By Steven Smith | Waypoints
The markets shook off news of dramatic bank runs and failed banks being taken over by the FDIC and sold off in piece parts. Led by a big rebound in technology stocks, the S& P 500 (Total Return) Index gained 7.57% in the quarter. Large cap growth technology stocks were up 14.3% with large cap […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Meanderings , Wealth Management
Artificial Intelligence applications — and especially chatbots, which can seemingly research and write like us humans, are becoming increasingly prevalent. Chatbots are by no means perfect in the output they produce. And they are somewhat controversial, particularly in academia, as students begin to use them to assist with their homework. The following answer to the […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Waypoints
Well, that was fun. It wasn’t quite the worst ever year for stocks. Thank goodness for that. But bonds had one of (if not) their worst years ever. Consequently, the role that bonds usually play in a portfolio – buffering losses in the occasional bad years for stocks – didn’t happen – and even balanced […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | ESG Investing , Meanderings , Uncategorized
The political football has been tossed back into the hands of workplace retirement investors who want to take their values into account in managing their portfolios. At the end of 2020, the US Department of Labor, responsible under ERISA for regulating 401Ks, changed the rules for sustainable investing, moving the goal posts for fiduciaries by […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Waypoints
Talk about a yo-yo. We reached bear market (top-to-bottom drawdown of 20% or greater) status twice this year. The S & P 500 (total return) index was down 22% on June 13, 2022. Then recovered to be down only 9% on August 16. But ended the third quarter down 24% for the year. Since I […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Uncategorized
Every spring, the bears in Colorado’s high country come out of hibernation. (In fact, we just had one – pictured below – stop by for dinner with us the other day.) Thankfully, bear markets are not quite so regular. But they do occur periodically and we are experiencing one right now. Interestingly, use of that […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Peak Thoughts
To paraphrase Mark Twain: Everybody talks about inflation, but nobody does anything about it. Inflation, simply defined, is the erosion of the purchasing power of money over time. It is a natural phenomenon in a growing economy. A ticket to the bleachers at Fenway Park cost my parents $1.00 when I was a kid. A […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Meanderings
Planning for our senior years would be so much easier if we knew how long we will live and the state of our health toward the end of our lives. In my specialty of retirement planning, I have to ask my clients to ponder the imponderable: late-life care. In this article I share information about […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Uncategorized , Waypoints
We finally turned the corner on Covid (hopefully) and now find our European allies facing the worst military crisis since World War II — and possibly on the precipice of a nuclear confrontation with the out-of-control Russian leader. After being down by over 10% mid-quarter, the S & P 500 (total return) Index ended the […]
Continue readingBy Steven Smith | Meanderings , News , Uncategorized
On Wednesday night, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin followed through on his threat to invade his neighbor, the sovereign nation of Ukraine. It is difficult to know his actual motivations and what his plan is. But this is obviously an affront to the post-WW War II international order. And a tragedy for the Ukrainian people. […]
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