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Higher Home Prices Last Decade Made Homes Unaffordable For Many
Posted on January 21st, 2020
A decade ago when the financial crisis was still a recent threat, the Federal Reserve embarked on a massive stimulus campaign to fortify and expand the housing market for millions of Americans. The objective was to facilitate low mortgage rates that would make buying a home affordable for everyone. Even though mortgage rates dropped to […]
Lockbox 2019 Year in Review
Posted on January 17th, 2020
December 2019 Market Performance The stock market continued to display strength through the final month of 2019 despite some turbulence at the start. The early volatility was largely the result of increasingly aggressive trade rhetoric which likely spooked investors who still remember the holiday downturn in 2018. These tensions eased in the second half of […]
Financial Markets Hope to Maintain Status Quo
Posted on January 13th, 2020
Stocks Remain on Positive Trajectory In sharp contrast to 2018, equity markets advanced in 2019 with gains not seen since 2013. Technology, financials, and communications were the leading S&P 500 sectors in 2019. Total stock market value increased $7.5 trillion for the year. The equity market rebound from its topple in December 2018 was unexpected […]
January 2020 Economic Snapshot
Posted on January 10th, 2020
Financial markets experienced a bountiful time for stocks and bonds over the last decade, as a low rate environment fostered by the Federal Reserve and technological advances driven by innovation, catapulted values higher. The 2010 decade was the first decade to avoid a domestic economic recession, with accelerated growth in various sectors including technology, healthcare, […]
Have You Heard These 5 Money Myths?
Posted on January 3rd, 2020
Has anyone ever made an unfair assumption about your money habits? Was that assumption based on how old you are? People often look for patterns and trends when it comes to spending and saving, but in reality, your financial approach probably isn’t based on age or decade alone. What do you think? Do these common […]
Global Growth Expected To Slow
Posted on December 30th, 2019
Every year the International Monetary Fund (IMF) releases a report on its outlook for worldwide economic growth. The IMF is an international organization consisting of 189 countries working to foster global financial cooperation. In its most recent report released in October, the IMF noted that the global economy is in a synchronized slowdown with a […]
The Fed’s Not-QE Bond Buying Program
Posted on December 26th, 2019
The Federal Reserve is once again expanding its balance sheet, currently buying $60 billion of Treasury bills each month. This is eerily similar to the Fed’s Quantitative Easing (QE) program meant to stimulate economic activity in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Even so, the Fed denies that it is QE, but rather just a […]
Presidential Candidate Tax Proposals Will Influence Voter Turnout
Posted on December 23rd, 2019
Taxes and income inequality have become a key agenda topic among the presidential candidates. Various proposals from the candidates include repealing the Tax & Jobs Act, removing the step-up basis for inherited assets, increasing capital gains tax, imposing a financial transaction tax, and eliminating the tax deduction for mortgage interest on a second home. Presidential […]
Are You in the Top 1% of Earners?
Posted on December 19th, 2019
According to the most recent data released by the IRS, it took an income of $515,371 to be part of the top 1% of earners in 2017. That’s 7.2% more than was needed to crack the 1% mark from the previous year — an additional $37,106 earned. Of the 138,945,000 individual tax returns filed in […]
December 2019 State of the Market
Posted on December 16th, 2019
December Market Performance The first half of December has thrown out a couple of surprises for the stocks, causing wide zigzags in market indices. Pessimistic reports and investor anxiety over the economy and trade initially created a market pullback at the start of the month; but a couple rounds of positive developments quickly yanked stocks […]
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