Calculated Risk
MAY 21, 2025
Today, in the Real Estate Newsletter: In Q1 2025, 19% of Units Started Built-for-Rent were Single Family Brief excerpt: Along with the monthly housing starts report for April released last week, the Census Bureau also released Housing Units Started by Purpose and Design through Q1 2025. The first graph shows the number of single family and multi-family units started with the intent to rent.
Wealth Management
MAY 21, 2025
According to the Justice Department, Julie Anne Darrah would target elderly clients (some of whom were receiving end-of-life care), earn their trust and then steal their money.
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Calculated Risk
MAY 19, 2025
Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 1.5% week-over-week. Inventory is now up 22.9% from the seasonal bottom in January and is increasing. Usually, inventory is up about 13% from the seasonal low by this week in the year. So, 2025 is seeing a larger than normal pickup in inventory. The first graph shows the seasonal pattern for active single-family inventory since 2015.
Nerd's Eye View
MAY 16, 2025
Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" - this week's edition kicks off with the news that Republicans in the House of Representatives this week released their long-awaited tax plan to address the impending sunset of many measures in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The proposed legislation makes several aspects of TCJA 'permanent', including maintaining TCJA's tax brackets and the elevated estate tax exemption, while also introducing new potential tax-savings op
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Where are top advisors focusing in 2025? AcquireUp’s 2025 Industry Index reveals it all. Based on insights from 200+ financial professionals nationwide, discover why 74% say seminars and referrals deliver the best ROI, how automation is helping advisors scale faster, and why only 8% are tapping into niche marketing (a major growth opportunity!). Whether you're refining your client acquisition strategy or scaling your practice, this report gives you the real-world data, benchmarks, and action ste
The Big Picture
MAY 21, 2025
Few outsiders think new stores, no matter how well-conceived, will get Apple back on the hot-growth path… Maybe its time Steve Jobs stopped thinking quite so differently. BusinessWeek , May 21, 2001 24 years to the day — May 21, 2001 — a Businessweek1 commentary explained why the newfangled Apple Stores were destined to fail. This pronouncement motivated subsequent blog posts (notably in 2005 and 2021 ) and a full chapter in “ How Not to Invest.” In the spirit of t
Abnormal Returns
MAY 21, 2025
Podcasts Christine Benz talks with JL Collins about the revised edition of "The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life." (morningstar.com) Dan Haylett talks with Fritz Gilbert about his 10 Commandments of Retirement. (podcasts.apple.com) Peter Lazaroff talks with Mark Higgins, author of "Investing in U.S.
Financial Advisor Source brings together the best content for financial advisor professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Nerd's Eye View
MAY 19, 2025
Training programs for new financial advisors have traditionally followed a sales-focused, sink-or-swim approach that primarily paid on commission for product sales. While some of these programs still exist, the role of an associate advisor has evolved alongside the broader financial planning profession. In many advisory firms today, associate advisors don't begin with prospecting or running client meetings; instead, they start with back-end technical work, such as financial plan preparation, bef
The Big Picture
MAY 22, 2025
At The Money: The Art of Spending Money with Morgan Housel (May 22, 2025) Is there an art to spending your own money? We spend a lot of time discussing earning and investing money, but how often do we really think deeply about spending it? Morgan Housel wrote a new book, The Art of Spending Money, Simple Choices for a Richer Life. It arrives in October, where he discusses just that.
Abnormal Returns
MAY 22, 2025
Books An excerpt from "Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in San Altman's OpenAI." (theatlantic.com) An excerpt from "Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart" by Nicholas Carr. (behavioralscientist.org) Insights from Laura Spinneys new book, "Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global." (slate.com) An excerpt from Tiffany Watt Smiths new book, "Bad Friend: How Women Revolutionized Modern Friendship.
Calculated Risk
MAY 22, 2025
Today, in the CalculatedRisk Real Estate Newsletter: NAR: Existing-Home Sales Decreased to 4.00 million SAAR in April; Down 2.0% YoY Excerpt: Sales in April (4.00 million SAAR) were down 0.5% from the previous month and were 2.0% below the April 2024 sales rate. This was the 3rd consecutive month with a year-over-year decline in sales. Sales Year-over-Year and Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA) The fourth graph shows existing home sales by month for 2024 and 2025.
Speaker: Claire Grosjean, Global Finance & Operations Executive
Finance teams are drowning in data—but is it actually helping them spend smarter? Without the right approach, excess spending, inefficiencies, and missed opportunities continue to drain profitability. While analytics offers powerful insights, financial intelligence requires more than just numbers—it takes the right blend of automation, strategy, and human expertise.
Wealth Management
MAY 16, 2025
The move was accompanied by a set of FAQs on how to custody digital assets, and marked the latest step in the commissions effort to significantly reform its previous approach to cryptocurrencies.
Advisor Perspectives
MAY 16, 2025
Consumer sentiment fell for a fifth straight month as ongoing economic uncertainty and inflation worries continue to drag down consumer attitudes. The Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to 50.8 in May, the second lowest reading on record.
The Big Picture
MAY 20, 2025
The transcript from this weeks, MiB: John Montgomery, Bridgeway Capital Management , is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here. ~~~ Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Abnormal Returns
MAY 16, 2025
Companies Charter Communications ($CHTR) and Cox Communications are merging. (cnbc.com) Meta's ($META) Facebook and Instagram are increasingly scam-filled. (wsj.com) How big an additional opportunity is experiences for Airbnb ($ABNB)? (platformaeronaut.com) Apple Apple ($AAPL) made a strategic mistake. (spyglass.org) Apple ($AAPL) is never going to make iPhones in the U.S.
Speaker: David Worrell, CFO, Author & Speaker
Your financial statements hold powerful insights—but are you truly paying attention? Many finance professionals focus on the income statement while overlooking key signals hidden in the balance sheet and cash flow statement. Understanding these numbers can unlock smarter decision-making, uncover risks, and drive long-term success. Join David Worrell, accomplished CFO, finance expert, and author, for an engaging, nontraditional take on reading financial statements.
Calculated Risk
MAY 21, 2025
Note: This index is a leading indicator primarily for new Commercial Real Estate (CRE) investment. From the AIA: ABI April 2025: Billings continue to decline at architecture firms The AIA/Deltek Architecture Billings Index (ABI) score declined to 43.2 for the month. Billings have declined for 28 of the last 31 months, since they first dipped back into negative territory following the post-pandemic boom.
Wealth Management
MAY 19, 2025
Learn how to protect clients from tax penalties and missed opportunities as international business travel increases. Maximize portfolio performance across borders.
Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT)
MAY 18, 2025
By Susan Quinn Being a long-term, successful financial advisor isnt just about navigating market trends or chasing the next big idea its about establishing a lasting foundation. Strong guiding principles are the cornerstone of lasting success. Essential elements of guiding principles Guiding principles articulate who you are, why you exist and how you intend to create value over the long haul.
The Big Picture
MAY 19, 2025
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: The Stealthy Lab Cooking Up Amazons SecretSauce : The online giant bought a mysterious chip startup 10 years ago. It now looks like one of the smartest deals in tech history. ( Wall Street Journal ) Warren Buffett Reveals He Stepped Down After Finally Feeling His Age : The legendary investor, 94, opens up about his decision to hand the top job to Greg Abel; How do you know the day that you become old?
Speaker: Erroll Amacker
Automation is transforming finance but without strong financial oversight it can introduce more risk than reward. From missed discrepancies to strained vendor relationships, accounts payable automation needs a human touch to deliver lasting value. This session is your playbook to get automation right. We’ll explore how to balance speed with control, boost decision-making through human-machine collaboration, and unlock ROI with fewer errors, stronger fraud prevention, and smoother operations.
Abnormal Returns
MAY 22, 2025
Markets Japanese government bond yields are soaring. (ft.com) 30-year Treasury yields hit levels not seen since 2007. (axios.com) Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway talk with Steven Englander about why yields are rising around the world. (podcasts.apple.com) Strategy Investors learn the wrong lessons from bull markets. (novelinvestor.com) What to invest in when everything looks unattractive?
Calculated Risk
MAY 16, 2025
Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Housing Starts Increased to 1.361 million Annual Rate in April A brief excerpt: Total housing starts in April were at expectations and starts in February and March were revised up, combined. The third graph shows the month-to-month comparison for total starts between 2024 (blue) and 2025 (red). Total starts were down 1.7% in April compared to April 2024.
Wealth Management
MAY 21, 2025
Minneapolis-based Thrivent aims to expand its advisor workforce by 600 in 2025, addressing industry trends of an aging workforce and demand for purpose-driven advice.
A Wealth of Common Sense
MAY 16, 2025
I now do all my reading on a Kindle Paperwhite. You don’t have any weird angles when you’re reading. You can highlight passages, read in the dark and store thousands of books on one little device. Sometimes it feels like I have thousands of unread books on my Kindle. Because it’s so easy to download them, I buy a lot of books. Many of them I finish.
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Based off SkyStem's popular e-Book, the book of secrets to the month-end close will be revealed in this one-hour webinar. Learn leading practices when it comes to building a strong and sustainable month-end close that has room to grow and evolve. Learn about the power of precise estimates, why reconciliations are critical to closing the books, how and when to automate, and how the chart of accounts play into your close process.
The Big Picture
MAY 16, 2025
This week, I speak with John Montgomery , CEO, Founder and Portfolio Manager of Bridgeway Capital Management. His responsibilities include the firms strategic direction, investment management and risk oversight, portfolio management, and mentoring. John holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, a BA in Philosophy from Swarthmore College, and graduate degrees from MIT and Harvard Business School.
Abnormal Returns
MAY 21, 2025
Markets High yield bonds have bounced back. (morningstar.com) Short interest is ticking higher. (ft.com) Companies Retailers have only so much margin to sacrifice to tariffs. (nytimes.com) Some additional tariff math. (axios.com) AI OpenAI is buying Jony Ive's AI startup. (theverge.com) Google ($GOOGL) has a big AI lever to pull - Chrome. (spyglass.org) What does CoreWeave ($CRWV) actually do?
Calculated Risk
MAY 19, 2025
From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Mortgage Rates Briefly Over 7% Before Mid-Day Improvement Mortgage rates jumped sharply over the weekend as financial markets reacted to Moody's credit rating downgrade of the U.S. News of the downgrade broke with only minutes left in Friday's market/business day, so most of the response played out when global markets opened again late last night.
Wealth Management
MAY 19, 2025
Todays trustees face rising vulnerabilities, evolving legal expectations and increasingly complex investment decisions.
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Like being inches from the end zone, many advisors are frustratingly close to their next level of success. You work hard. You put in the hours. But if your closing rate is stuck or your pipeline feels like a revolving door… something has to change. Most advisors are just one small shift away from dramatically increasing their revenue. The difference?
Alpha Architect
MAY 16, 2025
Profitability subsumes all of the quality factor, explaining both the performance of the strategies the investment industry market and the factors that academics employnone of the quality factors generated significant positive alpha relative to profitability, the other Fama and French factors, and momentum. Profitability Retrospective: Key Takeaways for Investors was originally published at Alpha Architect.
Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT)
MAY 20, 2025
By Antoinette Tuscano, MDRT senior content specialist Connecting with prospects, converting them to clients and then keeping them as long-term, happy clients depends on several different components, with communication topping the list. Clients want to feel heard and understood by their financial advisors, and they also need to understand how their financial advisor can help them and their families reach their goals and have the future they envision.
Abnormal Returns
MAY 19, 2025
Podcasts Michael Kitces talks with Ed Slott about the benefits of becoming an IRA expert. (kitces.com) Matt Zeigler and Jack Forehand talk with Wade Pfau about the dangers of sequence of returns risk. (youtube.com) Advisortech How Robinhood's ($HOOD) robo-advisor works in practice. (riabiz.com) Basic Capital wants to bring leverage to your 401(k) plan.
Calculated Risk
MAY 21, 2025
The ICE Home Price Index (HPI) is a repeat sales index. ICE reports the median price change of the repeat sales. From ICE (Intercontinental Exchange): Annual home price growth nationally slowed to 1.6% in May from 2% in April, as inventory surpluses that began in the Sunbelt spread to the West. 40% of the nations largest housing markets experienced seasonally adjusted month-over-month price declines from April to May, including 23 of the 24 top markets in the West The number of markets with ye
Speaker: Aaron Berson
Managing spend is more than a cost cutting exercise – it's a pathway to smarter decisions that unlock efficiency and drive growth. By understanding and refining the spending process, financial leaders can empower their organizations to achieve more with less. Explore the art of balancing financial control with operational growth. From uncovering hidden inefficiencies to designing workflows that scale your business, we’ll share strategies to align your organization’s spending with its strategic g
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