Blog
Politics and Investing
It would be safe to say that this election season intensified emotions and left many investors uncertain of how the results could impact equity markets and their investments. However, savvy investors have learned that equity markets have historically cared more about...
Proactive Year-end Tax Planning for 2024 and Beyond
One of our main goals as holistic financial professionals is to help our clients recognize tax reduction opportunities within their investment portfolios and overall financial planning strategies. Staying current on the ever-changing tax environment is a key component...
Understanding Volatility and the Benefits of a Long-term Investing Strategy
Investors typically include equities in their long-term plans with the expectation of generating a positive return. Historically, over longer periods of time, this strategy has helped many investors achieve their desired goals. While it would be accommodating if...
Quarterly Economic Update Second Quarter 2024
Equity and bond markets began the second quarter of 2024 with a rough start, thanks to the Federal Reserve’s decision not to reduce interest rates due to stubbornly high inflation rates. However, during the quarter, strong performances from companies tied to...
Research
New Year, Same Bull Market? | Weekly Market Commentary | January 13, 2025
As the new year officially gets underway, there’s the usual sense of renewed optimism and excitement over new opportunities.
Evaluating Stock and Bond Market Predictions From 2024 | Weekly Market Commentary | January 6, 2024
With 2024 fully behind us, it’s a good time to celebrate our winning calls from last year while also reviewing some mistakes to learn from them and improve our process. The good news is we got more right than wrong last year, but there were some misses. Some course corrections helped. Perhaps the most impactful decision we made was to recommend investors stay fully invested in equities at benchmark levels throughout the entire year despite expecting a stock market pullback around Election Day.
Keys to Stock Market Gains in 2025 | Weekly Market Commentary | December 30, 2024
As 2024 draws to a close, investors have fully embraced the stock market. The S&P 500 is up more than 25% year to date. The broader Russell 3000 Index is up 24%. The Nasdaq Composite is up over 31%. Even the laggards are up double-digits with 12% and 14% advances for the small cap Russell 2000 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Volatility was low, with a maximum peak-to-trough decline for the S&P 500 of 8.5% (the long-term average max drawdown is over 13%). As we turn our attention to 2025, the supports of the past year largely remain in place, but some additional pillars have been added as we discuss below.
The Fed Resets Expectations for Next Year | Weekly Market Commentary | December 23, 2024
The Federal Reserve (Fed) is moving more cautiously in adjusting policy, and markets might have a hard time resetting expectations. Throughout the latest press conference with Fed Chair Jerome Powell, equity markets declined as investors were befuddled with the large upward revision to 2025 inflation forecasts; despite disappointing inflation projections, the “vibecession” is over as businesses and consumers have become more optimistic.
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