Category: Weekly Investment Update

The economic reports for the week were overwhelmingly positive. The Fed decided to hold rates at current levels for the time being and confirmed its previously stated intent to raise short term rates slightly and gradually as the year progresses. Market interest rates responded to the continued strength by rising. Interest rate markets are beginning […]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the week at 26,616.71, up over 20,000 points from its great recession low of 6,547.05 on March 9, 2009. The S&P 500 closed Friday at 2,872.87, up almost 2,200 points from its March 9, 2009 close of 676.53. The S&P 500 closed up 1.18% on Friday, the first day […]

The ability to recharacterize (lookback and undo) the conversion of a Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA no longer exists. Beginning in 2018 with Roth conversions, the one popular technique will no longer be available. Paul Fowler covers the details in a new post, Retirement planning after tax reform. On The One Hand Industrial production […]

Following is a snapshot of the total returns for various asset classes for the year 2017. Among widely followed commodities, gold, at $1,305.50 per ounce was up 13% for the year and West Texas intermediate crude oil was up 12% at $60.42 per barrel. The Weekly Update will not be published for the next two […]

Jason Zweig, author and investment and finance columnist for the Wall Street Journal, has written a good deal about the financial services industry. I like the summary he used at the end of one of his recent articles: “A lot of Wall Street Journal readers have told me they think hiring a financial adviser is […]

The S&P 500 finished the week at 2,675.81, another new high. Year-to-date, the index is up 19.52% and if the year had ended on Friday it would have been the 4th largest calendar year gain for the index so far in this century. If the index can at least hold onto its current month-to-date gain […]

The last 10% or greater correction experienced by the market as measured by the S&P 500 ended on February 11, 2016 with a decline of 13.31%. The index has since risen from that low point of 1,829.08 to Friday’s new high close of 2,651.50. Over that 95 week run the index is up 44.96%. Following […]

In spite of the already plentiful media commentary on Bitcoin, inquiries about the phenomenon continue to come in. Following is an abbreviated, nontechnical summary of our thoughts on the subject. In brief, if you are not already a regular user of online banking services and you do less than half of your Christmas shopping at […]

The S&P 500 Index finished the week with a close over 2,600, a new high. The 10-Year Treasury Note yield held steady at 2.33% while the yield on the 2-Year continued to edge higher and closed the week yielding 1.75%. The current economic numbers continued to display the U.S growth cycle trudging higher. Get ready […]

The lack of volatility is again being discussed as a sign of the end of the bull market. Low volatility by itself is not a danger to markets. Markets become dangerous when low volatility causes investors to become complacent. Long periods of low volatility can lull investors into becoming comfortable with typically risky assets to […]