In retirement, one of the biggest challenges that people face is having their overall income keep up with inflation. According to the Department of Labor, over the last 25 years,…
According to the Census Bureau, the population of the United States is projected to be 330 million people as of January 1, 2020. 50 years ago, in 1978, the overall…
According the National Association of Realtors, the number of existing single-family homes for sale has been tracked nationally since July of 1982, for nearly four decades. The total number of…
According to the Department of Labor, for the first time since April of 2010, women make up the majority of the US workforce. As of the end of December 2019,…
According to Investopedia, inflation, measured by the consumer price index is the rate at which the general level of prices for goods and services is rising, and consequently the purchasing…
According to the social security administration, as of December of 2019 there were a total of 64 million Americans receiving monthly benefits from the Social Security administration. These recipients included…
According to BTN research, this year in 2020 is the fourth year of Donald Trump's first four-year presidential term. The S&P 500 has been positive during 19 of the last…
In the month of February, the United States is beginning its 128th consecutive month of economic expansion, which is the longest in our nation's history according to the National Bureau…
The SECURE Act of 2019, which stands for Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement, was signed into law as part of a government funding package on December 20, 2019. …
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's economy grew by 6.1% in 2019, which is the lowest year-over-year growth rate since 1990, or, 29 years. In comparison, the US…
According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, even after signing the phase one trade truce on January 15th of 2020, the average tariff imposed by China on U.S. imports…
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, as of February 2020, the United States is beginning its 128th consecutive month of an economic expansion. This is the longest in…
There was a recent study done by TD Ameritrade that interviewed over 1,000 Americans in August of 2019, and 58% of the people surveyed believed that a retiree who has…
According to the federal reserve, the average homeowner’s equity in their home has continued to go up over the last 10 years. The average loan to value ratio in the…
I recently had a conversation with a client and when we were putting together his financial plan, he said what a relief it's been to be over 65 and pay…
Last week I talked about the drastic increase in market capitalization of US stocks that as of September 30, 2019 the total market capitalization for the US stock market was…
I have talked about the market capitalization of stocks in the past, and today I would like to update you on where we are in the markets as it pertains…
I've talked in the past about the Federal Reserve using the Fed Funds Rate to help stabilize the economy by raising and lowering it, or what we call monetary policy…
According to capitalism alone, China's economy is worth $14 trillion dollars as of 2019. That is 80% owned by individual in the private sector. That compares to only 50% was…
Last week, I had talked about the total income that taxpayers had to be in for the top 1/10th of 1%, the top 1%, and the top 5%, and top…
As we come to the end of the year, you may have had a good income year, with the economy strong and unemployment low, but I recently saw on the…
Some of the talk in the media is around the Federal reserve cutting interest rates. According to Bloomberg, there are 13 trillion dollars’ worth of negative yielding bonds in the…
As we are now starting to see more and more debates and advertising for the political season coming up next year I found an interesting statistic on the Commerce Department’s…
According to The South China Morning Post, the Chinese economy grew at 6.2% in the second quarter of 2019 on a year over year basis. That was the lowest growth…
According to the Commerce Department, U.S. manufacturers have moved some of their supply chains away from China in 2019, increasing imports from Taiwan that are up 22%, and India, which…
The government measures inflation in eight major categories, and then weights them to produce an overall CPI index, or consumer price index. The consumer price index is a measure of…
According to the National Association of Realtors, the median sales price of existing homes sold in the United States, in June of 2019, was $285,700, which was a record price.…
According to the Treasury Department, foreign investors held $6.55 trillion of US Treasuries at the end of May of 2019, which is the highest level ever. Japan replace China as…
It was approximately eight years ago, on August 5th, 2011, when I was in Chicago's O'Hare Airport when it was announced, that the Standard & Poor's had downgraded the US…
On Monday, August 5th, the U.S. Treasury Department labeled China as a "currency manipulator" according to the Treasury Department. And this was the first time that the U.S. has made…
On July 31st of this year, the Federal Reserve cut their interest rate known as the Fed funds rate, by a quarter of a percent. This is the first cut…
According to the Commerce Department, as of March 31st of 2019 the overall US economy was $21 trillion in size. Fifty years ago, in 1969 the overall US economy was at…
According to BTN Research, In the last 50 years, the S&P 500 has been up 17.5% per year under a Democratic president and a Republican led Congress. Under a Republican…
So far this year we have seen the interest rates on bonds drop substantially and according to BTN research, the bond market through the end of July is up 6.3%…
According to the Treasury Department, the U.S. government has incurred an $867 billion deficit through its 10 months of fiscal of 2019, which ended July 31. During that time period,…
According to BTN research, the stock market has produced a total return of 14.7% over the last 10 years through June of 2019. The worst quarter over the last decade…
As we're coming to the late stages of the economic cycle, one of the indicators that I look at is new home construction. According to the census bureau, in 2018…
According to caring.com, 58% of Americans have not executed a will or other estate planning documents. Today I would like to go through what makes up a basic will in…
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the projected spending outlays for the U.S. government over the next 10 fiscal years is projected to be $57.8 trillion. That $57.8 trillion is…
Due to medical advances, people are living longer and longer. According to Social Security Administration, a 65-year-old couple today has a 48% chance that at least one of them will…
Today I would like to share a concept with you called Real Rate of Return I think it is important to know what your overall return on your portfolio is,…
This is the time of year when college kids graduate, and high school students start to enter the college. I know with my kids we have had many discussions about…
Often, I'm asked what the best investment is and where should I be investing my money right now. Obviously, it's difficult to know, but normally we look at overall allocations…
Student loan debt continues to become more and more talked about in the media, and I found an article from JPMorgan Chase that indicated that student loan debt reached a…
I've talked in the past about companies buying their stock back, but today, I want would like to go into a little more in detail about this because we saw…
My middle daughter will be graduating college in the next couple of weeks, and she has continued to hear me talk about the importance of how starting early in contributing…
What's happening in the market? As we're entering into the longest bull market in stock market history, it can be tempting to pull your investments out of the market and…
Today's video is going to hit home personally for me as I have one child that is graduating from college, and I have another one that is just starting college.…
Why Does the Fed Change Interest Rates? The Federal Reserve raises and lowers interest rates to try to keep the economy growing at a steady pace. As the economy weakens,…
I've seen a lot of reports from the Congressional Budget Office and most recently their 10-year projection for our government's annual budgets. What does the CBO project? In January of…
One of the bellwether Indexes in the bond market is the 10-year Treasury note. What is happening with the 10-year Treasury? According to Investopedia, a 10-year Treasury note is a…
When will the next recession be? Economists cannot say with precision when the next U.S. recession will take place, but many of the economists feel the economy is still strong…
In the beginning.... According to the Social Security administration, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the Social Security Retirement Program back in 1935, the financial analyst in the White House…
How Has Technology Affected the Workforce? According to the Department of Labor, after adjusting for inflation, manufacturing output in the United States is up 62% over the last 30 years…
What is the average age to start saving? According to Nationwide Retirement Institute, a November 2018 survey of 1,161 employed adults determined that the average age which this group began…
The most common question I'm asked by clients is: Are we heading into a recession, or when do you think the recession will start? Certainly, nobody knows the answer to…
Why is my investment time horizon important? As I indicated before, 2018 was a challenging year for the majority of asset classes. But I want to reiterate the importance of…
According to the published On Balance newsletter, the proposed budget for fiscal 2019 is $4.4T. The government estimates that it will receive approximately $3.4T creating almost a $1T deficit. Where…
What did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 do? The recent Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was signed into law in December of 2017 included a one-time…
What is the S&P 500? When we refer to the S&P 500, the S&P 500 is a market value weighted index with each stock weighed in the index proportionate to…
What was the budget deficit for 2018? According to the Treasury Department, the budget deficit for the United States in its fiscal 2018 year, which ended on September 30th of…
In the fourth quarter of last year, from the peak of the market in September to the bottom of the market on December 24th, the overall stock market according to…
In my 30-year career, one of the things that we continue to convey to clients is diversification. Why is diversification important? Normally having money in different asset classes tends to…
Over the years, we have become accustomed to hearing everything about billions. Billions of people, billions in market cap, billions in sales but it appears now everything seems to be…
Today's video is going to hit home personally as my youngest son is a senior in high school, and we are now starting to evaluate the differences in tuition from…
Household Income Hits A New High As the economy has continued to grow during this economic cycle, it appears that household income has been going up too. According to the…
In all of my years as an investment advisor, the question I am asked the most is: How much money do I need to have to retire comfortably? Certainly, this…
Over the years we've seen a significant change in pension plans and today I wanted to talk to you about the defined benefit plan versus the defined contribution plans and…
What does it mean to diversify? I think an important concept that we've all heard over the years, but I think is often underutilized, is the case for diversification. When…
The government debt continues to grow, as does the interest cost. Welcome to Friday's financial fitness. I know that I have talked before a lot about our governments overall debt. But today…
Sara Carlson
Debra Pladsen
Lisamarie Langworthy
Daniel Langworthy