Market Update: May 17, 2024
Welcome to the Monthly Market Update from Signature Wealth Management. I’m Brian Ransom, Research Director from Signature Wealth and here’s what happened in the market this month. Let’s start off with a quick inflation update and how that has affected the markets. We did get a CPI reading for the month of April which came in at 3.4% year/year. This is a very slight drop from March. The market actually took this month over month drop positively. At [...]
Scary Tweet Right?
Scary tweet, right? This particular tweet from *checks notes* TicTocTick made news on May 7, 2024, caught over 82,000 views, received 526 likes, and was reposted 117 times. What’s really scary about this tweet is it’s not true. From the fact that yield curve didn’t exist in 1929 (not really, anyways) to the false implication that inversion length translates 1:1 to recession strength, this tweet packed in a lot of falsehoods in just a couple sentences. But it is believable enough [...]
Southern Company Update, 1st Quarter 2024
Southern Company stock, along with many other utilities, has had a rare, strong rally over the last couple of weeks. Heavy buying in the utilities sector can often be a harbinger for market volatility especially if it comes at the expense of the riskier sectors like consumer discretionary stocks (clothing, vehicles, restaurants, etc.). And that’s pretty much what we’ve seen with the rally beginning April 16. Stocks like LuluLemon, Nike, and Starbucks have sold off while utilities rally in conjunction. Ultimately, [...]
Saving with a 529 College Plan
As the excitement builds for National 529 Day later this month on 5/29 [clever, eh?], it seems only appropriate to help our clients and readers to gain a better understanding of this type of college savings account. First, and foremost, you should know it’s generally unwise to fund your child/ren’s college with a 529 – as the sole account to meet college expenses. Depending upon a family’s situation, there are other types of college savings accounts that can meet your objectives [...]
How Much is Enough Life Insurance?
Last year, we published a newsletter discussing Long-Term Care insurance and some food for thought around the common question “Should I consider Long-Term Care insurance?” In keeping with this theme, I (Russell) would like to similarly address another common insurance question, “How much life insurance should I have?” Although the short answer to a question like this is “it depends”, I think it is important to understand some fundamental guidelines. However, before we can begin to look into this problem, just [...]
Why Life Insurance?
Life insurance has come a long way since the days when it was known as burial insurance and used mainly to pay for funeral expenses. Today, life insurance is a crucial part of many estate plans. You can use it to leave much-needed income to your survivors, provide for your children's education, pay off your mortgage, and simplify the transfer of assets. Life insurance can also be used to replace wealth lost due to the expenses and taxes that may follow [...]
Estate Planning 101
By definition, estate planning is a process designed to help you manage and preserve your assets while you are alive, and to conserve and control their distribution after your death according to your goals and objectives. But what estate planning means to you specifically depends on who you are. Your age, health, wealth, lifestyle, life stage, goals, and many other factors determine your particular estate planning needs. For example, you may have a small estate and may be concerned only that [...]
Soft Landing
If you’ve been listening to the financial news for the past year, you’ve probably heard many times the phrase “soft landing” when it comes to the Federal Reserves goal of reducing inflation. The Fed set out on a phase of tightening in the spring of 2022 after realizing inflation wasn’t so “transitory.” Those rate increases were very difficult for the stock and bond markets to digest in 2022, but we haven’t seen the broader economic pullback that most economists predicted in [...]
Interest Rates & Inflation – What Gives?
Last I (Ian) checked, the year is 2024, not 2022, so why are we still talking about interest rates and inflation? The markets seem to be humming along. Our government keeps publishing GDP numbers that put any inkling of a recession in doubt. Consumers continue to spend their money like they always have. But just as we started popping the champagne on easing inflation and the hopes of interest rate decreases, inflation decided it has some life left in it. January’s [...]