Market Wrap-Up for Oct.18 (WFC, PNC, JPM, AAPL, GOOG, HAS, more)

In a recent DailyFinance.com article, it was reported the top 20% of the American populace holds roughly 93% of the country's financial wealth, and the top 1% of the country holds approximately 43% of the money in the U.S. Meanwhile, the middle class (middle 20% of population) holds only 6% of the country's total assets.

It's time for the middle class to start getting money to work for them, instead of the other way around. Lots of things need to change, especially when it comes to consumption, spending, and especially money education. I am hoping readers out there can spread the word about Dividend.com and what we are trying to push for individual investors to get started generating new income and put themselves in a position to have a much, much richer retirement. Forget about getting mad with Wall Street. It's time to generate some wealth for yourself, and it doesn't take a fortune to get started.

Getting back to today's action, we saw a bounceback in the recently beaten-up financials, with Wells Fargo( WFC

) , PNC Financial( PNC ) , and JP Morgan( JPM ) all finishing higher. Hasbro( HAS ) had a solid day following the company's Q results. Much of the focus will be on earnings in the near term, with numerous reports due out the next three weeks. Many are focusing on Apple ( AAPL ), which is reporting after the bell today, as the momentum crowd is hoping for the shares to replicate the spike Google ( GOOG ) had on Friday. I just want to caution investors that the action in momentum names can turn quickly. Don't lose sight of the terrific year it has been with scores of our Dividend.com recommended names. Don't blindly gamble away your returns unless you are willing to become a trader and abandon what has been working well.

I have seen the ups and downs of being a trader. The traders' cemetery is littered with brokerage accounts that get torched following the hot action, and the "never-wrong" stock pundits. Slow and steady wins the long-term race. Now, there's nothing wrong with rolling the dice if you are limiting the action to a very small part of your portfolio if you need to participate, but still, I would prefer someone to have some traits (discipline, focus, ability to accept small losses) that can avoid even losing a small amount of capital.

As always, check out our industry-leading Best Dividend Stocks List for the top dividend names to put money into right now. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you tomorrow!

Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the Best Dividend Stocks , as well as a detailed explanation of our ratings system here .

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.