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"The stock market is not the economy" is a common refrain. The thinking goes that while losses in the stock market may hurt Wall Street investors, Main Street is the real backbone of the economy. While that may be true, stocks are an important psychological lever and there is a threshold for losses, beyond which the pain in the market can spill over and hurt consumer spending. That's the thinking that underpins the concept of the "wealth effect," or the idea that rising and falling asset values have a material...

DMP/Getty, Tyler Le/BI Aging baby boomers could hold the key to a $1 trillion opportunity in the stock market, Mizuho says. Americans over the age of 75 are expected to make up 10% of the population by 2030, analysts said. Spending by the cohort, meanwhile, is expected to grow by over $1 trillion in the next five years. There's a $1 trillion opportunity brewing in the stock market. It's not artificial intelligence, but another kind of AI. The trend of "aging intelligence" was flagged this week by Mizuho's US team....

The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) briefly fell into correction territory in March. The index has since bounced back to a small degree but remains more than 8% below the record high it reached in February. However, an economic warning bell seen during just two periods in the last 20 years may signal more trouble on the horizon. As of March 18, data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta shows that U.S. gross domestic product is on pace to decline an annualized 1.8% in the first quarter of 2025. That...