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Slick TV ads often make financial planning and wealth management sound simple, but it’s usually not. Managing wealth requires knowing a lot about highly technical topics, like taxes, government regulations, and finance as well as history, psychology and how to communicate with loved ones about sensitive issues. This article highlights some of the knowledge needed to manage wealth and why it’s often so daunting without the help of an independent personal financial advisor who is familiar with your situation.
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Understanding The Federal Reserve Mandate To End Inflation
The Federal Reserve System, the nation’s central bank, has a dual mandate to pursue maximum employment and maintain price stability. These two priorities are currently treated equally, but that was not always the case. In fact, the Fed’s bias toward maximizing employment was a critical driver of the stagflation that plagued the U.S. in the late 1960s and 1970s. Recognizing the need to balance price stability and maximum employment, in 1977, Congress revised the Federal Reserve Act.
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Fed Governor Kugler Details Inflation And Economic Outlook
The 12-month inflation rate, as measured by the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, was 2.6% in December, down from its peak of 7.1% in June 2022, and the six-month rate for PCE inflation was even lower, at 2%, which is the target rate set by the Federal Reserve.
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Why Rates May Not Be Cut Until June
The cost of a loan to buy a home, car, college education, and achieve the American Dream is staying the same for now. As expected, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank did not lower loan rates following the Fed’s Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, policy meeting.
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Practical Suggestions For Achieving Your 2024 Resolutions
New Year’s resolutions usually fail because they‘re often too hard to achieve. After six months, only 10% of people who make resolutions achieve them or remain committed to them, , according to a study by Dr. Mark Griffiths, a Chartered Psychologist and Distinguished Professor of Behavioral Addiction at the Nottingham Trent University. What can you do to make financial, medical, or other personal resolutions more likely to be achieved?
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A Sign Of Progress In Solving U.S. Economic Problems
The Federal Reserve appears to be pulling off a feat most experts did not believe it could: ending its aggressive inflation-fighting campaign of 11 interest rate hikes without tipping the U.S. economy into a recession.
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Fed Keeps Rates Unchanged; Expects Easing In 2024
To promote transparency and free markets, the Federal Reserve System began publishing the opinions of the 19 U.S. central bankers that decide interest rate policy.
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Have You Logged Into Your Social Security Account?
Have you logged in to your Social Security account? Creating an online account at SSA.gov is an important first step in understanding your retirement income situation. However, only about 60 million of the 160 million individuals in the U.S. labor force who have Social Security accounts have created a way to access the Social Security Administration’s website.
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The Great Fake Out Of 2023 Is Poised To Extend Into 2024
All year long, the economy and stock prices have fooled experts and consumers, outperforming expectations month after month.
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Test Your Financial Planning IQ
The five questions below are a challenge meant to allow you to assess your knowledge of investing, tax and financial planning. If you have been following our news stream, this quiz draws on familiar ground. The answers are below.
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Planning Briefs
Viewing Financial News Through The Long Lens Of History
Published Wednesday, January 27, 2021 at: 6:42 PM EST
Getting the news isn’t so easy these days! While being constantly bombarded, you need to filter everything you see and hear. Political, environmental, and financial news -- even sports – requires a sophisticated high-tech lens.
When filtering news about the economy and investments, it is wise to view everything through the long lens of history. It dramatically expands the scope of your knowledge, revealing a more realistic picture of what’s happening now.
For example, can you spot the major shift in the U.S. stock market in these figures?
If you answered by noting that the S&P 500 growth stocks are lagging badly, good for you! That’s right!
For small-cap value stocks to outperform the large-cap S&P 500 growth companies marked a major shift in leadership! But you could not have known that by looking at this chart of the last quarter.
To know that a new trend may be under way, you would have to know the long-term history of the stock market. Only by looking at these numbers through a long lens reflecting history would you be able to see this important shift in market leadership.
Just a quarter earlier, large cap growth stocks massively outperformed small and mid-cap value stocks, and that has been the long-term trend.
And, again, to know that, you’d have to examine the last five years of performance.
Financial news is rarely reported from the historical perspective of an investor building a sustainable retirement income stream. Count on us for financial news filtered through a lens reflecting history and investment experience.
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