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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
Ten Things About 10-Year U.S. Stock Market Performance
Published Thursday, July 26, 2018 at: 7:00 AM EDT
Although a picture is said to be worth a thousand words, out of respect for your time, here are 290 words about this chart of U.S. stock market performance over an amazing decade.
1. Over the 10-year period ended June 30, 2018, the S&P 500 total return index gained +163%, an average annual return of 16.3%, compared to the average annually since 1926 of 10%.
2. From the financial crisis bottom on March 9, 2009, the S&P 500 total return index through June 2018 gained +389% - an average return in those nine years of 43.2%.
3. In the nine-year bull run, stocks "corrected" - market-speak for a decline of 10% to 20% - four times, and each double-digit setback came in the last five years.
4. An investor with perfect timing predicted the March 9, 2009 low during the bottom of the 40% drop in prices in the bear market of 2008-9, which no one could, and then held for the next nine years, despite four corrections.
5. An investor with the worst possible timing, who put their retirement nest egg in stocks at market peak a decade ago, just before values plunged by 40%, in the decade, averaged a return of 16.3% annually.
6. The Great Recession decline of 40% was one of the worst bear markets in modern U.S. history.
7. Those within five years of retiring are at the greatest risk to bad timing and can be mitigated by strategically allocating assets, which is crucial to pre-retirees.
8. America's 500 largest publicly held companies more than fulfilled their role as the engine of growth in a broadly diversified retirement portfolio.
9. Understanding 10 years of stock market performance requires knowing statistics, but mostly depends on knowing the history of domestic and global financial assets, along with economic fundamentals driving growth.
10. No one can predict the end of a bear or bull market or the stock market's next big move.
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