Markets continued their banner year in Q3, albeit with some bumps and major rotations. Noticeably, investors preferred small-cap, mid-cap, and emerging market stocks over the dominant force of the “big US tech” stocks...
Instinctively investors know they should diversify their portfolio and most do this. Having looked at hundreds, if not thousands, of portfolios, I can tell you that diversification amounts to more than just owning multiple funds. A common mistake that investors make when trying to diversify their IRA or 401k is that they, inadvertently, create a portfolio that has the illusion of diversification...
I often field this question from clients around election season. I find that everyone has different motivations for it, as well. Some clients are understandably concerned about their retirement savings being negatively affected by a change (or sometimes a continuation) in leadership. However, almost equally, other people are excited about the growth opportunities and policy changes that a presidential election could bring.
Following a prosperous first quarter, the market continued to perform well in the second quarter. Most sectors of the market performed well with a few, albeit notable, exceptions. Let's take a deeper look into interest rates, global diversification, and what is to come.
Anyone can seem like a good financial advisor when markets are doing well. The expectation investors have when investing in capital markets is to make money, so when expectations are easy to meet, the bar tends to be set pretty low. However, it’s downturns in the markets that separate great financial advisors from mediocre ones. It’s times like these when people may wonder what their financial advisor is doing during this bear market.
By no measure was 2022 a good year for investors. Looking into 2023, there are three issues that will impact the market: The Fed and Interest Rates, Ukraine/Russia/Energy, China/Supply Chains.
When someone says “The Stock Market,” often the images that come to mind are screaming traders in blue jackets or a large mahogany desk perched atop the glass and steel of Wall Street’s skyscrapers. While everyone has a different image of the stock market, when gauging how well the market is doing, most investors think of the same two or three market indexes. The problem with using these popular indexes as the comparison is that investors are often much more diversified and conservative than these “benchmarks.”
We are facing a bump in the road right now, and I can feel anxiety and panic coming from some clients. I’m writing this today to hopefully relieve some of those emotions and explain what has happened in markets, why it has happened, and what FSG is doing. In addition, this past Monday, the 9th, Mark Carter and I recorded a video talking about many of the same things.