Ain’t Misbehavin’ Like a modern muse, I find that music from different genres and time periods helps me to understand and articulate the prevailing forces of the day in ways that a wider audience can relate. This isn’t a coincidence as the word music is derived from the Greek word “mousike” which means the Art […]
Here Comes the Future Good riddance to 2020. It was a year where we faced an existential threat that the world was entirely unprepared to combat. Every one of us has a Covid-19 story. We all know people who contracted the virus. Some experienced little more than an inconvenience while others paid a hefty price. […]
Recovery? The markets fully recovered from Covid in the third quarter with the S&P500 back to plus 4% for the year. While the economy hasn’t recovered, the markets are enjoying the Federal Reserve’s efforts to maintain liquidity in the banking system. You can see from the charts below that the Fed has increased the size […]
Bright Side of Life Things are a bit chaotic in the world these days and it’s not just Covid-19. We’re at the end of a long term economic and social cycle and the imbalances from this cycle need to be rectified before a sense of normalcy will return to our lives. The history books are […]
The Secure Act was signed into law on 12/20/19. Some key points include: Beginning in 2020 and beyond, removal of the 70 ½ contribution age limit to traditional IRA’s. However, if you were age 70 ½ or older as of 12/31/19 you are restricted from making a 2019 contribution. RMD (Required Minimum Distribution) on an […]
Going Viral The Covid-19 virus changes everything. Our economy is going to morph dramatically thanks to the ineptitude of the Chinese Communist government as well as the slow response by Western leaders. Fortunately, we’ve known for years that our old economy was unsustainable which is why we are far along in planning for how to […]
Y2K Redux 2019 was a great year to be in the stock market with the S&P500 returning 30.43%. It went from being a very good year to a great year thanks to the Federal Reserve injecting $500 billion into the banking system because they were afraid that current troubles in the banking system would spill […]
Truckin’ In 1970, the Grateful Dead gave us the song “Truckin” with the memorable line “lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it’s been”. It’s been a weird ten years since the “Great Recession” as central bank interventions and experiments in monetary policy have temporarily changed the way markets function. So, it’s […]
Ugly! The fourth quarter was an ugly one in the capital markets, although some of the losses have been erased so far in 2019. Compared to the market averages, we had a very good year but even with our safe-haven assets, we experienced weakness in some of our positions in December. A number of pundits […]
