Let Freedom Ring
While attending a recent conference in Philadelphia, I had the opportunity to visit Liberty Bell. Philadelphia is such a historic city, with sites that represent the very beginnings of our nation, such as Independence Hall, the President’s House, and the Betsy Ross House. During a time in our country when there appears to be so much division, I wanted to visit a landmark that has been a symbol of freedom for all. Liberty Bell bears a timeless message: “Proclaim Liberty Throughout all the Land [...]
Guarding Your Finances Against Halloween Horrors
Halloween is here, and while the spooky season is all about costumes and candy, it is also an excellent time to reflect on the scarier aspects of our lives. Financial scares can be just as bone-chilling as any ghost story, and it is crucial to ward them off. So, grab your favorite Halloween treat, and let us dive into how to keep those money woes at bay. The Phantom Expenses Picture this: You're going about your daily life when, out of [...]
The Debt Maturity Wall
The market movement over the last couple of months can really be summarized by one graph. In my humble opinion, this is the most important graph in all of finance right now and the market is just now starting to digest its implications. This is graph of the 10-year treasury bond yield that broke its multi-decade downward trading pattern back in 2022 and continues to rise here in 2023. Stocks and bonds, farms and businesses, homeowners and renters, credit card owners [...]
Tackle the Uncertainty
The landscape of professional sports carries continuous change as priorities from the world’s top athletes fits the needs they have in their profession. NFL players model this perfectly. Over the past 3-4 years, NFL athletes are negotiating their contracts to include more guaranteed money, even at the expense of higher potential earnings. Why are they doing this? NFL players are protecting the most valuable asset they have: their income. As individuals, we buy insurance for all the most important things in [...]
Big Bifurcation: 10-year Treasury vs. Equal Weight Consumer Staples
Big bifurcation in momentum between the 10-year treasury yield (purple) and equal weight consumer staples (blue)! Staples are typically low volatility stocks with predictable earnings. But the rapid increase in the 10-year yield has forced a sell-off on both an absolute (top graph) and relative-to-S&P500 basis (bottom graph). Source: FactSet Research Systems. (n.d.). Equal weight consumer staples vs 10-year treasury yield benchmark (Interactive Charts). Retrieved October 12, 2023, from FactSet Database. This material is for informational or educational purposes only. Investing [...]
Current US Debt Level Compared to that of our Country’s History
As you can see from the chart, we’ve added $2 trillion in debt in just a couple months. I'm alarmed by the pace at which the US is adding to its debt on a year over year basis these days, so I decided to do some digging to see what our debt history has looked like. Treasury.gov has a record on US debt back to 1790. For the most part, it vacillated in the $25 million to $80 million range for the first [...]
Insurance is a Rapidly Growing Expense
Insurance is a rapidly growing expense, which is taking up more and more of the family budget each year. The average US family health insurance premium in 2000 was $6k. In 2022 the average premium is $22k, which is an increase over that time period of 249% or 5.8%/year. Inflation during that same time averaged 2.5%/year, so the cost of insurance for a family has grown at a rate of more than double that of inflation. In my business, we used to carry [...]
Home Runs and Hard-Earned Savings: Comparing the Atlanta Braves’ 2023 Baseball Season to Personal Finances
As the Atlanta Braves gear up for the playoffs, there's a curious parallel that can be drawn between the world of professional sports and our personal finances. While these two domains may seem worlds apart, they share common threads of planning, management, and the pursuit of success. In this article, we'll explore how the Braves' baseball season resembles our own financial journeys and what lessons we can glean from their playbook. Setting Clear Goals: Just as the Braves aim to win [...]
U.S. Home Prices Hit an All Time High in July
U.S Home prices hit an all time high in July while affordability dropped to new lows. How can home prices continue to rise, while affordability drops? The main culprit seems to be a lack of inventory due to limited building of new homes and Americans who are staying put in homes with debt that was financed at very low rates. If you are considering moving to a new home, would you leave a rate of 3% to go to a rate of 7.2%? Not [...]