The Big Picture

MARCH 24, 2025

Calculation: BEA Table 3.1 Line 20 (Current Expenditures) divided by Table 1.1.5 Line 1 (GDP). Alternatively, Item #2 below divided by GDP. “ If you torture data long enough, it will confess to anything. ” – Ronald Coase Hey, it’s @TBPInvictus. Let’s delve into a case in point of Coase’s theorem: If you wanted to peddle the narrative that government spending is out of control, you might present a chart like the one above, which is an exact replica of a chart t

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Government Investments Investing Economy 310

Calculated Risk

MARCH 4, 2025

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Fannie and Freddie: Single Family Serious Delinquency Rates Increased in January Excerpt: Freddie Mac reported that the Single-Family serious delinquency rate in January was 0.61%, up from 0.59% December. Freddie's rate is up year-over-year from 0.55% in January 2024, however, this is close to the pre-pandemic level of 0.60%.

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Nerd's Eye View

MARCH 10, 2025

Financial advicers often market their comprehensive financial services as a way to differentiate themselves from other advisory firms and to stand out in the broader landscape of financial advice. These services may range from 'standard' offerings like retirement planning to less traditional areas like credit card consulting. In a firm's early years, there tends to be more room for experimentation, with advisors adding new services to provide value and attract clients.

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Clients Financial Advice Retirement Planning Financial Services 246

Abnormal Returns

MARCH 17, 2025

Markets Corrections happen more often than you remember. (optimisticallie.com) Market moves just happen faster these days. (awealthofcommonsense.com) Books "Buffett and Munger Unscripted: Three Decades of Investment and Business Insights from the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meetings" by Alex Morris is a good refresher course. (newsletter.rationalwalk.com) A review of "The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck" by Davie Spiegelhalter.

Media 190

Media Economy Retail Banking 190

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Accounting

Wealth Management

MARCH 13, 2025

The broker/dealer is embarking on a multi-year effort to restructure its home office to boost collaboration and client focus, with layoffs to come on the administrative side of the business.

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Clients 312

A Wealth of Common Sense

MARCH 14, 2025

Here’s something I shared on Twitter recently: Some people thought I was being hyperbolic. Maybe so. That’s the point of social media sometimes. Then I read the latest Eye on the Market fromMichael Cembalest who said what I said only much more eloquently: Here’s the interesting thing about the stock market: it cannot be indicted, arrested or deported; it cannot be intimidated, threatened or bullied; i.

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Marketing Marketing Media 133

Calculated Risk

MARCH 20, 2025

What this means: On a weekly basis, Realtor.com reports the year-over-year change in active inventory and new listings. On a monthly basis, they report total inventory. For February, Realtor.com reported inventory was up 27.5% YoY, but still down 22.9% compared to the 2017 to 2019 same month levels. Now - on a weekly basis - inventory is up 28.5% YoY.

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Sales Numbers Marketing Marketing 276

Nerd's Eye View

MARCH 7, 2025

Enjoy the current installment of “Weekend Reading For Financial Planners” - this week’s edition kicks off with the news that Congressional Republicans, who recently voted to set a $4.5 trillion target cost for their planned tax bill to replace the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), are currently debating whether the “baseline” for that cost should be the current law where TCJA’s provisions will expire in 2026, or if it should assume that TCJA doesn’t expire &

Financial Planner 237

Financial Planner Taxes Numbers Planning 237

Abnormal Returns

MARCH 2, 2025

Top clicks this week 15 stocks that destroyed the most value in the past decade. (morningstar.com) The Wall of Worry is getting re-built. (downtownjoshbrown.com) The chances of you successfully timing the market based on macro stuff is slim. (awealthofcommonsense.com) Dave Nadig, "You are on your own. There are few left to trust." (davenadig.substack.com) Unfortunately, there is no going back.

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Investments Investing Marketing Marketing 176

Wealth Management

MARCH 17, 2025

Exhibit A will feature pre-built, white-labeled decks covering market volatility, U.S. market performance, historical bull and bear markets and earnings trends.

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Marketing Marketing 308

Speaker: Victor C. Barnes, CPA, MBA

In the climb from contributor to leader, the rules quietly change. If you’re aiming for the summit, the air gets thinner—and what got you here won’t be enough to get you to the top (a concept first popularized by Marshall Goldsmith in his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There ). What made you successful early in your finance career—technical accuracy, sharp analysis, flawless execution—won’t be what carries you to the next level.

Accounting

A Wealth of Common Sense

MARCH 2, 2025

Coming out of the election over the course of anywhere from a few weeks to a few months: Tesla was up nearly 100% Bitcoin rose 60% Microstrategy increased 112% Palantir blasted 200% higher Hims & Hers rocketed up 230% The gains were immense as animal spirits took over and investors got overly excited. The other side of greed is fear. The other side of exuberance is despair.

Marketing 120

Marketing Marketing 120

The Big Picture

MARCH 31, 2025

A quick note on tariffs : Over the past few weeks, I’ve been putting together my quarterly call for clients. The challenge is how to frame the current economic scenario in a way that is useful and informative and not the usual run-of-the-mill noise. Its easy to get distracted by the chaos of random policies that have been coming rapid-fire at Americans.

Taxes 303

Taxes Economics Education Planning 303

Calculated Risk

MARCH 19, 2025

Fed Chair Powell press conference video here or on YouTube here , starting at 2:30 PM ET. FOMC Statement: Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace. The unemployment rate has stabilized at a low level in recent months, and labor market conditions remain solid. Inflation remains somewhat elevated. The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run.

Economics 262

Economics Accounting Marketing Marketing 262

Nerd's Eye View

MARCH 21, 2025

Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the news that a report from Cerulli Associates found that, amidst an industry-wide trend towards comprehensive financial planning and away from pure transaction-based investment management, asset-based fees currently represent 72.4% of advisor compensation, while commission-based revenues have declined to 23% of an average advisor's revenue.

Financial Planner 228

Financial Planner Commission Communication Clients 228

Speaker: Kim Beynon, CPA, CGMA, PMP

The most overlooked, yet most critical, element of transformation is preparing people for change. Automation and AI aren't just technical upgrades, they’re cultural shifts which can challenge identities. That’s why change management isn’t a side project—it’s the foundation. In finance, where precision and process rule, navigating change can feel especially disruptive.

Management

Abnormal Returns

MARCH 14, 2025

Listening Is AI the future of dubbing? (fastcompany.com) Bill Simmons has re-upped with Spotify ($SPOT). (hollywoodreporter.com) Spotify ($SPOT) will start publishing independent audiobooks. (techcrunch.com) Pocket Casts is making its podcast player free. (arstechnica.com) Economy Derek Thompson talks Gen Z with Kyla Scanlon, author of "In This Economy?

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Budgeting Economy Taxes Economics 144

Wealth Management

MARCH 28, 2025

First-generation RIA owners like those at CGN Advisors increasingly use synthetic or phantom equity structures to give employees access to a firms growth while deferring actual ownership.

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A Wealth of Common Sense

MARCH 13, 2025

Kevin Young joined me on the show to answer a question for a young financial advisor who is dealing with his first correction with nervous clients. We also touched on questions about when to sell Palantir, when to sell a rental house and how to deal with a regional recession in Washington DC. Further Reading: Mega Cap World Domination 1Exxon is back in the top 15 now so they might make a return visit.

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Financial Advisor Clients Marketing Marketing 125

The Big Picture

MARCH 18, 2025

It is March 18th! Publication day is finally here! The challenge in writing How NOT to Invest was organizing a large number of ideas, many of which were only loosely connected, into something coherent, understandable, and, most importantly, readable. It took a while of playing around with the concepts, but eventually, I hit on a structure that I found enormously useful: I organized our biggest impediments to investing success into three broad categories: Bad Ideas , Bad Numbers , and Bad Be

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Investing Investments Math Media 317

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Clients

Calculated Risk

MARCH 17, 2025

On a monthly basis, retail sales increased 0.2% from January to February (seasonally adjusted), and sales were up 3.1 percent from February 2024. From the Census Bureau report : Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for February 2025, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $722.7 billion, up 0.2 percent from the previous month , and up 3.1 percent from February 2024.

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Retail Sales Food 253

Nerd's Eye View

MARCH 4, 2025

Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 427th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast ! My guest on today's podcast is Sten Morgan. Sten is the owner of Legacy Investment Planning, a hybrid advisory firm based in Franklin, Tennessee, that oversees $220 million in assets under management for 90 client households. What's unique about Sten, though, is how he realized that the team that helped his firm reach an initial level of success as a $1M+ practice was not the team hed need to take it to the

Financial Advisor 198

Financial Advisor Recruitment Investment Planning Planning 198

Abnormal Returns

MARCH 16, 2025

Top clicks this week Are we finally seeing an opening for international diversification? (awealthofcommonsense.com) The last ten years in the stock market visualized. (sherwood.news) It's been a awhile since the Nasdaq traded below its 200 day moving average. (bilello.blog) The stock market is a big distraction to the business of investing. (albertbridgecapital.com) Another example, why the stock market is not a level playing field.

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Investments Marketing Investing Marketing 176

Wealth Management

MARCH 17, 2025

Shana Sissel shares her insights into the groundbreaking private equity deals in NFL teams and what it all means for the private equity space and investors.

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Investing Investments 296

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.

Management

Wealthfront

MARCH 6, 2025

March 11, 2025, will mark five years since the World Health Organization proclaimed Covid-19 a pandemic. For many of us, life has changed significantly in that time, and so have our finances. Since March 2020 we’ve lived through a wide range of macroeconomic shifts: the onset of the pandemic brought a swift and sharp decline […] The post How Millennials Have Thrived in the Five Years Since Covid-19 appeared first on Wealthfront Blog.

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The Big Picture

MARCH 28, 2025

This week, I speak with author and financial journalist Michael Lewis. Michael has written countless New York Times bestsellers including Flash Boys and Going Infinite. His book The Big Short was turned into an Oscar-winning film, alongside his Oscar-nominated books-turned films The Blind Side and Moneyball. We breakdown the ins and outs of government and his latest book “ Who is Government: The Untold Story of Public Service.” A transcript of our conversation is available here Tuesd

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Government Asset Allocation Wealth Management Assets 289

Calculated Risk

MARCH 10, 2025

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-March 2025 A brief excerpt: This 2-part overview for mid-March provides a snapshot of the current housing market. Inventory, inventory, inventory! Inventory usually tells the tale. Currently Im watching months-of-supply closely. Since both inventory and sales have fallen significantly, a key for house prices is to watch months-of-supply.

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Marketing Marketing Sales 232

Nerd's Eye View

MARCH 28, 2025

Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" - this week's edition kicks off with the news that a recent survey indicates that 70% of affluent financial advisory clients who believe their advisor is always obligated to act as a fiduciary indicated they are satisfied with their relationship and aren't seeking out a new advisor, while only 41% of clients who believe their advisor may put their own interests first indicated they are satisfied with their relationship.

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Financial Planner Retirement Retirement Planning Clients 228

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.

Numbers

Abnormal Returns

MARCH 14, 2025

Markets In the face of uncertainty, the stock market shoots first, asks questions later. (downtownjoshbrown.com) Just how much are the threat of tariffs driving the stock market? (morningstar.com) A 10% correction is a blip. (disciplinefunds.com) Strategy If you are going commit the sin of market timing, sin only a little. (monevator.com) How bad investment decisions feed on themselves.

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License Media Economy Investments 144

Wealth Management

MARCH 28, 2025

Smaller, more intentional gatherings financial advisors hold with clients create opportunities for conversations, introductions and growth.

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Financial Advisor Clients 289

XY Planning Network

MARCH 24, 2025

If Im being honest, when AI first came onto the scene, I felt overwhelmed by it, so I used it very sparingly. Last September, I attended Hubspots annual conference, INBOUND. The overwhelming message throughout the event was that AI is the future (and the now), and we must embrace it. When used correctly, AI makes us better and more productive at what we do.

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Financial Advisor Planning Fee Only Education 111

The Big Picture

MARCH 10, 2025

Money Delusions: What Do People Get Wrong About Money? David Nadig, “ Rabbithole ” March 7, 2025 I had fun chatting with Dave Nadig about philosophy, behavior, and investing ( video after the jump). His new podcast is called “Rabbithole” because Dave does not do broad and shallow; rather, he picks a narrow topic and goes deep down the rabbithole for 30 minutes — which is only a few questions.

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Investments Investing Food Ethics 195

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.

Accounting