Perspective in the Panic

Back in 1987, right after the markets had experienced the famous “Black Monday” decline which took the Dow Jones Industrial Average down by 22.6%, the weekly Barron’s financial publication featured, on its cover, a suitcase with the frightened eyes of a Wall Street broker peeking out of its dark recesses, and an arm reaching out […]

2019 Year-End Market Update

We have just completed the final quarter, not only of the year, but also the decade. It is a good time to reflect upon the market’s behavior.  The short version is that we have experienced a bull market for the entire ten-year period. No bear stock market periods (-20% declines) and only a few 10% […]

Our Upcoming Holiday Hours

We want to wish you a safe and happy holiday season, and also let you know about the upcoming office closures: Thursday, 12/19/2019: Closed from 12:00PM to 5:00PM Normal business hours will resume on Friday, 12/20/19. Tuesday, 12/24/19, and Wednesday, 12/25/19: Closed all day Normal business hours will resume on Thursday, 12/26/19. Tuesday, 12/31/19: Closed […]

2019 Third Quarter Market Update

The latest three month returns in the U.S. and International stock markets can be viewed with two very different attitudes.  The first is that many indices (though not all) produced a loss for the quarter, and where there were gains, they tended to be very small.  On the other hand, the losses, where they occurred, […]

Equifax and Capital One Data Breach

There has been a lot of news regarding the Equifax and Capital One data breaches.  We felt the following information is important to get to you. Under federal law you are entitled to a copy of your credit report annually from all three credit reporting agencies – Experian®, Equifax® and TransUnion® – once every 12 […]

SFA Timely Topic: Second Quarter Market Update

We found the following post by Brian Wesbury, Chief Economist at First Trust, well written and worth sharing. As of today, the current economic expansion is the longest in US history. Ten years and a day. But just because it’s the longest doesn’t mean it’s the best. The expansions of the 1960s, 1980s, and 1990s, […]

2019 First Quarter Market Update

The long, painful market decline in the last month of 2018 seemed to promise more of the same for the new year of 2019, but at the end of the first quarter, the results couldn’t have been more different.  The U.S. market, measured by a variety of indices, posted its biggest one-quarter gain since the […]

2018 Market Review – Another Viewpoint

2018—Not as bad as it seemed… Not long ago I was walking through a city park.  High on a tree was a sign showing the high-water mark from the last great flood.  The analogy struck me… We as investors always remember the high-water mark of our portfolio’s value.  Never mind that we didn’t liquidate it […]

2018 Market Review

This was the year the long, seemingly endless bull market came to a crashing halt–and U.S. investors finally, for the first time since 2008, experienced the normal definition of a bear market (down 20% from the S&P 500’s all-time high on September 20).  The bottom fell out in the final month of the year, which […]

2018 Third Quarter Market Update

Why is my portfolio underperforming the US stock market? That is a common question we are hearing these days.  Understandably, you see in the media that the stock market is reaching new all-time highs, then you look at your portfolio and see either no gains, or a gain considerably lower than the one posted by […]