Understanding What Drives Higher Prices Can Help Improve Retirement Planning According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2024 Retirement Confidence Survey, 83% of workers are concerned that the higher cost of living will make it harder to save as much as they want toward retirement. If you’re like most retirement savers, you’ve likely had concerns [...]
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is scheduled to sunset. Get your planning done soon so you don't miss out. "Due to personally owned life insurance and estate growth over time, more clients than you might think could be impacted by the estate tax sunset." The current estate tax exemption amount is historically high, but it’s [...]
The State of Play In a July 21 open letter posted on social media, President Biden wrote that he has concluded “it is in the best interest” of the Democratic Party and the country for him to “stand down from reelection” and subsequently posted on X that Vice President Kamala Harris has his “full [...]
The S&P 500 strung together 37 record highs this year aboard an 18.1% rally, as of July 10. The advance has largely been powered by a handful of mega cap names tied to technology and/or artificial intelligence. In fact, six stocks — NVIDIA (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META), and Alphabet [...]
With stock valuations elevated after such a strong first half, earnings growth will be key to holding, or potentially building on these gains. LPL Research believes stocks have gotten a bit over their skis, but earnings season may not be the catalyst for a pullback in the near term given all signs point to another [...]
India has emerged as a compelling economic growth story and an increasingly attractive alternative to China within the emerging markets complex. A growing population with a robust and young workforce, significant infrastructure spending, and an ongoing digital transformation have been key catalysts to India’s outperformance over China. India has also benefited from the de-globalization [...]
Volatility has returned right on queue as U.S. equity markets continue to pull back from overbought levels. The recent jump in interest rates has proven to be too much too fast for stocks to absorb, especially for the heavyweight and longer-duration technology sector. Deteriorating economic conditions in China and weak seasonal trends have been [...]
Earnings Estimates for 2023 Impressively Rose Last Week With just over half of S&P 500 companies having reported results, the consensus estimate for S&P 500 year-over-year earnings growth in the first quarter is -3.7%, up more than 2 percentage points from the prior week. While an earnings recession is likely, with a second straight [...]
Do we have a Santa Claus rally in the making? The midterms produced mixed government, which we see as supportive to stocks due to political gridlock reducing the policy uncertainty that can weigh on market sentiment. We are also moving into a stage of the presidential cycle that has been historically supportive. Year three [...]
Do Rising Interest Rates Impact US Debt? Congress—and in particular, the House of Representatives—is invested with the “power of the purse”; the ability to tax and spend public money for the national government. And spend they have. Total outstanding government debt currently stands at just over $31 trillion and that number will likely increase, regardless [...]
