Tag Archives: 9a.) Real Investment Advice

Planning for retirement is one of the most important financial goals in life, yet it’s also one of the most complex. While creating a retirement plan on your own may seem feasible, the expertise of a financial advisor can make a significant difference. Financial advisors offer personalized strategies, help navigate complex financial decisions, and provide ongoing support to ensure your plan adapts as life circumstances change. Here’s an in-depth look at the...

Bond vigilantes had been questioning Janet Yellen's debt management tactics in her role as Treasury Secretary. Specifically, they accused her of shifting debt issuance away from longer-term maturities and toward shorter ones. We think her strategy made sense. Yellen was issuing more debt where demand was the greatest and trying to limit the amount of debt where demand was weaker. Secondly, she was making a bet on lower interest rates. She issued more shorter-term...

The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article For Small Cap Stocks, Look Past The Trump Trade. It is worth sharing the article's premise and the potential pitfalls in the analysis as quite a few articles seem to be popping up recently touting small-cap stocks. Let's start with the scatter plot below, courtesy of Fuery Research Partners and the Wall Street Journal. Data from 1968 shows that the lower the ratio of the P/E of small-cap stocks versus the P/E...

The Federal Reserve's record of forecasting has frequently led it to respond too late to changes in economic and financial conditions. In the most recent FOMC meeting, the Federal Reserve changed its statement to support a pause in the current interest rate-cutting cycle. As noted by Forbes: "The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee agreed unanimously to hold the target federal funds rate at 4.25% to 4.5%, the U.S. central bank announced Wednesday...

Planning for retirement involves building a diverse and stable income strategy that ensures financial security throughout your golden years. Among the tools available, annuities in retirement planning offer a unique advantage: the ability to create a reliable, guaranteed income stream. However, understanding their types, benefits, and potential drawbacks is essential to determining whether they fit into your retirement plan. What Are Annuities? Annuities are...

When formulating its monthly employment data, the BLS includes an adjustment for the net number of new jobs coming from new businesses and those lost by companies that have shut down. This adjustment is logical, as neither new nor closing firms are included in their surveys. While the so-called birth death adjustment is rational, the number of net jobs added due to the estimate can be incredibly flawed. The latest example is in the latest BLS Business Employment...

The newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed up by Elon Musk, is tasked with reducing government waste and increasing efficiency and productivity. The big question bond investors are keying on is how effectively DOGE can reduce the deficit. Tracking DOGE savings is now easy. As we share below, the US Debt Clock shows a running total of cumulative DOGE savings. Thus far, in less than a month, DOGE has saved $56 billion, as shown below (box in...

All money is lent into existence. The Federal Reserve or the government does not print money. Those two facts are vital to understanding our lead question: where does money come from? Furthermore, knowing who does and doesn't print money and the incentives and disincentives that change the money supply are critical to inflation forecasting.   Some so-called bond vigilantes are running around like Chicken Little, warning that the Fed's recent rate cuts will...

Over the weekend, President Trump announced tariffs of 25% on both Canada and Mexico, as well as a 10% tariff on China. Such was not unexpected, as contained in the Trump tariff Executive Order {SEE HERE}. Specifically, that order stated: "[Sec 2, SubSection (h)]: Sec. 2. (a) All articles that are products of Canada as defined by the Federal Register notice described in subsection (e) of this section (Federal Register notice), and except for those products...

Investors woke up Monday morning to a sea of red. On Friday, after the markets had closed for the weekend, President Trump announced a new series of tariffs levied against Mexico, Canada, and China. Moreover, he threatened that those tariffs could increase and that new tariffs would be announced for the Euro-region. Cryptocurrencies, technology, and the currency markets took the brunt of the initial selling reaction. For our latest thoughts on the tariffs, please...