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Good morning. It's Thursday, Jan. 18, and we're covering how salary impacts your happiness, Mark Cuban’s success, navigating the real estate’s rough waters, and much more.

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Stock Market Update

Market Performance: January 18, 2024.

US stocks stumbled on Tuesday, with investors still focused on the path of interest rates after a lackluster start to earnings season that kicked off with big bank results.

Boeing (BA) dragged on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI), which ended the session down 230 points, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) shed 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (^IXIC) ended slightly lower despite flipping into green territory several times during trading as chipmakers Nvidia (NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) rose.

Goldman Sachs stock (GS) ended fractionally higher after the bank reported a fourth quarter earnings jump of 51% year over year. Goldman Sachs said its full-year net income of $8.52 billion for 2023 was down 24% as dealmaking slowed across the industry.

Financial Maverick Insights

How your salary impacts your happiness


Whether you're at the top or bottom of the income ladder, people say more money makes you happier; however, there might be a catch. Money can buy happiness, but research shows it doesn't last.

Let's connect the dots.

Over the last few years, workers have been making more money. According to the Federal Reserve, wage growth hit a peak of 6.7% in the summer of 2022. But moving up may not come with happiness.

Some studies have shown that those who make more are indeed happier, but financial experts say that happiness is short-lived. The expiration date on the thrill of a raise only lasts about three months. So it may not be the money making you happy. The switch from negative financial thoughts to positive ones have a bigger impact, research shows.

Experts say you can prolong that happiness by trying to save that extra income instead of spending it upfront.

Mark Cuban: 'Success isn’t necessarily how much money you have'—here's how he defines it

Mark Cuban says his net worth isn’t what makes him successful — it’s his ability to to stay focused on doing fulfilling work every day.

“Success isn’t necessarily how much money you have,” Cuban, 65, recently told LinkedIn’s “The Path” podcast. “Success is just setting a goal and being able to wake up every morning feeling really good about what you’ve accomplished.”

Cuban, a serial entrepreneur and star of ABC’s “Shark Tank,” has a net worth of $5.1 billion, according to Forbes. His first taste of wealth came at age 32, when he sold his first business — a software company called MicroSolutions — to CompuServe for $6 million.

It might be easier to downplay the importance of money when you have a lot of it, but Cuban has repeatedly doubled down on the idea that he’d be just as happy without his financial assets. He’d “for sure” be happy with 1% of his net worth if he had his “same family and everything,” he told CBS’s “Sunday Morning” in January.

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.