As we approach the final quarter of 2023, we want to address some year-end planning issues related to retirement plan distributions and upcoming open enrollment elections. There have been many changes to retirement planning, but most are minor or occur in later years. The SECURE Act 2.0 (“Secure 2.0” or the “Act”), signed in December 2022, was intended to enhance…
Post Pandemic Economy The 2023 second quarter earnings season wrapped up last week, with AI industry leader Nvidia posting significant sales growth to become the first chip manufacturer with a market value in excess of $1.0 trillion. Nvidia’s quarterly sales grew to $13.0 billion. Yes, this is a great company, but a market valuation of 20 times sales and…
Debt Limit Commentary The idea of the United States defaulting on its debt is (and was) a very low probability event. The effects would be both immediate and devastating to global financial markets. Nevertheless, loud voices advocate rejecting the Biden/McCarthy Agreement finalized on Sunday. Unfortunately, our system led us to this place. The U.S. is the only major developed country…
We always experience times in markets where buy or sell opinions are debated daily. Seldom do those possibilities diverge as much as we are seeing today. Economic pessimism seems rampant, driven by politics, global conflict, rising interest rates, and inflation. However, U.S. economic resilience has been remarkable despite substantial obstacles. We see some pockets of opportunity in markets and will…
While there has been significant market stress and negative news, the markets have held up reasonably well. We will have a more thorough review of equity investments next week after seeing some key earnings reports. In the meantime, we wanted to briefly update you and focus on what we see are significant opportunities in fixed-income markets (bonds). As measured by…
Yes, SVB’s (Silicon Valley Bank) failure at the end of last week is a big deal; but first things first—the immediate risk for your cash is not a concern. SVB’s failure got so dire that the Federal Reserve Bank voted to shut it down. This morning, the Federal Reserve Bank also took over Signature Bank; there may be more to…
Crazy Times? In January, growth stocks (most in the technology sector) continued rebounding from mid-October lows. While the rebound was impressive and seemed to break the price downtrend, the S&P technology sector had lost close to one-third of its value before bottoming. While some might breathe a sigh of relief, we think this is just a reprieve, and the stock…
TGIF takes on a new meaning as we close another lousy week in global markets in a bad month and bad year. There are precious few assets that have not lost money, and about the only asset class with positive returns for the year, energy, had a terrible week. We will take the opportunity over the next week to continue…
Historically, a 60/40 portfolio of stocks (60%) and bonds (40%) has, to many, been a standard bearer of asset allocation. So, it is striking to see headlines quoting a report from Bank of America Global Research showing this broad allocation is on track for its worst year since 1936, having lost 19.4% year-to-date. Of course, it is not pleasant to…
Before the Russian invasion in Ukraine dominated the headlines, we were worried about the following: Inflation increasing Growth slowing down Federal Reserve action on interest rates While Russian action may exacerbate inflation and result in some short-term drag on growth, the effect on our economy is likely to be somewhat limited. Of course, any escalation into greater Europe is…
