Insights

One of the chief failings in investment choices in retirement plans is the lack of fixed income choices. Why it is that companies offer 18 different stock funds and 1 or 2 income funds is beyond me. Generally, there is an intermediate-term bond fund like PIMCO Total...

The EU has set a deadline for a Cyprus bailout. Of course, deadlines were made to be broken in this sort of negotiating. And you thought it was strange that Greece, a small part of Europe's economic output was pretty small to be moving markets around the world! How...

The U.S. stock markets followed the lead of Asia and Europe and rose today, up about 2/3%. That puts them back near the high of the year. Over the last week, stocks have sort of stalled and as I wrote a week ago, a flattening and even a slight drop was to be expected....

The tiny country of Cyprus, which as you know is just an island in the Mediterranean Sea, and is one of the countries in the Eurozone, made news this weekend by announcing a bailout plan for their government that included taxing bank deposits to the tune of as much as...

Retail sales were reported up 1.1% today. Last week, the employment numbers appeared to be unexpectedly good. Now, the WSJ reports from a survey of business leaders that 71% expect sales to grow this year and are looking for overall economic growth of 2%. Finally, the...

Last month I received the Accredited Investment Fiduciary designation (AIF). I have worked with retirement plans for many years but this training took me to a new level. I see consulting with retirement plans as the highest growth area for my business, although I will...

I recently got back from 12 days in Israel, an amazing trip that was courtesy of a wonderful group that just wanted to bless my wife and I. If you go, try to go with Randy Smith of Wandering Shepherd Ministries, a former archeologist, long-time Bible scholar and...

The Commerce Dept reported today that factory orders came in +1.8% for December, about 20% under estimates. Orders for core capital goods were actually down in December, down -0.3%. That doesn't bode well for future business. However, it followed 3% numbers for the...

Yesterday, Israeli airplanes struck at least one target inside Syria. Israel is concerned about two things - missiles and other military equipment that Iran ships to Syria that is often intended for Hezbollah, and the chance that Syria's cache of chemical weapons...

The Chicago region ISM report was much stronger than indicated, usually a good indicator of manufacturing strength. On the other hand, weekly jobless claims were higher. I am not so much interested in weekly jobs data; it varies a lot. But, as I have often written,...