Finance & Economics Blog
Stock Market Checkup The S&P 500 continues to move higher. It’s hard to argue against the slope of the line in the chart below. There’s plenty to be concerned about right now, but the stock market’s trend continues to point up. While last week was the market’s roughest week since earlier in 2021, we can’t …
August is typically a slow month in the stock market. There isn’t a lot of news flow and volumes (the number of shares traded) are low. A mass exodus from the office for vacation is a large driver of the slowdown. Interestingly, August is the second worst performing month for the S&P 500 over the …
Roth IRAs are powerful savings vehicles that allow us to contribute after-tax dollars that grow tax-free and are withdrawn tax-free. There are no required minimum distributions during the original account owner’s life, which provides a lot of flexibility and tax efficiency if managed properly. Among traditional IRA account holders, the question of whether to convert …
Knowing when and how to draw on social security benefits can be a difficult decision to make. Two questions should be considered when deciding to begin Social Security benefits. Which starting date will maximize expected cumulative lifetime benefits? Which starting date will minimize longevity risk? Longevity risk is the risk you will deplete your financial …
You may or may not hear pundits discussing valuation levels of the stock market or other assets. The conversation ebbs and flows but isn’t ever too far from the center stage. Valuation is not the same as price. Price is what you pay for something while valuation puts the price into a context to allow …
While the stock market and other asset markets have at least been partly driven by easy money policies at the Federal Government and Federal Reserve, I would like to think economic growth still matters. I monitor several variables to provide me with insight into the broader health of the economy. I am not an economist …
In their Complete Guide to a Successful & Secure Retirement, Larry Swedroe and Kevin Grogan identified the four horsemen of the retirement apocalypse at the time. The first horseman was historically high equity valuations. The second horseman was historically low bond yields. The third horseman was increasing longevity of life. The fourth horseman was the …
Lots of debates in the financial markets going on today that will probably continue for the foreseeable future. They all seem to come back to one debate in particular, inflation versus disinflation. I’ve written about that a few times and have concluded that nobody can predict with any reliable certainty what is going to happen …
In April, I wrote about inflation expectations versus reality. Today’s post is a short follow up to that one displaying a chart from TLR Analytic’s Philippa Dunne and Doug Henwood showing inflation expectations versus actual inflation outcomes. The expectations come from the Conference Board’s expectations survey. The gist of Ms. Dunne’s and Mr. Henwood’s observation …
I’m reluctant to write about something so mainstream as inflation but I can’t help but notice a few unavoidable important data points. First, 5-year and 10-year inflation expectations have stopped going up and are actually modestly retreating. The peak in inflation expectations occurred a few days after the release of April’s “monster” CPI figure, which …