25 Jul 2014

Posted at 11:05h in The Friday Brief by
Few terms evoke greater discomfort than the word budget. Our defenses go up immediately at its mere suggestion. We confess we should budget, or we admit our fear of what budgets reveal of our spending choices and amounts, or we just don't want to face the guilt they invariably cause. Sound familiar?

11 Jul 2014

Posted at 11:50h in General by
Just this week I received three invitations to steak dinners at Ruth's Chris and Sullivan's in Raleigh, promising all the information I would need for a happy retirement. Not surprisingly, they all came from local companies we know as annuity sellers. One of the invitations came from an agent who has a local radio show who unashamedly calls himself a fiduciary. Why the regulators allow this guy to imply he has no fiduciary conflicts of interest when he sells annuity products with compensation ranges anywhere from 1% to 7% as well as incentive trips and other perks is beyond me.

27 Jun 2014

Posted at 16:40h in General by
In a busy week for economic reports, the standout was that the US economy contracted in the first quarter by a 2.9% annualized rate, the most since the depths of the last recession. According to Bloomberg, it marked the biggest downward revision from the agency’s second GDP estimate since records began in 1976. The revision reflected slowdowns in consumer and health care spending. Many economists are saying the drop was not reflective of the broader fundamentals, blaming much of the decline on weather. Maybe, but consumers don't appear to be buying it. Real consumer spending was down 0.2% in April and 0.1% in May, and the weather was good. Durable goods (designed to last long periods) orders were much weaker than expected for May as they fell 1.0% in May after rising 0.8% in April. Transportation was the largest contributor to the decline falling 3.0% after a 1.7% rise in April.