The flattening of the yield curve during the past year has made it challenging to increase net interest income.

There is this simplistic notion around that because the yield curve is inverted, therefore, economic growth is going to slow down, but ... no consideration is given as to why the economy would slow down.

The yield curve is a really powerful indicator. It always has been. The shape of the curve still matters.

Older adults have the interest and the disposable income, so the industry can't afford to take them for granted. To spur greater sales among this audience, it's important to make them aware of available music that might interest them, so they shop for music more often.

Once you hit that income level, you can't take as much of a write-off on your mortgage interest, your taxes or your charitable contributions. It used to be that if your adjusted gross income was more than $126,000, we'd tell you to buy a bigger house for the write-off, but not anymore.

That difference of roughly 1.5 percentage points is enough to generate $150 in interest income that you'd otherwise leave on the table with a $10,000 investment.