Politics. We hate to talk about it. Even the best of friends or spouses can disagree vehemently over political ideology; especially during this campaign season, which seems to have taken divisive rhetoric to a new level. However, not addressing the 800 pound gorilla in the room can be just as bad for your finances as...
Money focused and heartless capitalism, can you think of a worse system to manage a public health emergency? If you were to just give a cursory glance at COVID-19 data, you would have a pretty solid case that the capitalistic and free-market oriented approach to managing a pandemic is not working. Looking at COVID-19 data here in the U.S., there has been a much greater spread of the virus and incidence of mortality in the last three months versus other more socialistic countries in Europe or Asia. As of the middle of August...
Sometimes ignorance is bliss. If you spent the first six months of the year in hibernation and are just waking up to review your investment statements, you would probably be inclined to yawn and conclude that you didn't miss much. The overall results for the markets through the midpoint are slightly negative but within shouting distance of the breakeven mark. However, most investors are breathing a sigh of relief to be back to these levels after a vicious and historically fast bear market where we saw the S&P 500 drop 34% in a five week period. This bear market was...
It seems the only appropriate way to address the current situation is to cancel our 8th annual Investor's Final Four. Readers have become accustomed to our 1st quarter synopsis that addresses the biggest investable themes and how they might play out for the remainder of the year. But this year, I think we can all agree there is a clear tournament "Winner," and we don't really need to seed the competitors or playout the matchups. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has taken over every aspect of our lives...
This past week the $2 Trillion CARES Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump on Friday. The bill's intention is to provide emergency relief to a faltering economy that has been badly hamstrung by the coronavirus quarantine. The bill will go down as one of the biggest Congressional expenditures of all-time...
The famous adage above from the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, delves into the difficult psychological battle that often confronts investors. This week certainly has been a test of that axiom, and many people are in a full-on panic. As the markets around the world continue to fall into "bear" market territory, what are we to do? When will the carnage end? Of course, no one has that kind of crystal ball, but we can take some control over the situation by adjusting our perspective. Instead of focusing on all the potential negatives, let's look at the opportunities...
Overnight we saw some of the wildest market action since the depths of the banking crisis in 2008. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has obviously been steering headlines the past few weeks, but over the weekend the oil market decided to take the wheel. After a lack in consensus at OPEC on production cuts, Saudi Arabia has decided to fire a shot over the bow at the competition and increase production. This caused complete chaos in an already weak space making oil futures collapse 30% over night...
Last week the stock market plummeted 15% giving us the worst week in the markets since the financial crisis a decade ago. The main cause attributed to this collapse was the potential economic fallout from the new Coronavirus that has put many parts of China into a short-term paralysis. In an attempt to understand the market selloff, in the snap of their fingers every financial planner in the United States became an expert on deadly communicable diseases....
As the champagne corks popped this New Years Day, it not only marked the end of 2019, but also the end of a decade. The S&P 500 cumulatively returned 185% over the last 10 years, and that's before accounting for dividends. The cherry on top of this investment sundae was the 33% total return we just experienced in 2019. As we sit in front of a stock market that looks delicious, will we get to continue enjoying our dessert, or are we going to watch our sundae melt? Before we dig into...
In a clear case of creating the acronym before the name, Congress recently passed the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act. In this rare show of bi-partisan support, the bill sailed through both houses and was signed into law on December 20, 2019. The new law aims...
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