The headline Consumer Price Index is important only as a general gauge What will inflation be in the coming years? The real answer is that it varies according to your age and spending patterns. Inflation wallops someone with kids in college, and might be hardly noticeable to stay-at-home types. Recent inflation will stun someone looking for a used car, but might be a yawner for someone shopping for a new car. Inflation is a sustained increase in prices for general
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COVID changed minds about working from home, maybe this is next There is a storm raging between employers and employees that is unlikely to go away any time soon. On the one hand are employers, who hope to have their offices up and running by the end of the year – with employees in those offices. On the other hand are employees, who prefer to stay remote indefinitely. Both reference data that reinforces their position and both sides will end
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Fear-of-missing-out is a very real emotion – but it can derail your portfolio Every day we’re bombarded with reports of what’s hot and what’s not – fueling a fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) on some great investment opportunity. There is even a new exchange traded fund with FOMO in its name. However, a diversified portfolio is still the best way for you to maximize returns while minimizing risk. The anxiety that we feel when we believe something better is happening elsewhere isn’t unique
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Four questions to ask your advisor, plus tools to do your own research Bernie Madoff, mastermind of the biggest investment fraud in history after he defrauded more than 40,000 people of over $65 billion, died at the age of 82 in prison on April 14, 2021. Considered by many to be the archfiend of the financial world, his death will haunt the financial industry for years, despite his 150-year prison sentence that he started more than a decade ago. Regaining
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Markets Reach New Highs in Q12021 Global equity markets had a choppy first quarter, but when the final Wall Street-bell tolled on March 31st, global markets had turned in some very solid performance numbers on their way to new record highs. Given that investors did see interest rates rise, oil prices jump, inflation worries reappear and continued headwinds from COVID-19 surface, the first quarter returns for the major U.S. and global, developed markets was nothing short of impressive. For the
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A list of must-dos for 40 and 50 year old captains that have run aground On March 23rd, the massive, skyscraper-sized container ship named the Ever Given ran aground and got stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal. It took about a week for more than a dozen tugboats, dredgers, engineers, salvage teams, and a full moon that brought an unusually high tide to free the behemoth. While it’s still not clear exactly how it got stuck in the first place, experts
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Can we see patterns from one year to the next or is it a maddening bracket? Newspapers, radio, and TV news programs refer to the Dow Jones Industrial Average every day, calling it the Dow, sometimes the Dow Jones or even the DJIA. And economists and financial advisors pay close attention to its daily changes and the longer trends. But what exactly is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, does it really matter and can one see performance patterns from year
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New guidelines to employee benefit plans for 2020 and 2021 On February 18, 2021, the Internal Revenue Service announced greater flexibility to employee benefit plans offering health flexible spending arrangements (FSAs) or dependent care assistance programs. Under the COVID-related Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020, these plans now have additional discretion in 2021 and 2022 to adjust their programs to help employees. Under such health flexible spending arrangements or dependent care assistance programs, an employer allows employees
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Examples of asset bubbles that kept growing and popped spectacularly Bitcoin is going through another spectacular price move so far in 2021, rising from about $28,000 on January 1st to about $48,000 in mid-February. And other cryptocurrencies have come along for the ride, with Dogecoin (pronounced “dozhe-coin”), being one of the oddest of the bunch. Why is it odd? Well, Dogecoin was originally a joke cryptocurrency, taking its name from the “doge” internet meme that showed a picture of a
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Although a year away, your 2021 tax planning should have already started Amidst all the pandemic news and 2020 election drama, many might have missed that the IRS also quietly published new 2021 tax rates in late October and there are plenty of changes that will impact taxpayers in 2021. While it’s more than a year away (these changes are for 2021 returns filed by taxpayers in 2022), there are a few changes that you should know about. Rules Not
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