Apr 17 April is Financial Capability Month, an initiative that started in 2004 as “Financial Literacy” and has evolved over the last 20 years. The rebrand reflects a trend of taking a more active approach to finances and a focus on having more control over decision-making as you move through your financial journey. As you [...]
Apr 06 March Recap and April Outlook Equity markets, using the S&P 500 index return as a proxy, at first glance appear to have shrugged off the mid-month drama of multiple domestic, regional bank failures and the forced sale of a massive Swiss bank. Attention was temporarily diverted from the economy’s star attractions, CPI and [...]
The monthly Fed/CPI/Employment headline-market movement industrial complex was rudely shouldered aside in the last week by a much bigger and faster-moving story. While the fallout from bank failures will take a while to unravel, and the impact on markets will likely be ongoing, the bigger picture wraps right back to the Federal Reserve. But first, [...]
Mar 07 February Recap and March Outlook If there’s an aphorism for February that you could embroider on a pillow, it would be, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” Markets appear to have finally started taking Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s warnings seriously and caught up to the rhetoric that the [...]
Feb 04 January Recap and February Outlook The market adage is “as January goes, so goes the year.” Is it true? According to an analysis by Fidelity, January returns are positive about 75% of the time the full year turns out positive. The rally was certainly a relief after last year’s dismal performance, and while [...]
Jan 22 The markets are starting to feel like Groundhog Day. Almost every month, it’s a cadence of employment numbers, CPI, Fed — market reacts. With inflation starting to trend down, even if only slightly, optimism has been making a comeback. That means moving our analogy to another charming rodent. It seems like the Fed [...]
Jan 01 The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 makes it easier to accumulate retirement savings at every stage of the financial journey. But the Act also took steps to potentially enhance retirement savings for those close to or in retirement. Required minimum distributions (RMDs) can be burdensome from both an income and a tax planning [...]
The combination of high inflation, the Federal Reserve’s aggressive program of rate increases, and economic and geopolitical uncertainty has meant volatile markets and the vanishing of traditional sources of portfolio diversification. Progress has been made, but as the new year unfolds, it will bring additional challenges, including a potential recession. How will that affect financial [...]
November Recap and December Outlook We’re on the home stretch of a year in which “unprecedented” doesn’t even begin to capture it. Nothing went according to plan, for anyone, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the Fed’s domestic attempts to combat inflation. Along the way, we saw spiking gas prices, tanking equity and bond markets, [...]
There's one question we hear most often from those nearing retirement, is some variation on this: “How do I get my money out of my retirement plan and into my checking account?” The question is not as simple as it appears – that's why people ask it. They’re not asking about the mechanics of a [...]
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