Michael

What do markets hate?

They hate uncertainty, and recently there has been plenty of it. Some of the questions plaguing economists and pundits include…

“We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life would be a sorry business without them. With them it’s grand and great.”
–Lucy Maude Montgomery, Author

Uncle Inflation is here. Will he overstay his welcome?

Weekly Market Commentary May 10, 2021-No one knows how the COVID-19 pandemic will be remembered over time, but it appears to have influenced the way people think about money in some significant ways. An April 2021 Bank of America survey reported:

• 81 percent of participants saved money, that would normally be spent on entertainment, dining, and travel, and set it aside in emergency, savings, and other types of accounts.
• 46 percent used pandemic downtime to put their finances in order.
• 44 percent said their risk tolerance changed: 23 percent became more aggressive and 21 percent more cautious.

If the pandemic has changed your thinking, let’s review your financial plan and align it with your current circumstances and thinking.

“I am not more gifted than the average human being. If you know anything about history, you would know that is so – what hard times I had in studying and the fact that I do not have a memory like some other people do…I am just more curious than the average person and I will not give up on a problem until I have found the proper solution. This is one of my greatest satisfactions in life – solving problems – and the harder they are, the more satisfaction do I get out of them. Maybe you could consider me a bit more patient in continuing with my problem than is the average human being. Now, if you understand what I have just told you, you see that it is not a matter of being more gifted but a matter of being more curious and maybe more patient until you solve a problem.”

Fueled by government stimulus and vaccinated Americans more confident to leave home, retail sales jumped 9.8%. Also in good news, initial jobless claims fell below 600,000 for the first time since last March, and inflation, despite initial fears, is only making a slow creep upward. Our Weekly Market Commentary gives you the details and discussion.

Investors didn’t stumble over inflation last week. Why not?Inflation – rising prices of goods and services – can be measured in a variety of ways. For example, the Consumer Price Index considers changes in the amount consumers pay for goods and services – a bag of carrots, a gallon of gas, or a doctor’s appointment. […]

Big economies tend to recover from recessions about as quickly as semi-trucks accelerate from stop lights. In other words, recovery tends to be slow. That may not be the case this time.

March 29, 2021