When 401k retirement plan investors emerge from a difficult year, it’s easy to become fearful that each year to come will deliver the same – or similar results. However, history shows this is seldom the case. In fact, more times than not, the year following a down year in the U.S. capital markets is a […]
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Footnotes – March 2024
Today we are going to discuss the 3 themes we believe have a better than 50% chance of influencing our capital markets during 2024.
You might ask – why this is important?
In a market environment with abundant uncertainty, it is important to be prepared for any number of shifting environments. And with current U.S. and global debt levels, at some point, the shifting environments will be more disruptive and surprising.
March 2024 “First Friday” Market Outlook – Important Investment Themes
In March’s “First Friday” webinar, we discuss the “Important Investment Themes” most likely to impact our U.S. economy.
Why Inflation will Continue to be a Problem for Investors
Inflation has been dominating headlines recently, but how did it get to be this way? In basic terms, inflation is caused by a surplus of demand driving prices up. For the past 30 years the US has enjoyed stable and controlled inflation despite several large economic shocks. As a result, we have all but forgotten […]
How Much Money Will I Be Able to Withdraw Without Depleting My Savings?
In 1994, a curious Bill Bengen decided to find out how safe his savings were. He wanted to know how much he could safely withdraw from his savings account each year without going broke. Most reading this article are aware of the “4% Rule” and it came from Bill Bengen’s work that day. For most […]
How Much Will You Need to Retire?
The article below is from Bloomberg, and was written by Suzanne Woolley and can be read here. US Workers Say They Need $1.8 Million for Retirement A new survey of people who have 401(k) plans found that it’s getting harder to put money away as costs rise. By Suzanne Woolley August 2, 2023 at 9:00 […]
February 2024 “First Friday” Market Outlook – When Does the Cure Become the Poison?
Despite the hype around a soft landing, a U.S. economic recession is still in the cards. When do the costs for rescuing the U.S. economy become poison? Is the U.S. Federal Reserve winning the battle against inflation?
Footnotes – January 2024
In January’s “Footnotes” publication, we want to focus on the Signals – ignore the noise – and encourage each Family Office member to make intelligent decisions based on facts and data offering information about the likely future to come. As we move forward through 2024, it will become as important to tune out the noise as it will be to focus on the signals. Why? Because debt leverages outcomes. Debt makes good outcomes great. Debt makes bad outcomes disastrous. As this publication goes to press, the U.S. has a record $34 trillion in debt at the national level, a record amount of debt in corporate America, AND a record amount of debt on the balance sheet of our U.S. citizens.
January 2024 “First Friday” Market Outlook – Turning an Uncertainty into an Advantage
What’s Ahead for Growth, Inflation, and the U.S. Federal Reserve?
Footnotes – December 2023
If you will remember, we started these “First Friday” meetings in October 2022, because we saw storm clouds on the horizon.
The U.S. Federal Reserve was fighting a bought of inflation which turned out to be stickier than originally thought by increasing interest rates and decreasing the liquidity in our economy.
History tells us there is an 80% probability of the Fed over-tightening, and eventually sending us into a recession.
While recessions are events intelligent investors would like to avoid, current conditions have heightened our concerns. Here is why: Our U.S. debt has increased by over 30 trillion over the last 40 years. That’s 30X the debt it took our country over 200 years to amass, and most of it accumulated in the last 15 years.