Insights

Is the Stock Market Undervalued After Falling 25% This Year?

The top chart shows the price to earnings ratio of the S&P 500 Stock Market Index. We are now only down to the top end of the long term range. The ratio is not perfect. It can spike when earnings go down a lot as it did in 2003, 2009, and 2020 so you have to...

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Retirement as a Life Goal

Over my nearly 40-year career I have advised a lot of people on retirement planning. Here some key thoughts -  A life goal of no longer being productive but just playing or piddling every day is not consistent with the way God wired men. Adam was put in the...

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INVESTMENT STRATEGY NOTES

We are almost completely out of stocks right now because the trend in the market is sharply lower and I think it could continue to drop quite a bit.

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Is Stagflation Back?

It’s BAACKK!! Talking about inflation. Here are the last 12 months of inflation data per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. We have not seen 5% inflation since the 1980s but here it is again. Why? Take your pick. Shortages due to the economic shutdown and pernicious...

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Bond Funds are Falling – What’s in Your Plan?

Interest rates are rising, not because the Federal Reserve isn't trying to do everything in its power to keep them low and finance an explosion in federal debt, but because the "bond vigilantes" are revolting based on a rising inflation rate and a massive 25% increase...

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Major Strategy Change

Growth is Accelerating The federal government is attempting to stimulate growth as much as it can by massive spending, pushing debt to a level relative to the size of the economy that surpasses even WWII. I think you know how I feel about that. This is not WWIII, not...

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What is Modern Monetary Theory and Who Cares?

You should care. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is the new economic theory used as justification for the massive spending you are seeing in Washington and ignoring soaring deficits. What is it? It is the theory that government spending creates new money and this new...

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The Non-COVID Blowout Bill

The WSJ main op-ed, one of the best things you can read on a regular basis, called out the House today on how much of the pending $1.9 trillion COVID relief package has nothing to do with COVID. How much? At least $1.1 trillion, maybe as much as $1.5 trillion if you...

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Inflation – It’s Back! Should You be Worried?

If you're as old as me you remember the high inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. That inflation was caused by years of very low interest rates and high federal spending in the 1950s for fear the post-war economy would regress to Depression days, then runaway...

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401(k) Low Risk Choices – What Now?

OK, plan fiduciaries, now that U.S. Treasury yields average 1% on the 10-year note, what are you going to provide for employees in the way of low risk investment options? More to the point, what are your older participants supposed to do to protect their retirement...

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