Insights

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,...

Surprise? After a stronger than expected growth of 3.1% in the 3rd quarter of 2012, the first estimate of 4Q growth showed a DROP of 0.1%. Analysts were only looking for growth of 1% but not many expected a drop. Contributers were a big drop in defense spending and...

Yesterday, Apple did what it almost never does - disappoint analysts with its quarterly earnings report. Worse, it reported earnings no higher than the same quarter (4th quarter) as a year ago. And, unit sales of iPhones and iPads came in at the low end of...