When thinking about portfolio diversification, investor minds often focus on how much in bonds to own against their stock allocations. But as we saw most recently in 2022, limiting our diversification thinking exclusively to these two asset classes can have its limits. The good news is that capital markets offer a variety of highly liquid asset classes that are widely …
Hard to believe the first quarter of 2024 is drawing to a close. As we pass the 3/4 pole in our 8 furlong race through the calendar year, it is worthwhile to assess the key market events that are now behind us and what lies ahead in the horse race to the year-end finish line. Starting gates. A key market …
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in conjunction with a bipartisan group of state attorneys general announced an antitrust lawsuit against technology giant Apple. The filing claims that Apple engaged in anticompetitive behavior through its control of the iPhone, resulting in harm to businesses and consumers. This suit is the latest in a series of recent bipartisan antitrust …
In today’s world, people tend to move between employers much more often than they did years ago. One reason is that Pension’s are much less common and have largely been replaced with Defined Contribution (401k, 403b etc.) retirement plans. These plans are an important tool in retirement and they are also quite portable. This post will explain how this works. …
The middle of March was certainly a bad time of year for Julius Caesar, but what about capital markets? After all, it was almost exactly one year ago when investors were looking directly into the abyss of another potential financial crisis with the sudden unraveling of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and global banking giant Credit Suisse. Where do we …
I am going to take a minute today to share some thoughts on recessions. As mentioned previously, recessions are a normal part of economic cycles. We can confidently predict that they will happen, but we cannot confidently predict when they will happen. There are many different economic indictors that economists and investment professionals examine on a regular basis to try …
Last year as we entered 2023, most economists believed that the US economy was likely to enter into a recession at some point during the year. They had many reasons to believe this. In addition to the Fed rapidly raising interest rates — inflation was high, the yield curve was inverted (historically a strong sign of impending recession), the stock …
“Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality a thing nor its worth escape thee.” – Marcus Aurelius The gains in the U.S. stock market keep on coming. This includes the headline benchmark S&P 500, which is now up over +7% year to date with seemingly any and all dips (Tuesday this week) almost immediately being bought (Wednesday this week). …
Social Security is a controversial topic but worth spending a minute discussing today because it is an important piece of the retirement puzzle for most people. There are constantly headlines in the news about Social Security, how it works, ought to work and whether or not it will even be solvent in the future. The purpose of this post is …
The U.S. stock market is flying once again this year. After posting an impressive +24% advance in 2023, a year when many prognosticators thought that the market would descend further into bear territory instead of skyrocketing, the S&P 500 Index is already up nearly +7% in 2024 so far. But a troubling characteristic continues to linger for the U.S. stock …
