One of the best things about being a young adult is that you are starting fresh with countless opportunities and choices ahead of you. The downside can be that mistakes made early in life can have long lasting and sometimes expensive repercussions in terms of debt and credit. Establishing a budget is a great way to help ensure a good beginning to your financial lives. A budget is an itemized summary of expected income and expenses for typically a month’s time. It will show you how much money you expect to bring in against all your expenditures. The first step…

Please find the next blog in our monthly series that provides a review of the prior month’s market data, the state of the economy, and the global financial markets. Global Economy: Markets maintained risk-on momentum in July, even as the Federal Reserve’s rate cut left investors questioning the degree of certainty around future policy easing. Economic data releases, consumer confidence, and better-than-feared quarterly earnings reports portrayed a relatively stable environment in the US. Manufacturing data in the Eurozone warranted attention, even as the European Central Bank indicated intent to employ monetary policy tools in September to address the economic slowdown….

Background When Congress passed Section 401(k) of the Revenue Act of 1978 they began a revolutionary risk-transfer as it relates to retirement savings. With employers increasingly embracing the cash flow predictability of defined contribution plans, the percentage of private-sector employees covered by a defined benefit plan has declined from nearly 40% in the late 1970’s to less than 15% today. Being only one generation into the evolved reality of “saving for yourself,” the consumer-driven nature of the US economy could be increasingly challenged as longevity collides with an under-saved population. Working to improve financial literacy may spur better financial well-being,…

Policy Pivot Underway: Heralded as the most important meeting of the year, the FOMC was fully expected to cut the Fed Funds rate for the first time since October 2008. In direct opposition to the negative outcomes triggered by hawkish concern this past December, the ~10% rally we’ve seen in the S&P 500 since the early-June lows has been driven almost entirely by a dovish shift in global monetary policy messaging. Although the futures market had signaled a ~20% chance of rates being reduced by 50 bps, the more tempered 25 bps “insurance cut” that was delivered was clearly the…

As of June 30, 2019, the official U.S. unemployment rate resides at 3.7% which is very near the lowest in 50 years, as 21.5 million new jobs have been added in the last decade. This rate is well below the Federal Reserve’s longer run projected rate of 4.2% which has been repeatedly revised downward over the last four years from approximately 5.2%. This longer run rate is supposed to represent “full employment” in the economy. Yet there continue to be discouraged workers and businesses struggling to fill open positions. The hallmarks of full employment are typically inflation and wage growth,…