As you may have heard, Equifax, which is a credit reporting agency, suffered a data breach that compromised the personal and financial data of more than 143 million Americans.1 The information accessed included names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers. While this data breach is the largest in recent memory, these types of occurrences have become all too common and put us all at increased risk of identify theft. Unfortunately, the risks of identity theft extend beyond to just identity thieves taking out loans in your name. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to protect yourself. Continue Reading …
Objective Investment Advice You Can Use
As you probably saw last week, global stock markets dropped sharply in value. There are a number of factors contributing to these recent declines including expectations of higher interest rates, falling oil prices and an economic slowdown in China.
As our focus is on the long-term, we welcome periods of sharp market declines as falling prices often produce for our clients buying opportunities with less risk. Also, periods of sharp market declines are historically normal and to be expected when investing in the stock market. Continue Reading …
Should You Follow Market Forecasters?
USA Today recently published an interesting article titled “How bad are Wall Street forecasts? Really bad.” The article reviews why you are probably better off ignoring financial advisors who try to predict the market. Not only is their combined track record horrible over time, you may get better results by simply tossing a coin – […]
The Federal Reserve’s Impact on Your Portfolio
Changes in interest rates have a disproportionate effect on your portfolio. Lower interest rates can help boost corporate earnings, and as earnings increase, market prices often do too. This is a key reason why stocks frequently increase in value as interest rates fall. Another reason is that lower interest rates drive investors to seek higher […]
Retro Investing Article from WSJ
The Wall Street Journal recently published a very timely article about the current investment climate. Here’s the link in case you missed it: “Retro Investing – Look Back to Get Ahead.” As the title implies, the author suggests that history can offer important lessons to help us chart an investment path forward. I agree. In […]
S&P Downgrade
Lessons of Lower Ratings Regarding S&P’s decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating, the Wall Street Journal’s article Lessons of Lower Ratings provides an historical perspective of how other countries have performed after a cut in their credit ratings. As discussed in the article, history suggests the recent downgrade could actually be a long-term positive […]
Ignore the Economists
CNNMoney just published an excellent article titled Don’t Listen to Recession Forecasters. This is a great article for those investors who believe they can time the market by predicting recessions. As the article suggests, the odds are greatly stacked against this approach. Here are two key points to consider from the article (with my comments): […]
