Financial, “RIAs historically have used mostly investment-only variable annuities with the occasional single-premium immediate annuity mixed in, and that is because annuities until recently haven’t been built to fit into their business model. He continued “One of the things that’s misunderstood about annuities is that in a low-interest-rate environment, it’s something you may not want to consider … In today’s market with interest rates where they are, it is about 41% more expensive to fund retirement income using a bond portfolio than it is using an annuity.”

FINSUM: That last quote about the affordability of annuities is a really key point. Annuities can play an important role in a portfolio more cheaply than most instruments right now, and do so with less risk.