17 May 2013

Posted at 10:05h in The Friday Brief by
For the next 19 years, 10,000 baby boomers a day turn 65 - the traditional age to retire. Not surprisingly, many are asking questions like: If we left our salary, have we saved enough to see us through? Is there enough time to make up the difference? What is that difference, or how much is enough?

10 May 2013

Posted at 11:10h in The Friday Brief by
Next week's economic reports may test investors' resolve as closely-watched reports on retail sales, housing, jobs, manufacturing, and inflation are released. The most important is retail sales, which drives 70% of our economy. It is likely to show a second month of contraction, according to economists tracked by Bloomberg.

03 May 2013

Posted at 12:16h in The Friday Brief by
There was building sentiment in April that we were headed for another spring slowdown. Unfortunately, last Friday's GDP report failed to put those concerns to rest as it showed the economy was growing, but more slowly than anticipated, and not fast enough to create meaningful job growth.  This week the Fed announced no changes in rate targets or current stimulus plans saying the economy was growing "at a moderate pace." But remarkably several usually hawkish (meaning tough on inflation) Fed bank presidents revealed their growing concern over "De"- flation. And just to keep things interesting, today's jobs report stirred the pot further with a surprise on the upside. Today, we'll try to make some sense of it all.

26 Apr 2013

Posted at 11:40h in The Friday Brief by
The objective of the sequester was to build an arbitrary cliff so fearsome that the Congress would never steer us over it. Well as we know, they did, with us in the back seat. What is fascinating though, at least during our descent from the cliff, is the unintended consequences of sequester; as invariably happens when government tries to be clever.