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2020 Q4 Review and Outlook: A Very Good/Very Bad Year
Imagine two archivists sifting through old stock charts 1,000 years from now and saying to each other “2020 must have been a great year!” The U.S. stock market finished a very bad year on a very strong note, with the S&P 500 SPDR ETF (SPY) gaining 12.1% in the 4th quarter. The U.S. bond market (as measured…
Annuities: Approach with Caution (Free Dinners Aren’t Free)
Have you ever received a mailer about a “free dinner” at a local restaurant? All you must do to earn your $50 steak and $12 glass of cabernet sauvignon is listen to a “financial advisor” give you a pitch about “strategies to protect your nest-egg,” or “how to ensure a stress-free retirement in these turbulent…
2020 Q3 Review and Outlook
Keep Your Politics Out Of Your Portfolio The stock market had a decent 3rd quarter, with the S&P 500 SPDR ETF (SPY) gaining 9.0%. The U.S. bond market (as measured by the US Aggregate Bond ETF – AGG) eked out a 0.4% gain, and a 60% stock/40% bond portfolio gained 5.6%. Despite 2020 being…2020, investors…
Managing Your Assets in Turbulent Times
Have questions or concerns about your assets during this volatile market environment? This brochure offers context for the current situation, with informed observations on how we may help you to respond to it.
2020 Q2 Review and Outlook
The Nike Swoosh or the Square Root? The U.S. stock market’s trend in the second quarter of 2020 was a mirror image of the first quarter’s, with the S&P 500 SPDR ETF (SPY) gaining 20.2% vs. a 19.5% drop in 1Q. The U.S. bond market (as measured by the US Aggregate Bond ETF – AGG) gained 3.1% (matching…
2020 Q1 Review and Outlook
“There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.” This quote (by Vladimir Lenin of all people) pretty much sums up the first quarter of 2020, as governments around the world instituted draconian methods to slow the pace of the spread of the Coronavirus (a.k.a. COVID-19). These actions are in essence…
Coronavirus Update from the Investment Department: Our Top Priorities Right Now
We hope you are all doing ok and staying safe during this crazy time. Although we are working remotely, we are still hard at work managing your portfolios and the administrators are hard at work ensuring that you get what you need when you need it. The stock and bond markets have been on a…
Coronavirus – what this means for your investments.
In case you haven’t noticed, the news has been a little busy over the past month, with the leading headline a particularly nasty strain of Coronavirus called COVID-19, which is a cousin of the common cold virus that causes flu-like symptoms and can lead to pneumonia. We will leave it to the medical professionals to…
2019 Q3 Review and Outlook
Though full of sound and fury, the stock market signified very little in the third quarter. Despite an inverted yield curve, which is traditionally seen as a recession signal, escalating trade tensions with China and movement toward impeachment, stocks gained an unremarkable 1.7%. (link below)
2019 Q2 Review and Outlook
The second quarter of 2019 was signified by a lot of ups and downs and ended higher than where it started – which is pretty much the story of the last twelve months, only on a smaller scale. (link below)