To Inspire: Two weeks ago, CBS Sunday Morning shared the touching story of 11-year-old Ruby Chitsey of Harrison, Arkansas who sometimes joins her mom Amanda, a nurse, when she travels to local nursing homes to provide basic medical care.  It was on one of those visits that Ruby started going into residents’ rooms with her […]

To Inform:  The global stock market has had a terrific start in 2019, with the MSCI All Country World Index returning over 7% in January and adding to those gains in February.  The key question on investors’ minds is “will the stock market gains continue?” As we discussed at a recent “Portfolios and Pints” event, […]

To Inspire: Perhaps you’ve heard of Meb Keflezighi, a world-class marathoner and an American citizen originally from Eritrea – a small war-torn country on the horn of Africa.  For all of us facing the challenge of aging, Meb’s story (shared in the March 2019 issue of Guideposts Magazine) is a great inspiration.  Meb Keflezighi*   […]

To Inspire: I (Matt Palmer) am just getting back from a four-day trip to visit our daughter, Mary Grace, who is doing a year of volunteer work at the St. Joseph Center which serves individuals and families experiencing homelessness on the west side of LA.  Here is a quick video that shares my experience at […]

To Inform:  So far in 2019, stock prices have gone up but analyst estimates of corporate earnings across the world have been declining.  The chart below looks at MSCI World (the entire global stock market) earnings estimates for 2019.  Since October, the estimate for global earnings has fallen from about $144 per share to $137 […]

To Inform:  The S&P 500 rebounded +7.9% in January after a large drawdown of -9.2% in December. Those are some big numbers for one month periods, but neither should really be considered “normal.” Source: Payden & Rygel   The chart from Payden & Rygel is a nice visual of the historical monthly returns dating back […]

To Inspire: Have you noticed how challenging it is to become the person you want to be, the best version of yourself? Benjamin Franklin desired to become the best version of himself; he shared in his own journal that he wanted to be a man of high moral character, a virtuous man.  And as a […]

To Inform:  At last week’s Portfolio’s at Panera event, we asked the attendees to be Portfolio Managers for the morning.  Each client/friend of The Joseph Group was given a worksheet and was asked if they were managing an investment portfolio, whether they would be “Overweight,” “Underweight,” or “Neutral” across four primary asset classes.  The discussion […]

To Inspire: The magazine Cure is free to cancer patients, survivors or caregivers. Source: https://curetoday.com   Its recent “bonus” issue includes an article titled “Keeping The Faith”.  Patients with cancer who have a religious or spiritual belief system report better physical health, according to the results of a meta-analysis of studies involving more than 32,000 […]

To Inspire: Tommy Spaulding, our good friend and nationally known speaker and author, shared in his January 22nd blog that a recent study indicated that the average person in this country will influence up to 80,000 people in their lifetime – either positively or negatively.  Here was Tommy’s reaction: That is profound. I can’t stop thinking […]