Tag Archives: 5.) Alhambra Investments

Death tax, inheritance tax, estate tax—call it what you will, they all mean that some government entity wants to put its hand in your pocket or your heirs’ pockets, after your demise. On the federal level, the estate tax issue is not as big a deal as it was back in the day. Today individuals can pass on more than $11 million and couples can pass on more than $23 million before Washington comes after your money. 17 states, on the other hand, have not moderated their...

This isn’t about COVID. It’s been building since the end of August, a shift in mood, perception, and reality that began turning things several months before even then. With markets fickle yet again, a lot today, what’s going on here? What you’ll hear or have already heard is something about Europe and more lockdowns, fears about a second wave of the pandemic. No, that doesn’t fit the herdlike change in direction you can observe across many different markets (below)....

[embedded content] Alhambra’s’ Bob Williams describes Charitable Remainder Trusts and how they can be used as a planning tool to create a win-win for you and charities. You Might Also Like What The PMIs Aren’t Really Saying, In China As Elsewhere China’s PMI’s continue to impress despite the fact they continue to be wholly unimpressive. As with most economic numbers in today’s stock-focused...

They should be drooling over the prospects of a clearing path toward normality. The pain and disaster of 2020’s economic hole receding into a more pleasant 2021 which would have been in position to conceivably pay it all back before any long run damage. Getting back to just even with February instead is becoming a distant probability, the kind of non-transitory shortfall with which we’ve grown far too accustomed. Therefore, “they” now salivate (reported to be...

Europeans are growing more downbeat again. While ostensibly many are more worried about a new set of restrictions due to (even more overreactions about) COVID, that’s only part of the problem. The bigger factor, economically speaking, is that Europe’s economy has barely moved, or at most not moved near enough, off the bottom. To interrupt now what has already proved to be a seriously impaired rebound should get people thinking more realistically about 2021. Once...

You spend a lifetime earning, saving, acquiring. But the old adage is true—you can’t take it with you. So, what do you do with your assets when you’re gone? How do you want them distributed? That’s where a good estate plan comes in. However, some estate plans are based on ideas that just aren’t true. Plans are made based on emotion rather than logic, and that’s where the best-laid estate plans can go wrong. Christopher D. Wright, JD is a CPA at Marks Paneth LLP. In...

The Department of Labor attached a technical note to its weekly report on unemployment claims. The state of California has announced that it is suspending the processing of initial claims filed by (former) workers in that state. Government officials have decided to pause their efforts for two weeks so as to try and sort out what “might” be widespread fraud. The state is also using this time to get after a substantial backlog of previous initial claims yet to be...

It’s just not fast enough. And with the labor market spitting out numbers across a broad economic cross-section that look increasingly tired suggesting an economy running out of momentum, there’s the added urgency of time. Late summer figures still aren’t close to where they need to be even though when you view them in isolation they can look tremendous. Start with PMI’s, a bunch of them from last week and early this week. Many are the highest in many months, years...

The BLS’s payroll report draws most of the mainstream attention, with the exception of the unemployment rate (especially these days). The government designates the former as the Current Employment Statistics (CES) series, and it intends to measure factors like payrolls (obviously), wages, and earnings from the perspective of the employers, or establishments. The Establishment Survey. Its cousin is called the Household Survey, or CPS, the Current Population Survey,...

[embedded content] Alhambra CEO Joe Calhoun and Alhambra’s Bob Williams look at data from the past month and discuss what it means for the economy. You Might Also Like Monthly Market Monitor – July 2020 Most Long-Term Trends Have Not Changed. A lot has changed over the last 4 months since the COVID virus started to impact the global economy. Asia was infected first with China at ground zero. Their economy...