Rob's Blog

The third quarter of 2022 was a story of undulating market reactions to inflation news.  The S&P 500 bottomed out June 16^th and began a brief recovery over the next two months.  Unfortunately, the CPI (consumer price index) report on August 10^th showed that inflation is still stubbornly high, triggering a market sell off lasting until the end of the quarter.  The S&P 500 ended September 2.2% lower than the June low.   

The growth models continue to be 100% equities.  Although an impending recession would be difficult, the growth models are long-term portfolios placing emphasis on potential long-term returns over short-term volatility.  A small reposition of the large cap equities included a position in a large cap blend fund focusing on defensive stocks.  The moderate and conservative models saw multiple trades to diversify the bond position in the portfolio, specifically to extend the duration.  

I’m sharing this article which was written by Jim Fullerton, in 1974.  Mr. Fullerton was the president of Capital Group, which is an investment firm, offering the American Funds.  I found this to be encouraging and timely, given the state of our nation and economy, at the moment. 

We’ve headed into the final “stretch run” of summer. School will start soon, and most families will find themselves back in the routine that comes with fall. I’m not in favor of speeding up time, it seems to fly by, but now is a good time to review your retirement plan contributions to make adjustments for the rest of 2019.

As we get rolling on a new year, I wanted to share a few economic themes that I’ll be following this year.  Of particular interest to me in 2019 are:

1. Federal Reserve’s posture on raising the federal funds rate.
2. Housing, specifically new home starts.
3. Yield curve

The interest rate situation dominated 2018.  In January 2018, the Federal Reserve increased the federal funds rate by .25% and announced that we should expect 3 more rate increases in 2018.  The stock market responded by dropping 10.1% over the next 14 days.  Ouch!  They were true to their word, and we saw four rate hikes last year.  However, near the end of the year the Federal Reserve moderated it’s expectation for 2019, which came as welcome news on the stock market.  We ended the year with a federal funds rate of 2.38%, with guidance of 2.88% by the end of 2019.  Because of the effect interest rates have on the overall economy, I’ll be curious to see where we end in 2019.

It’s December again and for me, it’s the best time of year.  I love Christmas.  I enjoy the food, music, decorations, and the reminder of the year past.   Christmas time also brings out the child-like wonder of our awesome world.   Most of my memories from my youth are of cold December days with evenings of lights and hot drinks.  There is one that is different.

Welcome to the redesigned website!  I have two goals for this site.  First, for clients to find relevant information about investing and easy access to their investment account portal, Investor 360.  Second, for potential clients to get a “flavor” of my philosophical view of investing and the type of advice I give clients about the markets.   

The Roth IRA is a tax friendly retirement vehicle.  The Roth IRA allows you to invest after tax money that will grow and be distributed tax free.  All distributions will be free of income tax, both your contribution and the earnings.  For younger investors, this could be a substantial savings.