I am a great fan of Slow Travel, staying in a different country for many weeks at a time, living like a local. Up until recently, I always associated Slow Travel with trips to a foreign country, where we have to cope with a different language, and all the interesting things that turn up as […]
Slow Travel can also be Family Time Read More »
We’ve almost made it to the end of the year. And what a year it has been. You may recall that in January, we were trying to set expectations that returns for client portfolios this year would likely be modest at best, considering each of the three previous years had positive returns. For the record,
If the year 2022 were a fish, we’d throw it back. Between the spike in inflation, the historic rise in interest rates, the deepening geopolitical saga in Ukraine, and the less-than-optimal performance of virtually all assets around the globe, we thought we’d take this opportunity at year-end to reflect on the future a bit. And
With the passing of the halfway point for the year, we would like to provide you with an update on the financial markets along with other notable topics we’re following. Financial Markets The S&P 500’s all-time price value (not including dividends) peaked on January 2nd, 2022. By October 11th, the index had declined 24.7 percent.
2023 Mid-Year Update Read More »
In our recent reading, we ran across some pearls of wisdom from investment manager Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital. Marks ranks right up there with Warren Buffett as a voice to heed on investment philosophy. (He’s on Forbes list of billionaires.) We thought we’d share his remarks to provide some perspective on market fluctuation:
It’s Not the Markets That Are Volatile… It’s People Read More »
Imagine you are presented with the following opportunity: An Olympic-sized swimming pool is filled with plastic Easter eggs, around 64,000 of them. Most eggs contain nothing, but a small number (2.4%) include $100 dollar bills. If you were allowed to select 100 of the eggs randomly, how do you think you would fare? The odds
Beating the Odds: How to Own the Winners Every Year Read More »
Nothing confuses people more than trying to understand what’s happening in “the market” these days. To make sense of it, you first have to understand two very simple distinctions. First off, “the stock market” is what the media refers to as one big ball of publicly traded stocks all lumped in together. Inside that ball,
You Don’t Own “The Stock Market” Read More »
That’s how long it’s been since we’ve had a normal environment for investing. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, but considering everything we’ve been through, I wouldn’t argue that it feels longer for you. In December of 2019, our economy had been in expansion mode for nearly eleven years, one of the longest
Finally, the end of the Covid Era of investing Read More »
When debating whether stocks are cheap or expensive, most Wall Street analysts use the S&P 500’s historical price-to-earnings ratio to support their argument. The P/E ratio is a measure of how valuable corporate earnings are to market participants. The more valuable they are, the higher the multiple will be. For the past 25 years, the
Are Stocks Too Expensive? – First Coast Wealth Advisors Read More »
Social Security has long been a crucial program in the United States, providing financial assistance to millions of retirees, disabled individuals, and survivors. However, for many public sector workers and retirees, provisions such as the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO) have presented significant challenges. On January 6th, President Biden signed
The Social Security Fairness Act Read More »
