New Tariffs Drive Market Volatility At 4:00 p.m. on April 2, 2025, President Trump announced sweeping tariffs on imported goods that were significantly larger and different in structure than expected. The announcement was carefully timed to coincide with the close of the New York Stock Exchange to avoid immediate market volatility. But over the next […]

What Happened to the Magnificent Seven Stocks? The Magnificent Seven stocks–Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, NVIDIA, and Tesla–have carried U.S. indices higher. Between 2023 and 2024, these seven names rose 156.1% as a collective, compared to 25.16% for the remaining 493 names and 57.88% for the S&P 500 index overall. However, this cohort has […]

Cash Balance Plan What is a cash balance plan? A cash balance plan is a qualified employer-sponsored retirement plan that has become increasingly common in recent years as an alternative to (or replacement of) the traditional defined benefit pension plan. Though it is technically a form of defined benefit plan, the cash balance plan is […]

Alternatives are the “It” Investment: What to know before you dive in. Alternative investments aren’t so “alternative” anymore. Once the rarefied domain of institutional investors and some sophisticated individuals, alts—from hedge funds to private credit to cryptocurrency—have increasingly pushed their way into the investment portfolios of wealthy people. They’re now hitting the mass market, too. […]

January 2025 Market Summary Equities Stocks Drive Higher, Gold Soars to New All-Time High, Treasury Yields Largely Unchanged Equities got off to a strong start in 2025 with positive performances in January. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 4.8%, the S&P 500 advanced 2.8% and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.7%. Large-cap Value had the best month among Russell 1000 and Russell 2000 equity styles, […]

December 2024 Market Summary: Stocks End 2024 on a Mixed Note, Fed Cuts Interest Rate, Bond Funds Rise as Yield Fall Equities Overview Equities posted mixed results in December to close out 2024. The price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 5.1% as UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Sherwin-Williams (SHW), and Caterpillar (CAT) all posted double-digit declines in December. The market […]

The S&P 500 Just Crossed 6,000. What’s Next? The S&P 500 took over headlines on a Monday in mid-November when it closed above 6,000 points for the first time. From humble beginnings at just 16.66 points in January 1950, the widely-followed benchmark index has traveled far in the almost 75 years since, generating incredible wealth […]

November 2024 Market Summary: Stocks Rally, Home Sales Collapse, Bond Funds Appreciate The S&P 500’s Journey to 6,000 The S&P 500 crossed 6,000 for the first time on November 11th, 2024. This is the second 1,000-point milestone to take place in the same year, as the index hit the 5,000-point mark back in February. It took the […]

Markets tumbled recently, giving their worst performance of 2024.1 And then promptly rallied again. If you’ve been reading our recent emails, you’re probably not surprised. Let’s talk about what’s going on. What’s driving the volatility? Profit-taking, for one. Markets notched big gains in August, and traders decided to cash in some profits, which drove prices […]

The equity pullback continued into the first week of August but most indices regained a substantial amount of their losses by month’s end. The S&P 500 rose 2.4% in August, the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 2%, and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.7%. The one laggard on our chart (below) was the small-cap Russell 2000 […]