Monthly Updates

I’ve purposely waited to send any communication out on what we’re thinking post-election. I don’t know about your email in-box, but with all the investment management firms we receive feedback from, we’ve been inundated with special webinar invitations and whitepapers on “what the election results mean for your investments.”  Quite candidly, I’ve ignored almost all […]

Those words are part of the chorus of Don Henley’s song “No, Thank You” from his Cass County album which debuted last October.  I think they succinctly sum up this Presidential Election, with Hillary and Donald recording the highest disapproval ratings in history.  Here are two snippets of Henley’s song: These are hard times we’re […]

In this edition of TABR’s quarterly newsletter, we thought we’d touch on an area that has been getting some attention in the financial press recently—the use of risk tolerance questionnaires, or risk profiling, to help categorize clients and to appropriately allocate their investment funds. In addition, we have sections on Living to 100, which ties […]

The stock market’s behavior in the last 45 days or so since mid-July reminds me of an electrocardiograph that we’ve all seen in the hospital (or on TV).  Not so much the steady rhythm of a regular heartbeat, but rather that ominous visual of a flatline when the patient expires. I’m not implying the stock […]

Our last monthly email was published on Monday, June 27, which in hindsight, turned out to be the conclusion of the two-day selloff in global stock markets associated with the United Kingdom Brexit vote. In those two days, the S&P 500 fell nearly 6%, but has since rebounded nearly 9%, to a new all-time high. […]

In this edition of TABR’s quarterly newsletter, we’re going to present some analysis and thoughts on Target Date Funds, which have become quite commonplace in workplace retirement plans (401(k) and others). We’ll look at what they are, what they are designed to do, some of the differences among them, and how, in our opinion, they […]

Last weekend, I realized we were about due to publish our monthly update, but little had changed since mid-May. Since there was a lot of focus on the British elections this past Thursday to potentially leave the EU (European Union—thus the name Brexit), I figured why not wait. After Friday, I definitely have more to […]

No, I’m not referring to the four-letter slang word that many a golfer utters after hitting their tee shot into the water hazard or the trees. Instead, this is about a term called a “fiduciary,” which may be getting as much attention these days in the investment industry as Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton or Bernie […]

Though my intentions have been to get our quarterly newsletter onto a more regular early February, May, August and November publishing schedule, I am still behind on that objective. Nevertheless, here is the first of four that we will get done this year. As promised, we have an update on our personal experience with a […]

Many years ago, renowned money manager and newsletter writer Marty Zweig coined the phrase, “Don’t Fight the Fed!”  Zweig’s research found that over history, stocks mostly behaved positively when monetary conditions were favorable (lower rates) but typically encountered trouble when policies were unfavorable (rising rates). Lower interest rates do not always help the stock market, […]