Blog
We like to cover current events in the financial markets and share our opinions on how to approach investments given the financial circumstances.
Debt Ceiling Decline?
Debt Ceiling Decline? Although markets are up for the year, with the S&P 500 posting a gain of 7.5% for the first quarter of the year and up almost 15% since the recent lows in October of 2022, this week looks like it could show a...
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They Break but They Bail
So, you may have heard this week that there is a bit of distress in the financial markets, particularly with the banks. And the talk of banks collapsing and / or being bailed out has become rideshare-driver talk. There are definitely...
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Dove in Hawks Clothing
Fed head Jay Powell announced the FOMC decision today to raise the fed funds rate another quarter point and the market responded almost as if he was talking about a rate cut. What gives? Aren’t rate hikes supposed to be...
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What is an inverted yield curve?
What is an inverted yield curve? Let’s say you wanted to loan out $100,000 for two years. How much interest would you want to collect? If you could get 5%, that’d be $5,000 per year. Not bad, but would it be worth the...
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Long Bull & Short Bear
Bulls and bears are iconic figures on Wall Street. Most of us have pictures of them on our walls or little figurines on our desks. Funny thing is, they’re almost always the same size. But bull and bear markets have fairly...
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How much time you got?
How much time you got? My clients know I can sometimes get kind of excited when I start talking about markets, the economy, geopolitics and all that goes along with the investment process. It seems I always end up apologizing...
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Inflation is the Nightmare Monster
Inflation is the Nightmare MonsterThe fed has spoken and the beastly monster they have in their line of sight is inflation. That’s the message coming out of the Jackson Hole summit last week.Every August, the Kansas City Federal...
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Consumer Spending and Inflation
The FOMC finally seems to be serious about fighting inflation and today announced a three-quarter point rate hike to the fed funds rate. The market, so far, seems buoyed by the move. The idea behind raising rates to fight...
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The Debt Ceiling and the Trillion Dollar Coin
As the debt ceiling debate rages on today, mostly in the media and in halls of Congress, it is probably worthwhile to take a big picture look at what the public debt is and put it in some context. First, public debt is very different...
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The Big Mac Index
I just got back from two weeks in Kenya. Never saw a McDonalds, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have them. And I was curious about the price of Big Macs there. Having travelled a lot over the years, it always fascinates me...
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What is money?
A lot of attention recently has been focused on crypto-currencies and related financial instruments. Some dismiss cryptos as a fad, while others speak in an almost religious tone about their favorite blockchain coins. But to really...
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When Will The Housing Bubble Pop?
In case you haven’t noticed, the US housing market is hot and getting hotter. For many, this would seem to mean there is a bubble that’s sure to pop anytime now. Let’s take a closer look. According to the National...
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The Curve of The Future
One question we get a lot from clients is about the future of inflation. It’s a big question and a complex topic and like most in that category, it’s not easy to answer with any certainty. But there are a few tools we can...
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Short Squeeze
I have never sold a stock short. I know you can make money doing it, but the math says you probably won’t, at least not in any consistent fashion. Still, there are any number of hedge funds and institutional investors that spend...
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Lumpy Data
Lumpy Data We are telling clients we expect Q4 and Q1 economic data to be “lumpy.” Huh? What’s that supposed to mean? Basically, we’re talking about inconsistent results. As we head into Q4 earnings season here,...
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2021 Outlook
This time of year my inbox is full of investment outlook pieces from all the major investment management firms, including LPL. Below is a link to the LPL 2021 outlook. Today we want to summarize some of the more prevalent themes in the...
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The Election
We are now past the historic US presidential election cycle of 2020. Most of us are just glad the endless grind of campaign advertising is gone. While the results of the elections are not actually official until the states certify...
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Inflation Protection
Inflation Protection What can you do to protect yourself from the price of things going up? As a follow up to our last blog post, we want to give some thought to the topic of inflation protection. Let’s first say we are not...
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Deflation vs Inflation
There is a grand debate brewing between economists about the future economic environment centered around the belief that the economy will be mostly deflationary versus, on the opposite side, those who are counting on and preparing for...
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Not All Government Spending is Equal
EverVest blog 08/15/20 Not All Government Spending is Equal As the US Congress hashes out what to do about further Coronavirus stimulus, it might be a good thing for us to think about what government spending really looks like. Most of...
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The Service Economy
Last week’s historically awful GDP number was shocking, down 32.9%. But when we get into the details of the component parts of that negative print, what we really see is how much the economy has changed over the last 40 years or...
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A Synchronized World
The World Bank lays out a rather stark prediction in its June 2020 Global Growth Prospects report. But before we dive in to that, let’s first consider how unusual it is to have a synchronized global economy like we do right now....
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Stress Test
I have never taken one of those stress tests where they connect you to some kind of a device and make you run on a treadmill… sounds stressful! Thankfully, my doctor hasn’t said I needed to do one. But, our banking system...
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How low can it go?
The bond market may not be the most interesting thing to study in economics, but it has an outsize effect on just about everything that has to do with money. Since the pandemic hit earlier this year, interest rates across the board...
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Invest Like a Dog
Over my entire life we have always had a family dog. Every kind of breed formed part of our pack from little fuzzy yappers to big furry quiet types; hairless, hyper and all kinds of temperaments. So what do dogs have to do with what we...
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Jay Powell’s Promise
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome “Jay” Powell made some interesting remarks in a 60 Minutes interview last Sunday, including promises of further support for the economy from the Fed. But he was also blunt about his reading of...
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Half Full or Half Empty?
As a small business owner and economics nerd, I always like to check in with the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index reported each month by the National Federation of Independent Business. It’s a monthly survey that asks almost...
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Always A Function of Supply & Demand…
Pop quiz!! What went up 424% since last year? How about a rise of 647%? What showed that kind of an increase since a year ago? The answer is not housing prices. So, do you think the average house price went up or down in the last...
Read MoreWhat’s the deal with dividends?
The news this morning sounds alarming; GM has suspended its dividend. And according to today’s Wall Street Journal, GM is not alone. So far this year, more companies have suspended or canceled their dividends than in the previous...
Read MoreMarkets, Milk, and Oil
Oil closed at negative $37.63 per barrel; that’s minus -$37.63. It was a historic, never-seen-before moment. In the world of futures and commodities trading, it is hard to get your head around the mechanics, but it’s the...
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Is This a Recession?
It is almost certain we are in a recession at this point. Many analysts believed the possibility of going into recession in 2020 was fairly high at the beginning of the year, but nobody expected an almost total shutdown of the world...
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Stick With The Long-Term Plan
Warren Buffett has so many great quotes about investing. I am reminded of this one today: “Every decade or so, dark clouds will fill the economic skies, and they will briefly rain gold. When downpours of that sort occur, reach...
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