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.
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.
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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.
Nerd's Eye View
MARCH 10, 2023
Enjoy the current installment of “Weekend Reading For Financial Planners” - this week’s edition kicks off with the news that President Biden released his latest budget proposal this week, which calls for a range of tax increases on higher-income and wealthier taxpayers to fund deficit reduction and the president’s spending priorities.
Speaker: Nancy Wu, Head of Sales and Customer Success at SkyStem
Business operations are getting increasingly complex, shareholders are demanding more, and your auditors are breathing down your neck like never before. In this high-pressure environment, it’s important to remember that reconciliation activity is your last line of defense against financial fraud and errors. Insisting on a manual process to handle month-end reconciliations is a risky endeavor that places an undue burden on your accounting team.
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.
Financial Advisor Source brings together the best content for financial advisor professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
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.
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 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.
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.
Speaker: Carolina Aponte - Owner and CEO, Caja Holdings LLC
In today's rapidly changing business environment, building a resilient balance sheet is crucial to the survival of any business. A resilient balance sheet allows a company to withstand financial shocks and adapt to changing market conditions. To achieve this, companies need to focus on key strategies such as maintaining adequate liquidity, managing debt levels, diversifying revenue streams, and prioritizing profitability over growth.
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 9, 2023
For many financial advisors, annual strategic planning is an essential process that establishes clear and specific business goals for the year, along with the steps necessary to achieve those goals. Additionally, it helps advisors make informed decisions about the future direction of their business. As important as strategic planning is to the evolution of the business, coming up with new ideas to implement as part of the strategic plan can be difficult, and choosing which ideas to develop and i
The Big Picture
MARCH 5, 2023
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • The age of the Silicon Valley ‘moonshot’ is over :Big Tech’s cost-cutting and layoffs are another nail in the coffin for the industry’s most ambitious and costly projects. ( Washington Post ) • Rupert Murdoch’s deposition in $1.6 billion defamation case is ‘a nightmare’ for Fox News, legal experts say : First Amendment scholars say defamation case against Fox News is “unusually strong.” ( Grid ) see also
Discipline Funds
MARCH 10, 2023
One of the themes I’ve been discussing lately is how inflation risk has been evolving into credit risk. What I mean by that is that we’re currently navigating the economic bust portion of the cycle where inflation is a falling risk and credit deflation risk arises, in large part, because the Fed has reacted so quickly to bring inflation in.
Speaker: Wayne Spivak, President and CFO of SBA * Consulting Ltd., Industry Writer, Public Speaker
If you’re lost in the world of spend management needs and your GAP analysis is lacking perspective on the future state of your business performance, listen up! With the advancement of technology, the implementation of spend management best practices and concrete GAP analyses is more streamlined and accessible than ever before. And while this may sound like great news for you and your clients, it won’t be worthwhile unless you have the latest techniques to back up your ambitions!
Abnormal Returns
MARCH 4, 2023
Environment How carbon credits have made biochar into a viable business. (wsj.com) Your toilet paper is full of forever chemicals. (fastcompany.com) Not every glacier is falling apart. (sciencenews.org) Technology How AI will change, i.e. break, the business of search. (slate.com) ChatGPT will make misinformation easier and more impressive. (msn.com) Science What cosmologists are learning from the JWST.
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
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 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.
Speaker: Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, The Money Coach®
Niche markets represent a huge opportunity for the financial services industry in America. From college students and women to communities of color and low-to-moderate-income households, niche populations have specialized financial needs – but they often underutilize many valuable financial products and services. How can you better connect with these consumers?
Abnormal Returns
MARCH 5, 2023
Top clicks this week Some of the best nuggets from Warren Buffet's latest shareholder letter. (investmenttalk.substack.com) Do stocks always outperform bonds over the long run? (mailchi.mp) Eight personal finance debates you can pretty much ignore. (thomaskopelman.com) Is it really a mistake to have saved too much for retirement? (humbledollar.com) A look at how to 'avoid financial disasters' for HNW individuals.
The Irrelevant Investor
MARCH 10, 2023
I will remember this week for the rest of my life. As an investor, you get used to stock market volatility. Economic volatility on the other hand has a way of sticking with you. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the Fed was driving an overheating economy at 150 miles per hour. And when it realized it was going too fast, it jammed on the brake pedal as hard as it could.
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 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.
Speaker: Raul Perez, VP and CFO of Lancaster Leaf
Lancaster Leaf Tobacco Co Inc. is a subsidiary of Universal Corporation, the leading global leaf tobacco supplier. Lancaster Leaf supplies virtually all the major cigar manufacturers in the U.S. with filler, binder, and wrapper, and exports filler, binder, and wrapper to international cigar manufacturers. This all could mean a complicated month-end close - before automation.
A Wealth of Common Sense
MARCH 5, 2023
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 70% of private industry workers had access to a workplace retirement plan in 2021. Just 51% of them participated in those plans. It’s estimated more than 100 million Americans are covered by a defined contribution retirement plan. Those plans hold something like $11 trillion. That’s a lot of money but is it enough to retire comfortably?
The Irrelevant Investor
MARCH 4, 2023
Something interesting happened this week that has never happened before. According to Ryan Detrick, three weeks ago, AAII bulls made a 52-week high. And then stocks fell, and bulls went into the fetal position. Bears now outnumber bulls almost two to one. This about-face happened at a breakneck speed never before witnessed. Here’s the chart from Liz Ann Sonders.
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 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.
Speaker: Rita Keller - President of Keller Advisors, LLC
You've worked diligently and have built a glowing reputation grounded in your excellent skills in tax, accounting, and auditing. You're known as the “go-to” person when a client is faced with tax and financial decisions. You have a very successful firm -- but that’s not enough. Profession leaders are urging you to diversify your financial skills and distance yourself from compliance work.
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