It’s unavoidable! Day in and day out since the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 we have been hearing and reading about the budget deficit, stimulus packages and repeated extensions of unemployment insurance. These programs are no longer expressed in millions or billions of dollars. In fact, they seem to have skipped the billion-dollar mark...Read More

“Markets climb a wall of worry” is an old saying about the stock market. And there has been plenty to be worried about over the past six months. The very foundation of our financial system has been shaken to its core by the sub-prime and credit crisis, which has in turn destabilized the entire global...Read More

Did you ever notice how some people spend all their time being miserable because they don’t like what they’re doing or because they’re unhappy about something in their lives? Have you noticed these same people taking out their frustrations on others? I’ve been studying this phenomenon over the past decade. I’ve been especially curious as...Read More

It’s been a while since we have seen the devastating market action that we have experienced these past few months. As advisors who council our clients to do the right thing, its very upsetting to see the value of our homes and portfolios depreciate as much as they have this past year. With the exception...Read More

The second quarter started on a fairly optimistic note, but following a brief upswing from March to May, the markets experienced a sharp sell-off as underlying concerns about inflation and the fundamental strength of the economy resurfaced. Energy costs, escalating prices and continuing turmoil in the credit markets weighed heavily on both domestic and foreign...Read More

If you haven’t vacationed abroad recently, you might be unaware of the U.S. dollar’s sharp decline against many of the world’s major currencies. Most Americans don’t look at the value of the dollar everyday, as they do the stock and bond markets. It’s typically only when you travel to a foreign country that you realize...Read More

I recently spotted an article in Barron’s magazine about the Standard & Poor’s 500 index retracing its losses from March 2000, when the index hit a record high, to May 2007, the so-called breakeven date, when it closed at a new record high. This period included the three-year bear market that began in March of...Read More

The current vogue for hedge funds has caused this once arcane corner of the investment world to grow exponentially, doubling its assets under management in the last five years to about $1.4 trillion spread among 9,200 funds. Hedge funds once required you to be rich and put up big bucks to get in. Due to...Read More

On the last day of August 2007 the U.S. crossed a historic fiscal milestone some would call it a millstone as the national debt topped $9 billion, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt at the Treasury Department, prompting Congress to once again raise the federal debt ceiling. The interest paid in 2006 on...Read More