What we have is normal and ABNORMAL. We have had both for awhile. Let’s review. Bond yields are back to normal levels after many years of far below normal rates that began in 2009. What started out as an enormous financial experiment in new Federal Reserve...
Has 2023 been a good year for stocks? How can you tell? Well, let’s set 10% as a threshold since that is the long-term average return for stocks. Let’s annualize the returns so far, 10 days from having the first nine months on record and see how we fare. What shall we...
For decades, professional money managers have used benchmarks for measuring performance. For stocks, the standard index has been the Standard & Poors 500 Index (S&P 500). However, this index has become so extremely concentrated that it is no longer...
Recently I sent out a client newsletter which pulled prior posts from my new website and which ended up including my market forecast for 2023 made in November 2022. That was a surprise to me, but it provided an opportunity to see how I did in forecasting the market...
The #1 reason why many retirement plan participants do not contribute as much as they need to have a comfortable retirement is DEBT. According to a 2023 study cited by Nerd Wallet, here’s the breakdown of what U.S. households owed in total and the average amount per...
If you have access to the Wall St. Journal, IMO the best newspaper there is, they have a terrific inflation tracker that breaks down price increases to a very detailed level. You can create your own basket of items you use most to see your personal inflation rate....
