Things To Do In SW Florida

By DAMIAN J. TROISE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks slumped in morning trading on Wall Street Tuesday after President Donald Trump threatened to hit eight NATO members with new tariffs as tensions escalate over his attempts to assert American control over Greenland.

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The S&P 500 fell 1.2%, pulling back further from the record it set early last week. It was the first time U.S. markets could react to the escalation from Trump, as they were closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 536 points, or 1.1%, as of 10:56 a.m. Eastern. The Nasdaq composite slumped 1.5%. read more

Buzz Aldrin, the second man and only one of 12 to ever walk on the moon, turns 96 today. He’s just one of four living moonwalkers and the oldest remaining astronaut still making trips around the sun.

Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. followed Neil Armstrong onto the lunar surfaces as part of the Apollo 11 landing in 1969 as a 39-year-old. He was born on Monday, Jan. 20, 1930, in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the only son and youngest of three children of Edwin Aldrin and wife Marion, whose maiden name was Moon.

According to History.com, his nickname Buzz was the shortened version of “Buzzer,” the result of a mispronunciation of “brother” by one of his older sisters. He changed that to be his legal first name in 1988.

While this past year has not been kind to Aldrin, who lost his wife last fall after a battle with cancer, he’s remained a cheerleader to NASA, which is primed to soon add to the list of humans who have traveled to the moon with the upcoming Artemis II mission.

After landing on July 20, 1969, Aldrin spent 93 minutes walking on the moon along with Armstrong, the first two of 12 men across six successful moon landing missions between 1969-1972. Armstrong died in 2012 while their command module pilot Michael Collins, who orbited the moon while they ventured to the surface, passed away in 2021. read more

The New York Stock Exchange is working on a digital platform that would enable investors to trade digital tokens around the clock.

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The platform would be separate from the NYSE itself, which operates only on weekdays, and allow for instant settlement of transactions, orders sized in dollar amounts and stablecoin-based funding, NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange said Monday.

Tokenization uses blockchain technology that powers cryptocurrencies to create digital tokens as stand-ins for things like stocks, bonds, real estate or even fractional ownership of a piece of art that can be traded like crypto by virtually anyone, anywhere at any time. Stablecoins, which are a type of cryptocurrency typically bought and sold for $1, have helped fuel the appetite to tokenize other financial assets. read more

By Christine Benz of Morningstar

If you’d like to do a thorough review of your portfolio and plan, here are the key steps to take. I recommend doing them over a series of sessions, not all at once.

Step 1: Gather your documentation

This could be your current investment statements, plus Social Security and pension. Pro tip: Set up a My Social Security account to get an overview of your benefits and earnings history.

Step 2: Ask and answer: How am I doing?

To find out if you’re on track to reach your financial goals, review your current portfolio balance, combined with your savings rate. Tally your contributions across all accounts. A decent baseline savings rate is 15%, but higher-income folks will want to aim for 20% or more.

Also factor in other goals you’d like to achieve, such as college funding or a home down payment. Are they realistic? Make sure you’re not giving short shrift to retirement.

If you’re retired or about to be, the key gauge of the viability of your total plan is your withdrawal rate—your planned portfolio withdrawals divided by your total portfolio balance. The 4% guideline is a good starting point, but aim for less if you can. read more

By JAMEY KEATEN

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Corporate chiefs and government leaders including U.S. President Donald Trump swarm into Davos, Switzerland, this week, joining an elite annual meeting that promotes dialogue and economic progress — even as a domineering tone from Washington has upended the global order and billionaires have reaped trillions in new wealth as the poor lag behind.

The World Economic Forum, the think tank whose four-day annual meeting opens Tuesday, has a stated motto of “improving the state of the world,” and this year’s theme is “A spirit of dialogue.” One question is whether Trump will speak with attendees — or at them.

Nearly 3,000 attendees from the interlinked worlds of business, advocacy and policy will tackle issues including the growing gap between rich and poor; AI’s impact on jobs; concerns about geo-economic conflict; tariffs that have rocked longstanding trade relationships; and an erosion of trust between communities and countries.

“It’s really going to be a discussion at a very important moment … geopolitics is changing,” said Mirek Dušek, a forum managing director in charge of programming. “Some people think we’re in a transition. Some people think we’ve already entered a new era. But I think it’s undeniable that you are seeing a more competitive, more contested landscape.” read more