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WHAT'S NEW? Our Latest Updates!

July 2022 Performance Review

One problem with the “inflation is coming down soon theory so the Fed won’t have to go nuclear with rates” rosy scenario is that this indicates a weak economy. If prices stop going up with all the work at home and Covid productivity issues globally, then the consumer is tapped out and has cut demand to meet lower supply. How is that economy going to raise earnings to higher levels than the previous stock boom?

June 2022 Trade Alert

We made some changes to our portfolios. The end result was a slight increase in stock and interest rate exposure by moving from shorter-term bonds to longer-term bonds, which are more sensitive to interest rate changes. This means that a 1% increase in rates equates to a bigger drop in price. We also made some changes to our hedging to protect the portfolios from an increasingly likely drop in higher credit risk debt, aka junk bonds. There just isn't the kind of selling from funds going on to mark a great buying opportunity even with the bear market decline.

May 2022 Performance Review

May was a good month for our portfolios, especially relative to US markets.

April 2022 Performance Review

Global markets are not in the mood to fight inflation, and the market reaction to the Fed press conference on May 4 only highlights the growing fear of the world of waning global monetary stimulus.

March 2022 Performance Review

At the end of March the S&P 500 was down just under 5% for the year, and the Nasdaq just under 10%. With bonds and foreign stocks mostly down around 6% for the year, diversifying isn't helping.

February 2022 Performance Review

Just when it felt like we were exiting one global economic problem, we're confronted with another. Within just a few days, the Russia—Ukraine war has already decimated Russian stocks and now seems to be spreading into other markets, notably Germany, the most strongly linked economically to Russia, likely foreshadowing economic problems to come.

January 2022 Performance Review

In January, the roughly 50% crash in higher flying mania stocks that started earlier in 2021 finally spread to the rest of the stock market — the market with earnings.

December 2021 Performance Review

If ever there was a year for American exceptionalism, it was 2021. Our vaccines, if not our deployment, were at the top of the global heap (with some help from Germany). Our stock market as measured by the S&P 500 delivered a remarkable 28%+ return for the year, while the main foreign developed markets index was up around 8%.

November 2021 Performance Review

On November 26, we decreased our official stock allocation from 67% to 62% in our Aggressive Portfolio and 45% to 42% in our Conservative Portfolio.

October 2021 Performance Review

The brief weakness in stocks in September didn't last. Any fears of inflation, stagflation, global supply shortages, and the like melted away as the S&P 500, with dividends, returned 7%, leading to a 5.13% three-month return and a whopping 24% year-to-date