Earlier today, a voting member of the U.S. Federal Reserve (Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren) made statements which created a strong market reaction.  According to Rosengren, the Fed believes continuing to keep interest rates low may present “longer-term risks from significantly overshooting the economy’s growth.”  As a result he stated “a reasonable case can be made for continuing to pursue a gradual normalization in monetary policy.” Members of the Fed seem to always speak in confusing sentences and big words, but to the financial markets, Rosengren’s words meant one thing…

Flat. Frustrated. While these two words describe the stock market and the mood of investors respectively, it is important to be smart in responding to what the market is doing. After all, Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” With that in mind we share with you two crucial concepts to consider in this range-bound environment.

The biggest question on clients’ minds – Does the rough start for the market this year foreshadow the coming of a bigger bear market? Looking at a graph showing some of the worst 10-day starts to a year remind us positive returns could be in store for 2016.

In the first four trading days of 2016, U.S. stock market indexes have declined approximately -5%, the worst four day start to a year for the Dow and S&P 500 in history, according to FactSet data going back to 1897.  The catalysts for the decline seem like an almost exact replay of last August’s correction – news of slowing economic growth in China, China devaluing their currency, and the Chinese government interfering with free operation of their stock market. Let’s look at each piece to discuss what is happening:

This past week, all eyes were on Congress and the debt ceiling negotiations. A budget deal was struck, but there were a couple important provisions of that bill not being talked about which impact Social Security claiming options. Specifically, two key strategies were targeted which are now being phased out.