June 2018
Retirement Planning Requires a Long-Term Focus
Investing money make many people nervous. Especially when your life savings are at stake, the thought of losing any money, let alone thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, is enough to make you think twice about putting any of your assets at risk. But investment ultimately is necessary in order to build up wealth. Sticking money under a...
The US Economy Isn’t What It Used to Be
Market events this week have made even the most bullish investors realize that the US economy isn’t what it used to be. In an attempt to ensure “fair trade,” President Trump placed a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports last Friday. The Chinese retaliated, and Trump threatened on Monday to place additional tariffs on another...
China-US Trade Spat Is Bad News for Stock Markets
President Trump late last week slapped $50 billion worth of Chinese imports with a new 25 percent tariff. While the tariff had been long discussed, negotiations with the Chinese government in recent weeks seemed to have indicated a softening of Trump’s position towards China. That was particularly the case with Trump’s attempts to find a solution to keep troubled...
If Millennials Don’t Start Saving, They Could Become the Lost Generation
The millennial generation has become the largest generational cohort in the United States. Much ink has been spilled trying to analyze millennials and their behavior. While many of the characterizations of millennials tend to focus on personality traits and work ethic, there’s no question that millennials are vastly different from generations that preceded them. They aren’t making as much money...
Central Banks Are the Elephant in the Room That Everyone Neglects
Monetary policy is one of those topics that only a handful of people ever devote much time to studying. Most people ignore central banks during good times and beg them to intervene during bad times. During the worst part of the financial crisis Wall Street clamored for more assistance from the Federal Reserve. They got that assistance in spades,...
Credit Card Delinquencies Continue to Rise: An Ominous Omen?
In what could be an ominous sign indicating a deterioration of the financial health of American households, levels of credit card debt have risen over the past year, with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York noting that the “flow into 90+ day delinquency for credit card balances has been increasing notably for the last year.” That’s a piece...
Monetary Policy Is the Key to Understanding the Business Cycle
No matter which way stock markets are moving, there are always people trying to understand why they go up or down, or which way they’ll move in the future. It can be tough to weed out the important commentary from the downright false, as many pundits have a vested interest in seeing markets move one way or another. But...
May 2018
Foreign Policy Foibles Will Continue to Weigh on Markets
Will he or won’t he? That’s the question everyone is asking about the nuclear summit between the United States and North Korea. Will President Trump pull the plug on the summit, or will it go ahead as scheduled? With all the back and forth, no one seems to know for sure. And that uncertainty has weighed on stock markets,...