Chart of the Week: Setting Your Expectations January 10, 2022 Investing bonds, Chart of the Week, Jeff DeMaso, stocks By Director of Research Jeff DeMaso At the start of every year, investors are inundated with outlooks and forecasts—most aren’t worth the paper they are written on. Rather than speculate on the future, I like to look back and see what history suggests our baseline expectation should be for market returns. … Read More keyboard_arrow_right
Chart of the Week: One Chart That Sums Up Stocks in 2021 December 31, 2021 Investing Chart of the Week, Jeff DeMaso, stocks By Director of Research Jeff DeMaso On the surface, 2021 was a smashing year for investors. Vanguard’s 500 Index fund gained nearly 27% (and that’s without including dividends) with barely a drawdown to speak of—the index fund spent all but two days at or within 5% of an all-time … Read More keyboard_arrow_right
Chart of the Week: Will These Giants Stay Evergreen? December 27, 2021 Investing Chart of the Week, Jeff DeMaso, stocks By Director of Research Jeff DeMaso The big just keep getting mind-bogglingly bigger. The six largest companies in the U.S.—Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Tesla and Facebook (now Meta)—make up more than a quarter of the stock market’s size. Since the low point of the pandemic market shock in March 2020, … Read More keyboard_arrow_right
Chart of the Week: Are Jobs Back? December 20, 2021 Investing Chart of the Week, Jeff DeMaso, stocks By Director of Research Jeff DeMaso On the surface, the jobs market appears healthy, as the unemployment rate fell from 6.7% to 4.2% in 2021. However, a deeper dive reveals that millions of people have yet to return to the workforce. The employment-to-population ratio (a broad measure of the state of … Read More keyboard_arrow_right
Chart of the Week: Investors are Buying the Dip December 10, 2021 Investing Chart of the Week, Jeff DeMaso, stocks By Director of Research Jeff DeMaso Buy low, sell high. It sounds easy, but it’s not. Investors pulled money out of stock mutual funds and ETFs in 22 out of 24 months in 2019 and 2020. They only returned to the market this past year. For investors that may have missed … Read More keyboard_arrow_right
Chart of the Week: Volatility Is Back December 6, 2021 Investing Chart of the Week, Jeff DeMaso, stocks By Director of Research Jeff DeMaso With omicron emerging, volatility has returned to the market. In the week following Thanksgiving, we had five consecutive trading days when the S&P 500 index rose or fell by 1% or more—the first time that has happened all year. While three of the five days … Read More keyboard_arrow_right
Chart of the Week: Investing Lessons From a Turkey November 29, 2021 Investing Chart of the Week, Jeff DeMaso, stocks By Director of Research Jeff DeMaso With Thanksgiving and the holiday season here, I’m reminded of a chart inspired by Nassim Taleb’s 2007 book, The Black Swan. In this romanticized scenario, we have a turkey that is fed every day and has come to believe that humans are great… right up … Read More keyboard_arrow_right
Chart of the Week: The State of Foreign Stocks November 22, 2021 Financial Planning Chart of the Week, foreign stocks, Jeff DeMaso, stocks By Director of Research Jeff DeMaso “Why own foreign stocks?” It’s a question I’m hearing more and more these days. I get it. Over the past decade-plus, U.S. equities have dominated foreign stocks. But that hasn’t always been the case. Foreign stocks will come back in favor… just don’t ask me … Read More keyboard_arrow_right
Chart of the Week: 401(k) and Gifting Limits Raised for 2022 November 15, 2021 Financial Planning 401(k), Chart of the Week, Jeff DeMaso, taxes By Director of Research Jeff DeMaso One upside to rising prices is that they’ve prodded the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to boost a few cost-of-living adjustments for tax year 2022. This means workers can save up to $20,500 in their company-sponsored 401(k) plans next year (a boost of $1,000 over 2021), … Read More keyboard_arrow_right