Market Performance: March 30, 2024.

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average each capped off a strong first quarter on Thursday with another record close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 47 points, or 0.1%. The S&P 500 was up 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite was down 0.1%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 ended a strong quarter on a high note, notching record closing highs. The S&P 500 had its best first quarter since 2019, and marked its best first quarter performance since 2021.

Bond market trading ended early today. U.S. stock and bond markets will be closed Friday, but the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release February’s personal-consumption expenditures price index.

How to Invest in TIPS: Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities

A fixed-income investment designed to outpace inflation sounds appealing. That's the idea behind Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS), which are Treasury securities with principal and interest payments that are adjusted for inflation.

Like any other investment, TIPS have both pros and cons. On the positive side, says Lovison, "TIPS are fantastic if you're worried about rising costs eroding your investments. They provide peace of mind that your portfolio has a built-in shield against inflation."

However, he says, there's a tradeoff. "TIPS tend to underperform traditional Treasuries when inflation is low or declining," Lovison says. "Plus, just like all bonds, TIPS' price reacts to interest rate changes and tends to underperform equity over more extended periods. It's insurance, not a get-rich-quick scheme."

The best time to buy TIPS, he says, is when an investor expects inflation to increase, as this would increase the principal and interest payments over that period. "Since interest rates are high and the Fed is currently intent on lowering inflation, it's probably not the best time to invest in TIPS," he says. With inflation and Federal Reserve monetary policy top of mind for investors, though, TIPS have gotten a lot of attention lately.

There are some steps investors can take if they want to reduce portfolio risk using TIPS. For example, investors might consider holding bonds until maturity. That ensures that a bond investor will receive the full principal value adjusted for inflation, minimizing the loss of purchasing power.

"For maximum stability, consider building a TIPS ladder," says Lovison. "Instead of putting everything into a single issue, stagger maturities over time. This smooths out interest rate sensitivity and ensures you always have some TIPS coming due soon."

36-year-old launched a business to help her 'move out of my dad's house'—now it's worth $2 billion

Amber Venz Box launched RewardStyle in 2011 with a relatively modest goal: make enough money to move out of her father’s house. “I was in my early 20s, living at home, still eating my dad’s cereal,” Box, now 36, tells CNBC Make It. She did that, and more.

Box’s Dallas-based marketing company, now called LTK, helped pioneer the modern creator economy, connecting influencers and bloggers with retail brands’ advertising dollars. It was most recently valued at $2 billion, after a 2021 investment from Japanese investment holding company SoftBank.

The problem with that strategy, Box says, is that people could take free fashion advice from her blog without actually hiring her. Early fashion bloggers weren’t yet commonly using affiliate marketing technology, where websites drive traffic to a retailer’s online shop in exchange for a cut of those eventual sales.

But the concept of affiliate marketing was intriguing to Box, who saw it as a way to apply her personal shopping business model to her blog and turn it into a profitable full-time job. She asked her then-boyfriend, an electrical engineer and tech analyst named Baxter Box — today, they’re married with four kids — if he could help.

They hired a software engineer to help run the site and used liquidation sales to furnish their office space. “We found a defunct business in Fort Worth and drove over in Suburbans and trucks, and loaded up some chairs and some desks,” says Box. “For my birthday that year, I got a Keurig, so our sole engineer was happy that he had coffee.”

Today, LTK employs more than 800 people, and hundreds of thousands of online creators have used its platform to earn at least $2.7 billion in total payouts from retailers since 2011, according to the company. Over that time, the platform has helped 240 influencers — all women — become millionaires, Box says.

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