11 Oct 2014

Posted at 12:51h in The Friday Brief by

Yesterday, Sam, Jared and I were out around town and had multiple people ask us about the recent craziness in the stock market.  If you're not caught up with what's been going on here's a quick update.  On Tuesday the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 272 points.  The next day it rose 274 points only to plummet 300 points on Thursday, marking the Dow's most erratic 3 days since August 2011.  It would appear that our old friend Volatility has come back for a visit.  So, what’s causing all the commotion?

19 Sep 2014

Posted at 12:58h in The Friday Brief by
I'm here to free you up from that awkward moment at the cocktail party when you ask the guy next to you what he does for a living and he responds, "I'm a financial advisor."  After 18 years as a financial advisor I've learned to embrace that awkward silence when the person I'm talking to pauses momentarily, presumably waiting for me to solicit their business.  The financial industry has created this phenomenon for itself by focusing more on product sales and stock market prediction than good solid advice.  Fortunately, our society has come up with a clever way to break that silence in the form of a question.  "What's the stock market going to do? "

22 Aug 2014

Posted at 10:29h in The Friday Brief by

If you visited the Yahoo Finance web page on Wednesday, you may have seen this headline: "Dow 6,000: Wild prediction or worthwhile caution?" The article behind the headline is about a guy named Harry Dent. Dent has made a number of market predictions over the past few decades--his...

15 Aug 2014

Posted at 14:30h in The Friday Brief by
It's that time of year again--kids are going back to school, last trips to the beach are being taken, and mornings here and there are beginning to feel a tinge of crisp coolness (at least in Raleigh). Fall is coming. And with it comes an increase in planning. With the kids going back to school, conversations may begin (or restart) about taking them out of the public school system, or putting them back in. Perhaps college is around the corner and there are worries about paying for it. We start thinking about holidays and whether or not we'll travel, and if so, for how long and with whom? We brace for the increased busyness at work, some of us with an excitement and eagerness, and others of us with dread. The former start to question if they'll ever want to retire, and the latter wonder how soon they can.