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01.09.2023
This is Not a Prediction
At the beginning of every new year, market forecasts about the year to come start arriving from all corners of the internet. This in itself is unsurprising; a large number of market professionals are in the “prediction business” and are paid to make forecasts about future market prices and the economy. This year is no […]
11.08.2022
The Hidden Bull Market of 2022
It’s not easy to find a bull market in much of anything this year. 2022 has been an unusually challenging year for nearly all asset classes, including stocks, bonds, and real estate. Poor bond market performance stands out in particular – a result of high inflation and sharply rising interest rates that led to equity-like […]
09.20.2022
What is the Yield Curve Telling Us?
Here at Elevate Wealth Advisory, one of the core beliefs of our investment philosophy is that market prices contain information. The information largely relates to expected returns across asset classes, but sometimes we can extract other signals from market prices, as well. This month we’ll try to unpack what the world’s largest bond market (U.S. […]
08.04.2022
Are Commodities a Good Investment?
Higher food and energy prices are getting a lot of attention this year and have impacted consumer budgets in the U.S. and across the world. Investors have focused on the rise in basic material costs, as well, especially in light of the declines we’ve experienced in stocks, bonds, and real estate. In fact, many commodity […]
07.06.2022
What to Do With an Extra $1,000
Where to save your next dollar is one of the most common questions posed to financial advisers. And if you’re a saver with some extra cash, you already know that there is no shortage of options to consider. Should you pay down loan balances? Add to your emergency cash savings? Make a contribution to a […]
05.31.2022
Things to Do in a Down Market
As any investor could tell you, the markets are off to a rough start in 2022. Both stock and bond markets are facing an unusual number of headwinds these days, including high inflation, rising interest rates, snarled supply chains, a lingering global pandemic, the war in Ukraine, disruptions in food and energy production, and very […]
05.02.2022
How to Think About Cryptocurrency
By now, most people have heard about bitcoin, and many investors would be able to correctly identify bitcoin as one of many “cryptocurrencies” that circulate today. A full description of bitcoin, the blockchain, and the universe of other crypto tokens is well beyond the scope of this article, but for a short primer I would […]
04.06.2022
Resilient Investing: Lessons from Behavioral Finance
Are you a resilient investor? Do you take market volatility in stride, or are you tempted to react when things get challenging? Our financial advisors have learned first-hand that resilient Investors do these three things before making any important money decision: Check assumptions Check thinking Check emotions Most people aren’t rational when it comes to […]
02.26.2022
Are You Keeping Up with Inflation?
After many years of relatively stable prices, the sudden return of inflation in the U.S. became a key market theme in 2021. The latest Consumer Price Index data released on February 10, which showed that the annual rate of inflation reached 7.5% in January, indicated that it will likely remain a big story this year, […]
02.16.2022
Join Our Retirement Planning Today Course
Elevate Wealth Advisory is pleased to present Retirement Planning Today, a two-day workshop held twice in February.Taught by Clark Brown, a practice leader at Elevate Wealth Advisory in Athens, Georgia, Retirement Planning Today is designed to teach you how to build wealth and align your money with your values to accomplish your goals in life. Whether you […]
02.16.2022
Subscribe to Our WealthWise Video Series
Our team has been hard at work writing and filming content for our new weekly YouTube video series: WealthWise. WealthWise brings insightful, actionable financial advice to help clients stay on the right path toward meeting their life goals. Subscribing to our YouTube channel is easy! From Your Desktop: Go to youtube.com Log in or create […]
01.14.2022
How to Choose Between a Pension and a 403(b)
When my wife first joined the faculty at the University of Georgia in 2006, she was given a large stack of paperwork to fill out. Buried among the several documents was perhaps the most consequential one for our finances and this related to her retirement benefits. The form required her to choose between enrolling in […]
01.12.2022
Sticking to Your Plan is the Straightest Path to Reaching Goals
The year 2021 was a banner year for investors. The broad-based S&P 500 Index, which is made up of 500 larger U.S. companies, finished the year up 26.9%. If we included reinvested dividends, the index advanced 28.7%, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. Table 1: Key Index Returns Much better-than-expected corporate profits (Refinitiv), which were […]
01.12.2022
7 Steps to Achieving New Year’s Resolutions
The new year is the perfect break in the calendar that allows us to take off the old and put on the new. It’s like turning the page. It’s a new chapter. It’s a new book! You can’t change the past, but you can change the future. One way we can make a change is […]
12.13.2021
Last Minute Tips for Year End Planning
Welcome to December! There may be just a few weeks left in 2021, but it’s not too late to make some smart money moves before the end of the year. Here’s a list of last-minute tips and recommendations to help you navigate around year-end planning: Age Milestones One of the first things you should do […]
10.05.2021
Are Exchange-Traded Funds the Future of Personal Investing?
The investment management business is a highly competitive industry that changes, adapts, and evolves over time. Over the years, individual investors have benefitted tremendously from many of these changes. We see trading commissions have declined toward zero, management fees and mutual funds expenses have been reduced sharply, and access to up-to-the minute market information is […]
09.09.2021
Will Medicare and Social Security be there for You?
On August 31, the Trustees of the Medicare and Social Security trust funds released their annual report on the fiscal health of America’s two largest retiree entitlement programs. The news wasn’t good; according to the report, the expected date that Social Security’s trust fund would be depleted was moved earlier by one year to 2033. […]
06.28.2021
What Did We Learn During the Pandemic?
The end of the Coronavirus pandemic in the United States appears to be in sight. A highly successful COVID-19 vaccination campaign has sent daily average new case numbers plunging below 12,000 nationally. Most states are reporting about 100-200 new cases per day, rather than thousands of new cases just a few months ago. While the […]
03.17.2021
The Importance of Long-term Tax Planning
When budgeting for retirement expenses, pre-retirees tend to consider health care, housing, food, utilities, and travel, but often overlook taxes. This oversight would be a mistake, as taxes typically rank among the top three expenses during retirement, and for some retirees, taxes can be the single largest item in their retirement budget. Fortunately, tax is […]
02.19.2021
Keep Your Financial Fitness on Track All Year Long
Ah, February! The cold weather and overcast skies can make us want to curl up under a warm blanket, while we abandon our well-intentioned New Year’s Resolutions. As we are just two months into the new year, it’s important to keep those financial goals on track. Now is the perfect time to review various aspects […]
02.19.2021
What Does a “Neutral” Portfolio Look Like?
When constructing a portfolio of global stocks, whether for clients or simply for yourself, it helps to have a reasonable starting point. This month, I’d like to introduce the concept of a “global neutral” equity portfolio, what that looks like, and why it may or may not be the best portfolio you could own. Let’s […]
01.20.2021
It’s Time to Refinance (again)
The 2020 pandemic recession was one for the record books. The pace at which it unfolded was breathtaking, as was the speed of the recovery. U.S. GDP growth collapsed by 31.4% (annualized) in 2Q2020 after most economic activity came to a sudden stop near the end of Q1, making it the deepest recession in the […]
01.05.2021
A Recap of Markets in 2020
2020 was a remarkable year in a number of ways, including for financial markets, which established several new historical records. The crash in stock prices as the Coronavirus pandemic unfolded in February and March is well remembered, as is the blistering pace of recovery in market prices in the last nine months of the year. […]
