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A new class of weight-loss drugs that help people lose weight without dieting or exercising is showing promise for investors. These pharmaceuticals, known as GLP-1s, enable obese and overweight individuals to lose 15% to 20% of their body weight. The success of these drugs could have implications beyond weight loss, potentially impacting snack makers, packaged-food firms, and medical device makers. The market for obesity drugs is projected to grow significantly, reaching $100 billion by 2030. The article highlights two leading companies in this space, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, as well as other potential competitors like Amgen, Viking Therapeutics, and Structure Therapeutics. [Extracted from the article]

POOLS OF STOCKS DIVERSIFY WITH FUNDS These ETFs offer investors an array of H2O-focused firms. The company rewarded investors earlier this year by boosting the quarterly dividend by 9%. Foreign holdings include U.K. utility Severn Trent and Paris-based wastewater-treatment firm Veolia Environmental Services. Advanced Drainage Systems is a pure-play water stock that gets most of its revenues (95%) from water-related activities, according to investment research firm Morningstar. [Extracted from the article]

Unlike last year, when 42 S&P 500 companies suspended dividends to preserve cash during the pandemic, just one stock halted payouts this year. The company hiked its dividend by 10% in early 2021, and over the past 12 months its shares have risen 33.1%, topping the S&P 500. A record profit rebound for U.S. companies powered by the reopening of the economy puts the S&P 500 index on track in 2021 for its 10th straight year of record dividend payouts. But the company's 13% dividend hike announced in September is the biggest of any of the Dividend 15 members in the past year. [Extracted from the article]

ARK FINTECH INNOVATION ETF (ARKF, $50, 0.75%) is actively managed and holds almost 40 stocks in large and midsize companies. Splunk, another top holding, is a software firm that monitors and analyzes machine data to help companies identify cyber threats and gain a business edge. GABELLI PET PARENTS FUND (PETZX, 0.90%) is a mutual fund that invests in companies that derive at least half of their sales or profits from the pet industry. ISHARES ROBOTICS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MULTISECTOR ETF (SYMBOL IRBO, $43, EXPENSE RATIO 0.47%) tracks an index of companies in developed and emerging markets that stand to gain from growth in robotics and AI technology. [Extracted from the article]

The S&P Composite 1500 ESG index, a broad measure of ESG-focused stocks covering U.S. companies of all sizes, returned 36.4% over the past year - barely a hair less than the 36.6% return of the S&P Composite 1500, its non-ESG cousin. INVESTING INVESTING This month we're introducing the Kiplinger ESG 20, the list of our favorite stocks and funds that excel at meeting environmental, social and corporate governance challenges. Some might seek to make a measurable impact on a specific sustainability challenge; others might focus on one ESG pillar or another, integrate ESG criteria into a broader investment strategy, or even actively engage with companies to improve their ESG profiles. FLEXSHARES STOXX GLOBAL ESG SELECT INDEX ETF This exchange-traded fund invests in large companies all over the world that score high on ESG measures. [Extracted from the article]

The fund delivers a tax-equivalent yield of 4.44% for an investor in the highest federal tax bracket of 37% (not including surcharges), or a 3.68% tax-equivalent yield for taxpayers in the 24% bracket. HIGH-YIELD BONDS Investors willing to take on more risk to earn fatter yields should consider high-yield bonds, issued by firms with less-than-stellar financials, says BlackRock's Fredericks. Yields have moved up so fast that conventional measures - such as 30-day SEC yields, which use yields over the past 30 days to extrapolate an annual yield and are commonly used to compare funds - are lagging real-time yields, fund managers say. [Extracted from the article]

But over the past year through the end of May, as inflation jumped from 4% to more than 8%, the wine index has shone, rising 19% while the S&P 500 declined 2%. That trailed the S&P 500 index's 71% and 215% price gains over the same time periods. INVESTING Now that the inflation genie is out of the bottle, there's growing affection for so-called passion investments. [Extracted from the article]

CLASSIC INFLATION PLAYS Fight higher inflation directly by buying Treasury inflation-protected securities. INVESTING PORTFOLIO INVESTORS FEAR INFLATION in the same way Superman dreads a pile of kryptonite. INDIRECT BENEFICIARIES Inflation can be insidious for bond investors, whose fixed interest payments increasingly lose purchasing power and whose bond prices often decline as interest rates rise in response to inflation. [Extracted from the article]

Kilbride: Most people think of dividend investing as equity-number-one income investing - that is to say, you get a predetermined amount in a dividend check every quarter. The ESG stocks we like aren't just nicer companies, they're better companies. DONALD KILBRIDE Manager, Vanguard Dividend Growth Known for delivering consistent returns and preserving wealth in down markets, Kilbride focuses on a portfolio of about 40 companies that regularly increase the size of their dividend payouts. INVESTING Like many investors, you might be managing your nest egg in do-it-yourself mode, despite never studying finance or economics like the Wall Street MBAs and PhDs who construct portfolios for a living. [Extracted from the article]

The company is "executing on all cylinders", says Ken Leon, analyst at research firm CFRA. Growth in revenue is slowing, but analysts still expect average annual increases of more than 25% in revenues and 28% in earnings over the next two years. REWARDS REWARDS ILLUSTRATION BY DELPHINE LEE BUY THE DIP DURING THE TECH-STOCK BREATHER Lately, amid ripping gains in the S&P 500 index, information technology shares have been on the sidelines. But supply issues should be resolved by late 2021, and Morningstar analyst Abhinav Davuluri believes the company will withstand regulatory investigations and continue collecting licensing revenue. [Extracted from the article]

Examples include beaten-down stocks with low share prices such as automaker Ford; momentumdriven stocks such as Tesla; stocks with a big following on Reddit such as GameStop and movie theater chain AMC Entertainment; and shares of companies that have filed for bankruptcy. In the worst-case scenarios, critics say, gamification can encourage impulsive and risky trading behavior, such as concentrating holdings in a few stocks rather than diversifying; trading too frequently as opposed to investing for the long haul; and blindly pushing prices up to lofty levels with no business rationale to do so. The same technology that got them hooked on video games such as Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto is now built into trading apps offered by Robinhood, Chinese-owned rival Webull and other upstarts that make stock trading feel a lot like playing a game on Xbox. Day traders plowed into the stock, driving it up 887.5%, to $5.53, in just nine trading sessions - despite the fact there was a chance the stock could go to zero. [Extracted from the article]

INVESTING THE STOCK MARKET'S YEAR-long boom has been accompanied by a familiar question on Wall Street, one that's as old as the 17th century and as fresh as this spring's tulips: Have stock prices been in a bubble destined to pop? VANGUARD S&P 500 VALUE INDEX (VOOV, $133) is an ETF that owns Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan. S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats are stocks that have increased their dividend payouts for 25 straight years. The S&P 500's top 10 stocks now account for 29% of the index's market value and trade at an average P/E of 33, compared with an average of 20 for the other stocks. [Extracted from the article]

"A shakeout is inevitable", says Chris PHOTO-ILLUSTRATIONS BY C.J. BURTON Marangi, co-chief investment officer of value investing at Gabelli Funds and comanager of its new Love Our Planet & People exchange-traded fund. Following two years of global automotive and EV sales declines, pressuring sales at Aptiv, research firm CFRA is expecting a post-pandemic pickup in auto sales overall of 9% this year. "GM is one stock that will survive the EV mania", say analysts at stock research firm Zacks, which rates it a strong buy. Biodiesel fuel reduces greenhouse emissions and fossil fuel use, and it is increasingly being adopted by trucking firms and governments to further their ESG goals. [Extracted from the article]

Stocks in the Russell 2000 small-company index rose 20% in 2020, topping the S&P 500, a benchmark of mostly large firms, for the first time since 2016. Two firms run the fund with slightly different approaches: Baillie Gifford, which manages 60% of the assets, will pay up for stocks with explosive growth; Schroders favors firms that are growing fast but are underappreciated. Shares in small foreign companies had a banner year, but funds that focused on fast- growing firms stood out. Firsthand Technology Opportunities manager Kevin Landis, who has run the fund since its 1999 launch, buys young tech firms with big growth potential, such as streaming-content providers, web-security players and cloud-computing- software firms. [Extracted from the article]

Jerome Dodson, founder of mutual fund firm Parnassus Investments, has long believed in the merits of investing in companies that do well by their employees. Among companies in the S&P Global 1200 stock index, Mastercard ranks in the top 20 in terms of human capital management, according to Sustainalytics, an ESG ratings firm. Those types of employee-friendly gestures are reasons why 89% of employees at Target say it's a great place to work, compared with 59% of employees at a typical U.S. company, according to a 2019 Great Place to Work survey. By the Numbers FABULOUS COMPANIES IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE These firms have good reputations among workers and investors. [Extracted from the article]

The stock yields a modest 0.50%, but Zoetis has increased its dividend every year since its initial public offering. The stock yields 2.8%, more than double the 1.3% yield of the S&P 500. '.31.8%27.2%MedtronicMDT1290.811.9635.414.3PepsiCoPEP1540.612.7916.612.3PfizerPFE450.733.4625.27.4Republic ServicesRSG1180.711.5636.519.0ZoetisZTS2020.650.5025.730.2S&P 500 INDEX1.001.37%34.5%18.0!. [Extracted from the article]

The S&P 500 has a history of dropping seven months before a recession starts, on average, and turning up four months before a recession ends, CFRA data show. FUNDAMENTALS IS THE ECONOMY REALLY IN RECESSION?. [Extracted from the article]

Unlucky investors on the wrong side of a market return sequence can protect their portfolios by reducing the size of their retirement account distributions, especially from stock holdings. The sequence of returns "can make a difference between having enough money to last throughout your life span or running out of money or cutting back on the lifestyle you planned for", says Amy Arnott, a portfolio strategist at Morningstar. FUNDAMENTALS AFTER SQUIRRELING AWAY money in a 401(k) or IRA for decades, the last thing you need is a stock market downturn at the start of your golden years. [Extracted from the article]

ESG Funds These funds might focus on an ESG category, seek a measurable impact on a specific challenge, integrate ESG criteria into a broader strategy or engage with firms to improve ESG practices. [Extracted from the article]