The Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) is a simple computation: You take the Civilian Labor Force (people age 16 and over employed or seeking employment) and divide it by the Civilian Noninstitutional Population (those 16 and over not in the military and or committed to an institution). The result is the participation rate expressed as a percent.

Stock indexes have been able to move higher as the balancing act between economic growth and investor concerns continues—but how long will it last?

Let's take a close look at Friday's employment report numbers on Full and Part-Time Employment. Buried near the bottom of Table A-9 of the government's Employment Situation Summary are the numbers for Full- and Part-Time Workers, with 35-or-more hours as the arbitrary divide between the two categories. The source is the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) of households. The focus is on total hours worked regardless of whether the hours are from a single or multiple jobs.

This has been an unusually fruitful season for books for and about financial planners. Four absolute masters of the financial planning universe have published books that add to your chances of success as you grow your business and career.

What does the ratio of unemployment claims tell us about where we are in the business cycle and our current recession risk? At present, the ratio for Continued Claims has been trending down. Excluding the 1981 recession, the Initial Claims trough lead time for a recession has ranged from 7 to 22 months with an average of 12 months if we include the 1981 recession and 14 months if we exclude it. Admittedly, the last recession is an extreme example, but the Initial Claims trough preceded its December 2007 onset by a whopping 22 months.

This commentary has been updated to include this morning's release of Nonfarm Employment. July's 157K increase in total nonfarm payrolls was accompanied by upward revisions of 59K. The unemployment rate decreased to 3.9%. The Investing.com consensus was for 193K new jobs and the unemployment rate to drop to 3.9%.

Embracing a disciplined approach to rebalancing can lead to better long-term investment outcomes. Overcoming the natural tendency to wait-and-see before repositioning our portfolios can be a difficult, but worthy, goal for investors to pursue. Advisors can help investors surmount this and other behavioral hurdles by adopting a systematic rebalancing approach that effectively institutionalizes contrarian investment behavior.

This morning's employment report for July showed a 157K increase in total nonfarm payrolls, which was worse than forecasts. The unemployment rate decreased to 3.9%. The Investing.com consensus was for 193K new jobs and the unemployment rate to drop to 3.9%.

Here's an interesting set of charts that will especially resonate with those of us who follow economic and market cycles. Imagine that five years ago you invested $10,000 in the S&P 500. How much would it be worth today, with dividends reinvested but adjusted for inflation? The purchasing power of your investment has increased to $19,357 for an annualized real return of 13.28%.

When you think of the top 1 percent of all income earners in American households, how much do you think this group rakes in? Millions? Tens of millions? What about the top 10 percent?

Personal Income (excluding Transfer Receipts) in June rose 0.44% and is up 5.0% year-over-year. However, when adjusted for inflation using the BEA's PCE Price Index, Real Personal Income (excluding Transfer Receipts) MoM was at 0.34%. The real number is up 2.7% year-over-year. Extensive revisions and updates were made.

To achieve long-term prosperity, rational immigration policy must become a priority.

With the release of this morning's report on June Personal Incomes and Outlays, we can now take a closer look at "Real" Disposable Personal Income Per Capita. At two decimal places, the nominal 0.36% month-over-month change in disposable income was trimmed to 0.26% when we adjust for inflation. The year-over-year metrics are 4.63% nominal and 2.35% real.

Many (if not most) people think about retirement in terms of saving for the day they leave the workforce and won’t be collecting a paycheck any longer. The prospect of outliving one’s savings is therefore a top source of stress, along with being able to pay escalating health care costs.

Women face at least 12 unique financial and life challenges related to long-term retirement planning. Addressing them can be overwhelming and uncomfortable. Only by understanding the issues can you develop strategies that will provide the greatest chance of achieving your clients’ goals.

Last week I gave you some rules to follow with your investments. They were necessarily general because I’m writing to a broad audience. Today, I will get more specific by discussing some possible strategies for high-net-worth “accredited investors.”

Since we are necessarily in the predictions business, this letter offers our expectations for equity market returns. We admit our crystal ball is typically cloudy when it comes to what markets will do in the near term. While nothing is ever for certain, we can better view the potential for longer-term stock market returns from a couple of perspectives.

Geopolitics dominates the news these days, over-shadowing what remains a fundamentally solid global economy. As always, Donald Trump is at the center of most of the “noise”...

Investors should stay guarded for exogenous shocks that could pull the next recession forward and cause markets to reprice credit risk.

Despite plenty of news, there was little market reaction. In a summer week including many vacations, we have a modest economic calendar but plenty of earnings news.

For industry veterans, annuities conjure the “bad old days” of pushy insurance companies offering rich commissions to snake-oil salesmen with Rolex-knockoffs peeking out from French cuffs.

If you want to see who the real victims of tariffs are, go look in the mirror.

What we can learn about the current state of our economy by traveling and visiting with others outside of our home turf is amazing. For many of us in the investment business, our view of the economy is easily warped by statistical reports and interpretations prepared by professional economists.

The drafters of the Advisers Act of 1940 thought investors would confuse real advisors from salesmen who pretended to be advisors. That’s why they built a wall to separate the two. Now the SEC wants to tear it down.

With stints at firms such as Hightower and United Capital, Todd Eklund has worked with some of the largest RIA firms. Having seen and observed some of what works and what doesn’t in the advisor space, I thought his perspective would be valuable to RIA firms considering outsourcing to a TAMP.

Let’s investigate the market for individuals with $25 million or more to invest, discover their wants and needs, and look at ways that a firm can prepare to meet those needs.

The popular view is that we face a retirement crisis. But receiving far less publicity are a few experienced researchers pointing to evidence that retirees are actually doing okay. I’ll sort out these differing views.

An active manager worth his or her salt will manage risk as part of the deal, and risk management is exactly what you need when you live on a railroad track. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just good enough to mitigate the major drawdowns. If everybody else loses 40% and you only lose 25%, you’ll be way ahead of the crowd. And the right manager should avoid even that scenario and keep you near break-even.

Anticipate before you participate in the market. This is a classic piece of advice I like to give investors and have written about extensively in my CEO blog, Frank Talk. Financial markets are influenced by relatively predictable cycles and trading patterns, and by better understanding these we are able to react thoughtfully to headline noise or unexpected market developments.

There are a number of changes taking place in the investment environment and they are likely to have an influence on the returns on financial assets for some time to come. When the world’s leading economy, with more than a fifth of global GDP, does not participate in major alliances dealing with matters of security and the environment, this has longer-term investment implications.