The Big Picture
MARCH 8, 2023
I love the idea of convergence — those rare times when multiple stories about very different issues seem to all land on the same “Grand Truth,” albeit from very different perspectives. Yesterday brought just such a three-part convergence into focus. It’s about money and happiness, which is very much the intersection of where I spend much of my time: Capital Markets , and Behavioral Finance.
Calculated Risk
MARCH 5, 2023
Here is another monthly update on framing lumber prices. This graph shows CME random length framing futures through March 3rd. Lumber is currently at $369 per 1000 board feet. This is down from the peak of $1,733, and down 72% from $1,441 a year ago. Prices are down 8% compared to the same week in 2019, and below the pre-pandemic levels of around $400.
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Wealth Management
MARCH 9, 2023
Companies like FMG, Orion and Broadridge have already started integrating ChatGPT, while others, like Snappy Kraken, are taking a more cautious approach.
The Reformed Broker
MARCH 10, 2023
The spectacular blow-up currently taking place at SVB and its primary subsidiary, Silicon Valley Bank, is the biggest story in the markets this week. SVB is systemically important for the technology sector and its Northern California ecosystem. As Jim Cramer put it last night, the Federal Reserve has been firing a machine gun at the economy for the last 12 months but it hasn’t hit anything yet.
Speaker: Dylan Secrest, Founder of Alamo Innovation and Construction Digital Transformation Consultant
Construction payment workflows are notoriously complex when you consider juggling multiple stakeholders, compliance requirements, and evolving project scopes. Delays in approvals or misaligned data between budgets, lien waivers, and pay applications can grind progress to a halt. The good news? It doesn't have to be this way! Join expert Dylan Secrest to discover how leading contractors are turning payment chaos into clarity using digital workflows, integrated systems, and automation strategies.
The Big Picture
MARCH 10, 2023
Armchair quarterbacking the decisions of the Federal Reserve long ago became a blood sport. With the benefit of hindsight, we all are genius central bankers. I particularly loathe managers who lay all the woes of the world at the feet of the Federal Reserve. For more than a century, America’s central bank has been a key part of the investing environment, and it’s your job as an active manager to incorporate their probable policy decisions into your strategy.
Calculated Risk
MARCH 10, 2023
From the BLS : Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 311,000 in February, and the unemployment rate edged up to 3.6 percent , the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Notable job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality, retail trade, government, and health care. Employment declined in information and in transportation and warehousing.
Financial Advisor Source brings together the best content for financial advisor professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
The Reformed Broker
MARCH 7, 2023
Join Downtown Josh Brown and Michael Batnick for another round of What Are Your Thoughts? On this week’s episode, Josh and Michael discuss the biggest topics in investing and finance, including: ►Powell to Congress – “Fed chief Powell is set to begin two days of congressional testimony Tuesday, where he’ll have the chance to explain the central bank’s planned response to a more resilient e.
The Big Picture
MARCH 6, 2023
This week, we get to hear from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell twice – tomorrow in the Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to Congress before the Senate Banking Committee and the next day in the House Financial Services Committee. We can expect a series of useless questions, posturing for sound bites, and self-aggrandizing speeches that pretend to be questions.
Calculated Risk
MARCH 7, 2023
Notes: This CoreLogic House Price Index report is for January. The recent Case-Shiller index release was for December. The CoreLogic HPI is a three-month weighted average and is not seasonally adjusted (NSA). From CoreLogic: CoreLogic: US Annual Home Price Growth Continues Single-Digit Slowdown in January CoreLogic®. today released the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI™) and HPI Forecast™ for January 2023.
Wealth Management
MARCH 9, 2023
With $400 million in assets, Cornerstone is the 15th acquisition in PCIA history and builds on roughly 500% growth in just five years.
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The Reformed Broker
MARCH 4, 2023
And if you haven’t subscribed yet, don’t wait. Check it out below or wherever fine podcasts are played. . The post This Week On TRB appeared first on The Reformed Broker.
The Big Picture
MARCH 10, 2023
My end-of-week morning train WFH reads: • Crypto Bank Had a Boring Collapse, Also Silicon Valley Bank : Elsewhere in boring maturity mismatches and a lack of deposit diversification. ( Money Stuff ) • Why daylight saving is so hard on the body — and what to do about it : Every process within the body, from sleep to metabolism, runs on an internal clock, known as circadian rhythm.
Calculated Risk
MARCH 6, 2023
Altos reports that active single-family inventory was down 2.6% week-over-week. Usually inventory bottoms in early February, so we'd expect inventory to bottom seasonally soon. Here are the same week inventory changes for the last five years: 2023: -11.0K 2022: -3.7K 2021: -11.5K 2020: +1.0K 2019: -1.4K Click on graph for larger image. This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.
Wealth Management
MARCH 8, 2023
A significant victory for those with non-willful violations of the filing statute.
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.
Abnormal Returns
MARCH 8, 2023
Podcasts Morgan Housel on on the art of spending money. (open.spotify.com) Barry Ritholtz on how to avoid financial disasters. (ritholtz.com) Peter Lazaroff on how a 'negative budget' works. (peterlazaroff.com) Benjamin Felix and Cameron Passmore talk with Erica Alini author of "Money Like You Mean It, Personal Finance Tactics for the Real World." (rationalreminder.libsyn.com) Housing Your house is a terrible investment.
The Big Picture
MARCH 6, 2023
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • Silicon Valley Confronts the End of Growth. It’s a New Era for Tech Stocks. Silicon Valley could use a reboot. The biggest players aren’t growing, and more than a few are seeing sharp revenue declines. Regulators seem opposed to every proposed merger, while legislators push for new rules to crack down on the internet giants.
Calculated Risk
MARCH 8, 2023
From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary The number of job openings decreased to 10.8 million on the last business day of January , the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the month, the number of hires and total separations changed little at 6.4 million and 5.9 million, respectively. Within separations, quits (3.9 million) decreased, while layoffs and discharges (1.7 million) increased. emphasis added The following graph shows job openings (black line), hires (dark
Wealth Management
MARCH 8, 2023
Survey respondents remain bullish on industrial fundamentals despite concerns about rising interest rates and the potential for a recession.
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.
Nerd's Eye View
MARCH 6, 2023
Welcome to the March 2023 issue of the Latest News in Financial #AdvisorTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors! This month's edition kicks off with the news that Conquest, a Canadian financial planning software provider (founded by the prior founder of NaviPlan) has raised $24M (CAD) of private equity capital in preparation for expanding its reach into the US &
The Big Picture
MARCH 7, 2023
My Two-for-Tuesday morning train reads: • A 120-Year-Old Company Is Leaving Tesla in the Dust : Tesla had me convinced, for a while, that it was a cool company. fundamentally, its cars had no competition. If you wanted an electric car that could go more than 250 miles between charges, Tesla was your only choice for the better part of a decade. ( New York Times ) see also Tesla Offers an Unprecedented Look at the Bench Behind Elon Musk : In a clear response to investor criticism, the CEO shared t
Calculated Risk
MARCH 9, 2023
Realtor.com has monthly and weekly data on the existing home market. Here is their weekly report released today from Chief economist Danielle Hale: Weekly Housing Trends View — Data Week Ending Mar 4, 2023 • Active inventory growth continued to climb with for-sale homes up 61% above one year ago. Inventories of for-sale homes rose again, but the gain was the lowest we’ve seen since December.
Wealth Management
MARCH 8, 2023
In honor of International Women’s Day today and Women’s History Month, WealthManagement.com recognizes eight women who broke the glass ceiling in the male-dominated field of finance.
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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
Abnormal Returns
MARCH 10, 2023
Markets When markets get volatile and chaotic, there's often no benefit to moving first. (thereformedbroker.com) 0DTEs now dominate S&P 500 options trading. (marketwatch.com) Corporate profit margins are coming in, but not all that quickly. (tker.co) Strategy Investing off headlines is a fool's errand. (theirrelevantinvestor.com) Don't try to invest like Yale, unless you have Yale-like resources.
The Big Picture
MARCH 4, 2023
The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads: • You Are Not a Parrot And a chatbot is not a human. And a linguist named Emily M. Bender is very worried what will happen when we forget this. We go around assuming ours is a world in which speakers — people, creators of products, the products themselves — mean to say what they say and expect to live with the implications of their words.
Calculated Risk
MARCH 10, 2023
The headline jobs number in the February employment report was above expectations, however employment for the previous two months was revised down by 34,000, combined. The participation rate increased, and the unemployment rate increased to 3.6%. Leisure and hospitality gained 105 thousand jobs in February. At the beginning of the pandemic, in March and April of 2020, leisure and hospitality lost 8.2 million jobs, and are now down 410 thousand jobs since February 2020.
Wealth Management
MARCH 7, 2023
Real Insights forecasts some challenges for commercial real estate investors in 2023. Realty Income agreed to buy a portfolio of more than 400 convenience stores across the U.S. in a sale-leaseback transaction, reports Commercial Property Executive. These are among today’s must reads from around the commercial real estate industry.
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Automation generally supercharges any process and brings its value to the forefront. See how infusing automation such as ART (our month-end close solution), into your close can get you to the next level of closing. We will share a live demo of SkyStem's solution, ART and share the key elements of month-end close automation. Through ART, we'll take a look at: What month-end close automation entails Which process steps can and should be automated Benefits of achieving process automation, and Why i
Abnormal Returns
MARCH 9, 2023
Books A Q&A with Emily Hund author of "The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media." (vox.com) An excerpt from “The People’s Tongue: Americans and the English Language” by Ilan Stavans. (wsj.com) A Q&A with Emre Soyer, co-author of "The Myth of Experience: Why We Learn the Wrong Lessons and Ways to Correct Them." (davidepstein.substack.com) Behavior Smartphones are to blame for the rise in unhappiness, until further notice.
Nerd's Eye View
MARCH 8, 2023
In the early days of investing, stocks were often evaluated in a vacuum: Investors assessed the plusses and minuses of each company’s stock based on its own merits, with little consideration of the relationship between one stock’s performance and that of the market as a whole. Then, in the 1960s, with the advent of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), investors began to look at stocks (and by extension, pooled investments like mutual funds as well as entire portfolios) through the
Calculated Risk
MARCH 8, 2023
From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey Mortgage applications increased 7.4 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 3, 2023. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 7.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier.
Wealth Management
MARCH 7, 2023
In a world driven by the bottom line, the root of contentment often lies behind less “easily measured” criteria.
Speaker: Cheryl J. Muldrew-McMurtry
Remote finance teams are rewriting how the back-office runs—and attackers are taking notes. Disconnected workflows, process blind spots, and rising cyber threats have become more than just “growing pains”. They’re now liabilities. The challenge isn’t just team distribution, but building resilient systems that protect accuracy, control, and speed across every transaction and touchpoint.
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