We have plenty of other problems and don’t need more, especially rising energy prices as the economy slows. Nonetheless, that seems to be what we will get. Today I’ll dig into what’s happening and what I think would be better.
It’s well-studied that factors like debt and financial uncertainty impact the way people feel about retirement and prepare for it. In this series, BlackRock explores insights from our 2021 DC Pulse research and additional work with the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) to recognize inequities and help find ways to build a better retirement for all.
How annuities can help shoulder RMD burdens in a market drawdown.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced the start of balance sheet tapering at a pace of $15 billion per month ($10 billion of Treasuries and $5 billion of mortgage-backed securities). They made no change to the fed funds rate, which remains near the zero bound.
Chair Jerome Powell and the Fed had been holding the market’s hand in the lead-up to the tapering decision, making it abundantly clear that a decision was imminent at today’s meeting and effectively pre-announcing all of the relevant details of the decision...
In March 2020 the Federal Reserve was able to use old and new tools to manage the unimaginable – a Pandemic. The Fed stabilized the Treasury bond market and the municipal bond market through its purchases and back stopped government loans to small and medium sized businesses to keep them from going under.
The unprecedented exodus of women from the workplace during the pandemic is empowering those who remain, helping spur a resurgence in labor organizing as industries such as health care, education and retail confront an acute shortage of jobseekers.
Do you know who JJ Walker is? Last year it was Joe Namath. Now it’s JJ.
For the better part of a decade, credit investors like David Sherman have been waiting for the market to come back down to earth.
Dear shopper, how are you doing? Wall Street is dying to know. Investors and market strategists are poring over a spate of economic data and commentary from corporate earnings calls, trying to determine how people feel about spending money in these strange times.
House Democrats are considering a five-year suspension of the cap on the federal state and local tax deduction before it’s reinstated in 2026, according to people familiar with the negotiations, a move that may let lawmakers argue expanding the tax break won’t hurt revenue.
As expected, the advance estimate of 3Q21 Gross Domestic Product showed a sharp slowing in growth. More timely data suggest that the economy regained some momentum into early 4Q21. Still, there are important questions regarding the labor market, inflation pressures, and Federal Reserve policy over the near term.
This Halloween season, Rick Rieder and team shed light on today's market ghosts, ghouls and goblins and how to build a resilient investment portfolio around them.
Successful international investing includes measuring financial risks and rewards caused by events in an affected country. Stephen Dover, Head of Franklin Templeton Investment Institute, discusses how macroeconomic and political research complemented by environmental, social and governance (ESG) research provides investors additional prisms to view a country’s financials, impacts on climate change, and geopolitical risk.
Here is my interview with Eric Negron, an advisor, about how he uses the Asset-Map software.
The volatility that has roiled short-term bonds signals a shift in expectations for central bank policy in developed markets.
Jim Cielinski, Global Head of Fixed Income at Janus Henderson Investors, discusses concepts surrounding the current bond market environment, including the US Federal Reserve and their lessons learned from past tapering discussions.
Locked in a low-growth trap, South Africa's fiscal and macroeconomic situation is unsustainable, not only economically but also politically. To salvage the country's democratic project, the government must offer a credible, comprehensive economic reform strategy.
We communicate better with our clients when we stay away from industry jargon. Explain things the way you would talk with a child.
The 60/40 is not dead, will never die, and you can’t kill it. That won’t stop the financial media and investment firms from staging mock funerals.
If you’re wondering how President Joe Biden’s tax framework would affect rich Americans, here’s a rough scorecard.
Free community college was among the first big proposals cut as Democrats battled to get President Joe Biden’s agenda down to size -- yet an analysis says dropping the $109 billion initiative carries a lasting economic cost.
In this interview, Kevin Knowles and Nick Zylkowski discuss Russell Investments’ Personalized Managed Accounts (PMA) program, a suite of advisor-sold customized SMAs that support tax-loss harvesting and ESG mandates.
Earnings reports were mixed. Bond yields declined, as market participants generally expect the Fed to raise short-term interest rates earlier to get inflation under control.
After decades of saving for a comfortable retirement, plan participants eventually face the question of how to create an income stream from those savings. Most aren’t sure how to do that, even though income is the main reason they’re saving in the first place...
We believe the traditional 60/40 portfolio will face significant headwinds in meeting investor objectives as we move through this decade and the next. Against this backdrop, Scott Welch discusses how WisdomTree seeks to challenge the traditional 60/40 approach.
Of all recent economic trends, sluggish employment growth is perhaps the most important for investors to watch, says Franklin Templeton Fixed Income CIO Sonal Desai. She outlines why the labor market has been sluggish, and why it may remain that way for some time.
These “perfect storm” disruptions have created numerous headaches for shipping and logistics companies. But as is often the case, bad news is good news, especially for investors who have seen shares of container lines surge in the 18 months since the pandemic began.
Today, I’ll describe what I think will happen over the next year or so. I rarely make short-term forecasts because I’m usually early. Reaching the major turning points takes longer than we think.
Jeepers Creepers! It’s hard to believe that Halloween is just days away, and as the month of October comes to a close investors will be anxiously awaiting the release of the jobs report next Friday. There has been some ‘toil and trouble’ in the labor market due to the vast number of jobs available yet an inability to fill the openings.
The fiscal and monetary policy responses to the Covid-19 shock aided demand and allowed for a v-shaped economic recovery starting in 2020. Further fiscal stimulus boosting demand in 2021 were met with supply shocks, bringing US and EU inflation to the highest levels since 2008. Emerging Markets (EM) experienced some inflationary pressures, albeit much more modest than Developed Markets (DM).
The team at HSH.com, features a periodic update entitled "The Salary You Must Earn to Buy a Home in the 50 Largest Metro Areas". The key question is: "How much salary do you need to earn in order to afford the principal and interest payments on a median-priced home in your metro area?"
President Joe Biden is attempting to rally fractious Democrats around a whittled-down economic package that his administration is promoting as a monumental achievement for social spending and climate programs.
With COVID-19 variants keeping retirement-ready consumers wondering what’s next for potential market volatility, many are reevaluating a once common rule of thumb for retirement: the 4% rule. It held up well for many retirees in the past, but most fixed income financial products like bonds no longer yield anything close to the 4% that would be required to support withdrawals. With rates actually hovering around 0%, what is a viable strategy today?
FIAs, or fixed index annuities, offer some advantages, especially given COVID-19’s impact on the market. When combined with a sensible systematic withdrawal plan, they can provide an alternative with the potential for upside return, via interest credits based on partial returns of market indexes. This may allow for a yield closer to 4% while still preserving some or all of the principal. Doug Wolff, President of Security Benefit is here today to discuss how FIAs could be a useful consideration for retirees amid today’s shifting markets.
Signs are growing that inflation may be more tenacious than originally expected. We don’t believe a return to 1970s-style inflation is likely, but there is a worrisome scenario in which persistently sharp increases in prices could be a factor to reckon with—and if history is any guide, they could have an impact on sector performance.
Democrats’ proposal for a tax on billionaires is already spurring questions about how the sweeping new levy would be implemented and how America’s wealthiest -- and their sophisticated advisers -- can get around it.
We believe the municipal markets should remain strong into 2022, although the good news may already be baked into high quality bond valuations.
Energy prices have surged to multi-year highs amid the global economic recovery from COVID-19, contributing to larger-than-anticipated jumps in measures of headline inflation. While some policymakers had suggested inflationary forces would prove “transitory,” today many are questioning that thesis.
Like all rules on Wall Street, Bob Farrell’s rules are not hard and fast. There are always exceptions to every rule, and while history never repeats exactly, it often “rhymes” closely.
With their latest tax proposal, Democrats are going after an elusive target: U.S. billionaires, and their growing piles of untaxed investment gains.
The job market has changed quite a bit since I graduated in 2011. Even before the pandemic, the business world was aflutter about the rise of the gig economy. Now side hustles and working remotely have become the norm. But what hasn’t changed is the stress and anxiety that comes with entering the workforce.
Science and technology have disrupted the active fixed income asset management industry, as they have so many industries before it. With the conditions in place for scientific fixed income investing to flourish, investors have available both an alternative and a complement to the traditional active fixed income strategies that dominate their portfolios today.
Today’s atmosphere is one that we rarely see as investors. This is not like junk bonds in the 1980’s or the run up in Valeant Pharmaceuticals and the other generic drug companies in the 2010’s. There is not a narrow way of looking at today. It is broad.
The reason so many folks think they don’t need an advisor is because they had a bad experience with someone they thought was a financial planner who turned out to be nothing more than a salesperson.
The inflation that we were emphatically told would be transitory and unmoored continues to persist and entrench. As the troubles gather momentum Washington is doing...
Treasury reported a federal budget deficit of about $2.8 trillion (about 12% of GDP) for FY21. Barring a major unforeseen event, the deficit will fall considerably next year. By itself, that will be a negative for GDP growth, but a further strengthening in private-sector demand should more than offset that.
Combining PIMCO’s innovative ESG (environmental, social, governance) investing approach with its expertise in income investing, this flexible strategy targets a multi-sector, global opportunity set.
In this issue of Sinology, we explain why it is unlikely that the recent regulatory crackdown is Chinese Party chief Xi Jinping’s attempt to roll back China’s private sector.
The shift to electric vehicles means major changes across the supply chain and involves multiple ESG challenges. As the auto industry strives to institute sustainable practices, investors need to engage with governments and corporates to encourage and accelerate the process of change.
