Sound Advice

How reliable are online reviews? Online reviews are only moderately reliable today—about two-thirds of reviews are genuine—but fake or manipulated feedback remains a widespread and growing problem across all major platforms. ​ Reliability and Prevalence of Fake Reviews Recent 2025 data shows that around 30% of online reviews are fake, with some analyses finding up to 47% of reviews on major websites to be suspicious or manipulated. Platforms like Amazon and Yelp are heavily affected, while Trustpilot and Google continue to battle massive fake review volumes. For instance, Google removed over 170 million reviews in 2023 that violated its authenticity policies, and Tripadvisor deleted about two million in the same year. Consumer Trust and Perception Despite growing awareness, many consumers still trust online reviews. Surveys in 2025 show that 64% of people find online reviews as trustworthy as personal recommendations, while 67% worry about their authenticity. This paradox ste...

How reliable are target prices for stocks? Target prices for stocks, as issued by financial analysts, generally show very limited reliability and should not be seen as precise predictions for future stock prices.   Studies reveal that roughly 30-54% of target prices are met or surpassed within the forecast period—with errors and bias common among these forecasts. Analysts can provide valuable information on prospective future earnings, but target prices tend to be based on valuation levels (price-earnings multiples) that are almost always much higher or lower than what might be considered normal levels.   Valuation levels are a function of several factors including prospective growth rates and consistency of past growth.   The higher the prospective growth rate, the higher the valuation. But there are several caveats.   One is that valuations will be reduced if the past had significant ups and downs from year to year.   The other is that consistency of past ...

How concerned should I be about personal identity theft? Personal identity theft remains a significant and growing concern in 2025, as the number of incidents continues to climb, affecting people of all ages and backgrounds.  Over 1.1 million cases of identity theft were reported to the FTC in 2024, a number that increased by nearly 10% compared to the previous year, while fraud losses rose to over $12.5 billion. Why It's a Major Concern Identity theft affects millions annually, with nearly 1 in 5 Americans reporting some form of incident in recent years, and the risk is not diminishing. The most common forms involve fraudulent credit card accounts, synthetic identity fraud (mixing real and fake information), and financial account takeovers.  Thieves often leverage data from breaches, phishing, and misuse of personal facts shared online. New techniques, especially the use of AI for generating deepfake identities or more convincing scam...

The stock market indexes seem to be dominated by a handful of tech stocks, but how is the average stock doing? As of late October/early November 2025, the S&P 500 index excluding the Magnificent Seven stocks (the "Other 493") has delivered a modest year-to-date return of approximately 5.3% to 5.4%. That’s barely more than one third of the performance of the full, market-capitalization-weighted S&P 500 index, which was up around 15.1% to 16% over the same period.  (The Magnificent Seven stocks are Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla.) Index Concentration and Market Breadth The S&P 500 Equal Weight Index underperformed the standard, cap-weighted S&P 500 by about 12% in 2024, reflecting the gap between the top performing giants and the rest of the market. Only sectors like utilities, industrials, real estate, and energy outperformed their cap-weighted peers, while tech and consumer-focused sectors were ...

Should I Worry That My Home Title Will Be Stolen? Among the onslaught of media scams is one intended to scare homeowners by suggesting that home title theft is  “all over the place.”  The reality is anything but, but the scammers would like you to begin panicking now.  In the  absence of a relatively rare set of facts, you can sleep comfortably. Home title theft is a real, but rare form of fraud by which someone illegally transfers your property’s title through  identity theft and forged documents, potentially resulting in significant financial and emotional consequences to  homeowners. What is Home Title Theft? Home title theft occurs when a criminal uses stolen personal information to forge documents and transfer  ownership of your property to themselves or to an accomplice.  Once the title is in the fraudster’s name,  that person may seek to borrow against your home’s equity, sell the property or create other financial  liabil...