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The markets are down again today.
Ask yourself:
Will you be spending all your savings within the next year?
How about the next three years? Five?
Do you have an investment plan designed by a professional?
Is that plan based on your personal goals and financial situation?
You may want to find something (anything!?) else to watch other than the financial porn networks.
Hang in there.
August 17, 2018
The U.S. Business Cycle is Maturing
With the mostly sideways action in the markets this year, you may be thinking this is getting old, why are things so… foggy? Well, you’d be right, it is getting old. The business cycle, that is. It may be helpful to understand where we’re at in this cycle. So, here’s a sexy chart… {commence eye roll}
I believe the U.S. is advancing in its protracted shift toward the late-cycle phase (Exhibit).
The risk of U.
When designing an investment plan, it’s crazy important to understand the relationship between risk & reward. The goal is to take an appropriate level of risk for the desired potential return, and not an ounce more. Not an easy task.
Think about risk and reward this way: If you receive aninheritance, it took no risk on your part (other than the loss of your loved one, of course), yet you reaped great reward.
Think of investing risk (in broad terms) as two yo-yos — one for stocks, the other for bonds. The stock yo-yo has a much longer string than the bond yo-yo, so that when you fling it down it comes precariously close to scuffing the ground. The string on the bond yo-yo, however, is so short it barely reaches your knee on the downswing.
In this brief video Ross explains why the last 5 years are not like the average 5 years.
Read more →
Though basically flat for the year, most major U.S. stock markets finished the week in positive terrority… The first time in 2016! This may have folks wondering what the first 11 weeks of the year was all about.
Another typical period in the life of an investor. {sigh}
For long-term investors — folks that get it — it was just AFGO, another effing(!) growth opportunity.
Check this out… Let’s compare the last 5-year period with the average 5-year period.
The last 5 years have created one of the widest performance gaps we’ve experienced over the past 40 years. Five years is a long time for investors to endure historical “underperformance” from their portfolio’s primary diversifiers.
Check out these charts: Read more →
How do think the stock market will perform this year?
While 2015 was an underwhelming year for the S&P 500 Index, it is interesting to look at what the index did following prior underwhelming years (defined as returns between -5% and 5%). Investors may think that an underwhelming year foretells more meddling returns in the following year. But check out this chart…Since 1926, there have been eleven periods (including last year) where the index fell in this range.
