As war in the Middle East escalates, investors are confronted with the reality of a world that is becoming more dangerous. With markets reacting minute by minute to the news, it’s helpful to take a step back and consider events in a broader context, suggests Capital Group political economist, Talha Khan. “The death of Iran’s…
2025 has certainly experienced a significant amount of change with tariffs and trade, the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates, international stocks taking the baton from recent U.S. dominance, and most recently the U.S. government shut down amid disputes over spending priorities. Capital Group’s political economist and former senior advisor in the White House Office of…
We hope you enjoyed a nice long holiday weekend with family and friends! Our kids loved the parade, likely due to the load of candy they scored. I was especially amused by the largest bag of candy handed out by a new dental practice in the area. I guess that’s one way to increase future…
“Tariff is a word most of us first heard in high school history class. We remember something about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, the Great Depression and the dark side of protectionist trade policy,” according to Capital Group economist Robert Lind. “Fast forward to today and tariffs are once again taking center stage, serving…
2024 was a great year on a number of fronts, but was certainly a banner year for stocks as shown by the index returns below: Many would expect bonds to also perform well with the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates. However, the aggregate bond index only gained 1.3% last year. Yes, the Fed cut rates…
By Kurt Brown, CFA Posted: 10/9/2024 The 3rd quarter ended on a strong note for most asset classes with the S&P 500 up +5.9%, developed international stock up 6.5%, emerging markets up almost +9% and global bonds posting the best quarter in quite some time with a 7% bump. JPMorgan’s Hugh Gimber pointed that “the…
By Kurt Brown, CFA Posted: 08/08/2024 World markets have experienced quite the ride this past week. You’ve likely seen headlines such as “Worst One Day Return in Japan since 1987!” and the “DOW drops by over 1,000 points” to name a few. Yes, markets have taken a step back, but as of this writing, the…
Posted: 05/03/2024 Everyone says time flies, but I truly can’t believe May is here already! It seems like New Year’s was just a month ago, but our 7 and 4 year old kids will be out of school and ready for summer in a couple of weeks. We wish all of you the best this…
Posted: 3/12/2024 Artificial Intelligence Mania Stock markets around the world performed quite well in 2023 and so far in 2024, especially those involved in artificial intelligence. The “Magnificent 7” (Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia & Tesla) have a focus on AI and have driven the majority of the S&P 500 performance. These 7 stocks…
Sifting through the noise to find the things that really matter will always be difficult. It’s hard to know, especially in the moment, what’s important and what can be ignored. As we reflect on the stock market over the last few years and think about what may impact 2024, we don’t have a crystal ball…
Just two months ago, we wrote about the changing seasons and everchanging market dynamics. If we look back to September 1st, one could believe very little changed as the S&P 500 is priced almost exactly the same today. However, we’ve experienced significant change over the past two months. Large cap stocks, represented by the S&P…
Fall is a great time of the year as the kids go back to school, weather begins to cool, leaves start to change, football season begins and pumpkin spice lattes are added to menus. It’s also a reminder of the only constant: change. We’ve seen an incredible amount of change these past few years in…
By: Kurt Brown, CFA Far too often, the wealth management industry creates a maze of complexity for clients in an effort to justify high professional fees and push products. Unfortunately, market volatility can provide fuel for advisors to steer clients into complex and unnecessary products. Many of these result in much higher fees and lack…
The last few years have been a great reminder that predictions based on macroeconomic events can be very unreliable guides to the future. If someone with perfect foresight in January 2020 told you the following would happen over the next 3+ years, how would you react? Global economic shutdown Worst pandemic in 100 years Highest…
Beyond Your Finances, Market Commentary
Headlines today are dominated by Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) collapse and bank run today. We wanted to provide some initial context to this incredibly fluid situation with what we’ve learned so far before we left. What happened and why? SVB was a unique bank that had grown to the 16th largest in the country, but…
