To Inform: A week ago, most of us were digesting our Thanksgiving meals and few people had ever heard of the Omicron variant of COVID. That’s certainly changed in the last few days as Omicron has dominated the headlines. Stock markets have seesawed in the past week with moves in both directions, but the chart […]

To Inform:  One of the interesting things about investing is that one can look to the past for parallels that can help navigate the present environment. We’re often asked how high we think inflation can go, and for how long. Sometimes in these conversations a repeat of the 1970s comes up as a worst-case scenario. […]

To Inform:  Some things are hard – like open heart surgery, learning a new language, and negotiating with a hungry toddler. Charitable giving shouldn’t be hard, and a donor advised fund (DAF) can make it even easier. The saying “cash is king” doesn’t hold true for charitable giving. You can make a bigger impact – […]

To Inform: One of my favorite quotes is by Bradley Vinson, and it goes like this: Money is a tool. Used properly it makes something beautiful – used wrong it makes a mess!” This begs the question, who were some of the people that influenced your experience and path with savings and investing? For me, […]

To Inform: If you pick up any newspaper or turn on a financial news channel you won’t have to wait very long to see something about inflation, supply chains, and shortages. We’ve all heard about the spectacular increases in used car prices, shortages in super markets, and a housing market that has defied expectations over […]

Is Debt a Four-Letter Word? Imagine delivering a word association exercise with “debt” as the subject word. Would you expect responses like “opportunity”, “easy”, “cheap”, or “investment”? Probably not. Debt can carry a negative connotation due to our association with bad debt, such as high-interest credit cards or payday loans. What can be lost is […]

To Inform:  Earlier this week, I had a client ask if we could talk later in the day about the recent market volatility. When he sent his email that morning, the Dow was down -400 points… when we talked a few hours later, all of the market indexes were showing green and the Dow was […]

To Inform: China watchers have noted a marked shift in the attitude the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has taken towards the business class in China. Chairman XI has been using the phrase “common prosperity” to describe the CCP’s philosophy of narrowing the country’s wealth gap between rich and poor. This philosophy of common prosperity has […]

To Inform:  One of the biggest tailwinds to the strong stock market returns in the US over the past decade is the expanding profit margins in publicly traded US companies. Expanding margins, the result of lower interest rates, steady input costs (materials and labor) and modest price increases have contributed to this rise in profit […]

To Inform: We’ve seen a few personalities in the financial media call this month “The September to Remember” because there is a lot going on in the world. Let’s take a look at a non-exhaustive list: The Federal Reserve is meeting next week and talk is they will preview a “tapering plan” to reduce bond […]