Each year at the beginning of August, "Back To School" season comes to the United States.  In sixteen states within our nation's borders, this brings with it a weekend of sales tax holidays.  This tax-free hiatus is intended to provide parents with a small break when buying back-to-school books, uniforms, and other supplies. During the August 2-4 weekend, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana, Iowa, New Mexico, Missouri, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia will host sales tax holidays.   Georgia and Texas will hold their holidays during the August 9-11 weekend, while Maryland's holiday runs all week long (from the 11th to the 17th).  Likewise, Connecticut's weekend extends from August 18 to August 24.

Tesla stock (TSLA) has done well over the past three months and beaten the overall market this past year. Yet analyst at Baird felt the stock could improve an additional 30% this year while keeping their current rating of a buy on the stock. This relates to a move from the current $275/share to $335.

The shareholder meeting tomorrow is one thing the company feels could propel the stock higher. CEO Elon Musk tends to make big announcements about new products and company direction at this meetings. Last time Musk announced that he would stay at the helm of the company for at least 4 more years and spoke about the direction of the company towards automatic driving.

There is always the possibility of the rise in interest rates, especially when in comes to bonds. Investing in bonds has becomes an ongoing trend. Sometimes the investment can be a safe one, others times it won't be. There is nothing you can do to stop it, but you can protect yourself from it. How? Below are some tips on how you can invest wisely. Below are also some tips on what to be aware of. This will ensure your investments are secure enough to handle the rising rates, especially during the summer months.

THE MARKET AND THE ECONOMY
Always keep your eyes peeled on the market. There are two places where the rates rise. One place is in the bonds. The other place is in the bonds with long maturities. Why? It's going to take a long time for the bond to be repaid. The coupons will do very little to help offset the problem.
Your best bet is to look for bonds with higher coupons and shorter periods. These bonds will work better with rising prices. The best type of bond you can get is a junk bond. They usually go for ten years or less. They can bounce back more when it comes to time-sensitive issues.

Floating rate bonds are also a good way to go. If a company is doing well, this is a good sign. A well-balanced economy is also a good sign. If both of these are in tact, this will offset any issues that might arise. Keep your eyes peeled for these indicators.

The large US retailer, Wal-Mart, missed its first quarter earnings with slower sales and currency issues. Analyst were looking for profit of $1.05 a share but the company was only able to report $1.03 a share. Sales were also light with both Wal-Mart and Sam’s Wholesale seeing a slowing a sales growth. International revenue struggled due to the strong US currency in comparison to the devaluation of almost every other currency. $14 billion in sales is to be lost this year from currency issues, that equates to 13 cents a year in profit.

AOL is being acquired by Verizon in the mobile providers bid to disrupt the media world. Verizon is purchasing the media company for $4.4 billion in cash in hopes of becoming a major media and content player, not on the television but on the mobile phone. AOL's last merger did not go so well when they acquired Time Warner in hopes of getting distribution for its content and ad network. This time they are being acquired but the goal is the same.

Verizon is seeing subscriptions fall and while some business services and premium options are keeping the company profitable, they are hoping to keep their customer intact by adding these new content options. AOLs most notable content site is the Huffington Post but the company also has a very successful mobile advertising network.

The trade deficit in March reached a 6 year high which makes many feel the economy contracted in the first quarter of the year. Yet the general feeling is that the economy rebounded in April with stronger service sector activity. The issues faced in the first quarter are not present in the second quarter, giving people a positive perspective on GDP.

The trade deficit moved higher by 43% to over $53 billion in March of 2015. The jump was 9 year high with the number itself being a 6 year high. West Coast ports were stalled with trade talks until just recently, creating the surge. US Stocks, Treasuries, and the Dollar all fell today.

Exxon Mobile Corp was the largest dividend payer in the S&P 500, paying out over $11.5 billion per year to stock holders. But with Apple increasing their dividend by 10% with their most recent earnings report, they will now be paying out over $12 billion yearly in dividends. This dividend raise was in addition to the companies large stock buyback program which is investing $140 billion in Apple stock.

The company has become a cash cow with the popularity of its phone and tablet products. Even with the large stock buyback and the huge dividend payouts, the company still has plenty of cash on hand to invest in research and development of new products.

Microsoft reported its 3rd quarter results tonight, beating analyst estimates with stronger sales in cloud services, tablets, and software. Windows sales were soft during the period. Revenue beat estimates at $21.7 million, an improvement of 6% when compared to the same quarter last year. Earnings beat by 10 cents, coming in at 61 cents a share.

Microsoft touted its cloud services as evidence that companies are moving away from server based technologies to its cloud products. Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, also mentioned the upcoming Build developers conference as something we should look forward to, to see more cloud products from the company.

The wind of change is blowing in the television and content delivery space. Netflix has done it again, increasing its share prices by nearly 14% to end at $65.28 at the close of trading. This was surely helped by the release of its first quarter report that showed steady progress in subscriber acquisition. Other news included not so stellar profit figures and the possibility of a stock split.

The company hosted a Q&A session after the report was made public. Its CEO Reed Hastings sounded triumphant as he emphasized the growth of Internet TV. He did not show concern about the moves of his competitors, saying instead that more players mean a greater attraction for the audience to try this new wave.

Millionaires have changed over the years and today you will find that 66% are female while 25% are non-white, this according to a new Fidelity study. The outlook found that there are 6 traits that make the millionaires (starting with only $250,000 in assets) standout from the crowd. To begin with they still have a lot of time before retirement, normally more than 25 years.