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2024 was another great year in financial markets. Below we have a summary of 2024 returns: . (note the significance in excluding the Magnificent 7 stocks from the index) . It’s always nice to have positive performance and to take a moment to appreciate this. And for you bond investors, a silver lining is that […]

As we start a new year, many of us are in the midst of reflecting on the past year while envisioning what the new year has to bring. And I know your investment accounts are not immune to this reflection either. While I may be preaching to the choir here, I do like to take […]

2023 has been quite an interesting year so far. Markets have been up, which is a nice change after a down year. But this has all been during the steepest rate hikes we’ve ever had in US history and we aren’t out of the “recession worry” woods quite yet. While positive performance is always welcomed, […]

With 3 recent bank failures and more bank concerns on their heels, the consequences of raised interest rates are surfacing more and more.   The banks that failed (SVB, Signature and Silvergate) were relatively unique and in a riskier position than other banks, but without interest rate hikes, they may still be here today. We […]

It is worth noting that the stock market and the economy are two separate things. The stock market is forward looking and may rebound before the economy does. . We can’t predict short term changes and our environment is ever changing, so comments about expectations should always be taken with some grain of salt. But […]

2022 wasn’t all bad. We had the Winter Olympics, the US officially leaves the pandemic phase of Covid, NASA successfully completed the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). For financial markets however, it’s a bit harder to find a silver lining (although silver was positive for the year – I couldn’t resist). The tables below summarize […]

During election season, it’s only natural for us to focus on the election results and what they mean for future progress. We should be careful though not to let our emotions about election results overly influence our investment decisions. While policy certainly can impact company profits, there are also a lot of other influences that […]

Another .75% rate hike was announced by the Federal Reserve (on 9.21.22) and another .75% rate hike is still expected before year end. Beyond the rate raises, Jerome Powell’s words have remained very “hawkish” (or focused on limiting inflation and committed to raising interest rates), which continues to caution investors on what’s to come. Below […]

As we’re experiencing, stock markets are having a rough start to the year. And there haven’t been many places to hide as the tables below show. *Source – Y Charts Market Update Data – Year to Date Performance (1/1/2022-4/30/2022) Why are markets down? There are a number of reasons for this negative performance. Stock prices […]

With Earth Day upon us, we wanted to offer a few thoughts on fossil fuel exposure your investments may have and the impact of di-vesting from those fossil fuel investments. Do you own fossil fuel investments? If you haven’t consciously constructed your portfolio to be an eco-friendly portfolio, you likely have money invested into oil, […]