In my final update of 2025, I wrote about "The Year of the Threepeat," celebrating an incredibly rare market milestone: three consecutive years of double-digit S&P 500 growth. However, if you’ve been paying attention to the headlines—or checking your accounts over the last three months—you know that the first quarter of 2026 has brought us some unwelcome volatility.
Back-to-back double-digit growth years are not that uncommon, but 3 years of double-digit stock market growth is pretty darn rare. In fact, the S&P 500 has had 10% or greater growth for 3 years in a row only 11 times in the last 100 years!...
People frequently refer to the stock market as a “casino”, as if they have zero influence over the financial result of their decision(s). However, there are at least two important differences between gambling on slot machines and investing in an actual business, or a collection (portfolio) of businesses: Entitlement and predictability.
The temperature here in Michigan has been sweltering. Summer has seemed to drag on, and until recently, it brought a drought with it! The unfortunate circumstances for farmers have not extended to markets, however. The third quarter brought huge gains across stock markets and modest gains across bond markets.
Patience has been the key so far in 2025. In reality, patience is always the best practice when it comes to investing, but understandably, the first four months of the year tested many people's patience. Thankfully, things have recovered...
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.
I love a good story or analogy as much as anyone, but with everything going on right now, I feel it's best to just get down to the brass tacks. I want to share how markets are doing and that FSG is being proactive. I think many may be surprised to find out that their accounts are doing much better than anticipated given the news cycle.
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...