Calculated Risk
FEBRUARY 16, 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 January, Realtor.com reported inventory was up 24.6% YoY, but still down 24.8% compared to the 2017 to 2019 same month levels. Now - on a weekly basis - inventory is up 27.5% YoY.
The Big Picture
FEBRUARY 18, 2025
We are four weeks out from the publication of “ How Not To Invest: The ideas, numbers, and behaviors that destroy wealth – and how to avoid them.” Audio, ebook, and hard copies are all scheduled to drop on the same day, March 18, 2025. I am very excited about this,my first book in 15 years. I stopped writing my column and blog posts (mostly) to focus on this from December 2023 right up until January 2025.
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Nerd's Eye View
FEBRUARY 19, 2025
When a client first begins working with an advisor, the relationship is often marked with a flurry of onboarding tasks, immediate issues to resolve, and long-term planning goals to establish. However, this heightened activity often settles into a familiar routine over time. And as clients come into monitoring meetings, they may increasingly describe their situation as "fine", with no pressing issues to address.
Abnormal Returns
FEBRUARY 20, 2025
Companies It feels like Apple ($AAPL) is 'stuck in a rut.' (spyglass.org) This company has thoroughly scrubbed any mention of diversity, inclusion or DEI from its SEC filings. (linkedin.com) Fund management If anybody is going to bridge the private-public markets gap it will be Blackrock ($BLK). (bloomberg.com) Even when used as prescribed, leveraged ETFs are imperfect instruments.
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Calculated Risk
FEBRUARY 20, 2025
This was a new record for imports in January, eclipsing the previous recent (Jan 2022) by 17%! Container traffic gives us an idea about the volume of goods being exported and imported - and usually some hints about the trade report since LA area ports handle about 40% of the nation's container port traffic. The following graphs are for inbound and outbound traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in TEUs (TEUs: 20-foot equivalent units or 20-foot-long cargo container).
A Wealth of Common Sense
FEBRUARY 16, 2025
My family took its first and only Disney trip in the summer of 1990. We rode some rollercoasters. Went to one of the waterparks. Decently fun trip from what I can remember as a 4th grader. The strange part was that my older brother Jon was lethargic the whole trip. I still remember a picture of him taking a nap on a bench in the middle of the day. Something was off.
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Abnormal Returns
FEBRUARY 16, 2025
Top clicks this week The big multi-decade trends driving the U.S. stock market. (awealthofcommonsense.com) Want to hedge inflation? Buy stocks. (axios.com) The Tesla ($TSLA) backlash is real. (wired.com) Too many people confuse speculation for investing. (ritholtz.com) Why investors need to consult primary sources. (newsletter.rationalwalk.com) Ben Carlson, "The pandemic turned us all into a bunch of degenerate gamblers.
Calculated Risk
FEBRUARY 19, 2025
Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Housing Starts Decreased to 1.366 million Annual Rate in January A brief excerpt: Total housing starts in January were below expectations; however, starts in November and December were revised up. The third graph shows the month-to-month comparison for total starts between 2024 (blue) and 2025 (red).
Wealth Management
FEBRUARY 21, 2025
Innovation, strategic networking and cross-generational collaboration offer a path forward.
Nerd's Eye View
FEBRUARY 18, 2025
Welcome everyone! Welcome to the 425th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast ! My guest on today's podcast is Sebastian Guerra. Sebastian is the President of Guerra Wealth Advisors, a hybrid advisory firm based in Miami, Florida, with nearly $15M of revenue and almost 60 team members, supporting over 1,700 client households. What's unique about Sebastian, though, is how his firm has implemented a financial planning quality control system, where a dedicated team member touches base wit
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.
Abnormal Returns
FEBRUARY 19, 2025
Podcasts Peter Lazaroff talks with Charley Ellis why most investors fail. (peterlazaroff.com) Dan Haylett talks with Leisa Peterson about re-writing our financial narratives. (humansvsretirement.com) Brendan Frazier talks with Tom Pendergast about searching for meaning in retirement. (podcasts.apple.com) Benjamin Brandt talks with Daniel Crosby about the five pillars of a fulfilling retirement.
Calculated Risk
FEBRUARY 19, 2025
From the Fed: Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, January 2829, 2025. Excerpt: With regard to the outlook for inflation, participants expected that, under appropriate monetary policy, inflation would continue to move toward 2 percent, although progress could remain uneven. Participants cited various factors as likely to put continuing downward pressure on inflation, including an easing in nominal wage growth, well-anchored longer-term inflation expectations, waning business pricing pow
Wealth Management
FEBRUARY 19, 2025
LPL's Alts Connect is powered by SUBSCRIBE, which provides the technology infrastructure for digitizing the alternative investment subscription and reporting processes.
A Wealth of Common Sense
FEBRUARY 20, 2025
Some random thoughts on navigating a challenging period in life: Simple matters more when things get hard. Simple beats complex for a variety of reasons. It also makes life easier when life gets harder. You don’t want your financial life to be complicated when life gets messy. Simplifying your investment process, the number of accounts you have, your holdings, your personal finances, you bill payments, etc. makes it.
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.
Abnormal Returns
FEBRUARY 18, 2025
Quant stuff Some financial-focused AI tools worth checking out. (herbgreenberg.com) A round-up of recent research papers on asset allocation including 'Asset Allocation Mandates and Price Reactions to New Information.' (capitalspectator.com) Some recent academic papers including 'The Cross-Section of Corporate Bond Returns.' (alphainacademia.substack.com) Behavior Gender differences in corrupt behavior.
Calculated Risk
FEBRUARY 19, 2025
From the Census Bureau: Permits, Starts and Completions Housing Starts: Privately-owned housing starts in January were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,366,000. This is 9.8 percent below the revised December estimate of 1,515,000 and is 0.7 percent below the January 2024 rate of 1,376,000. Single-family housing starts in January were at a rate of 993,000; this is 8.4 percent below the revised December figure of 1,084,000.
Wealth Management
FEBRUARY 20, 2025
The SEC is replacing its team focused on cryptocurrency enforcement with a smaller one to combat all kinds of cyber-related fraud.
Financial Symmetry
FEBRUARY 20, 2025
Two years ago, the concentration of the U.S. stock market in its largest companies looked high compared to recent history. Today, some might say market concentration appears really high. At the end of 2024, the 10 largest companies in the S&P 500 Index made up 37.3% of the index by market capitalization. This means that just 2% of the 500 largest U.S. companies represent nearly 40% of the weight.
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.
Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT)
FEBRUARY 16, 2025
By Bryce Sanders We have all heard the sayings, You get what you pay for and Free advice is worth what you paid for it. My guess is your clients wouldnt keep shopping with or going to a business where they didnt like the products or how theyre treated, no matter how low the prices are. The same holds true in their selection of a financial advisor. Dont use low costs to set yourself apart from other advisors.
Calculated Risk
FEBRUARY 19, 2025
From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey Mortgage applications decreased 6.6 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Associations (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending February 14, 2025. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 6.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier.
Wealth Management
FEBRUARY 20, 2025
The fintech aims to embed alts investment management into its standard brokerage infrastructure, with a product launch scheduled for the first half of this year.
Random Roger's Retirement Planning
FEBRUARY 20, 2025
The guys at RCM Alternatives had a blog post that was right out of our playbook here in terms of looking at alternative strategy funds as substitutes for plainer vanilla stock and bond exposures. They listed out quite a few funds that I've never heard of so looking at them was fun. Today we'll dig in and see if any of the funds should go on our radar.
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Indigo Marketing Agency
FEBRUARY 19, 2025
Why Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency for Financial Services Is the Key to Growing Your Business In the mid-2000s, digital marketing was just one of many mediums local businesses were starting to utilize to growalong with newspaper ads, phone book ads, direct mail ads, radio and TV ads, billboards, door-to-door sales, and more. Today, less than 20 years later, digital marketing is the number-one marketing medium used for growing businesses, including financial advisory firms, and all the other m
Calculated Risk
FEBRUARY 18, 2025
Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: The "Neutral" Rate and Implications for 30-year Mortgage Rates A brief excerpt: Housing economist Tom Lawler has written extensively on the neutral rate. He has argued that the neutral rate has increased back to pre-financial crisis levels and that it seems like that the current stance of monetary policy is not meaningfully restrictive .
Wealth Management
FEBRUARY 21, 2025
The movement to debut private-asset ETFs gained momentum last year after Apollo Global Management and State Street Global Advisorsfiled for a fundthat would directly hold private credit investments.
Validea
FEBRUARY 15, 2025
The NASDAQ 100’s remarkable ascent over recent years has undoubtedly pushed the index’s overall valuation metrics to elevated levels, raising concerns among value-conscious investors. This broad valuation expansion has led some market participants to dismiss the entire index as overvalued. However, such a blanket assessment overlooks the nuanced reality that individual companies within the index still offer compelling value propositions when examined through sophisticated analytical
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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?
Steve Sanduski
FEBRUARY 18, 2025
Guests: Tom Ruggie, ChFC, CFP , the founder and CEO of Destiny Family Office , which is a billion-dollar-plus AUM firm that specializes in helping high-net-worth clients manage every aspect of their financial lives In a nutshell: Sports memorabilia, art, jewelry, vehicles, cryptocurrency — these may not be “traditional” asset classes at your firm.
Calculated Risk
FEBRUARY 20, 2025
The DOL reported : In the week ending February 15, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 219,000, an increase of 5,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 213,000 to 214,000. The 4-week moving average was 215,250, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week's revised average.
Wealth Management
FEBRUARY 21, 2025
The decision is the latest retreat from the policies of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who officials in the crypto industry complained had sought to regulate the industry through enforcement actions.
Validea
FEBRUARY 20, 2025
High free cash flow yield stocks can represent a compelling investment opportunity, as these companies generate substantial cash compared to their market capitalization. This strong cash generation efficiency demonstrates their operational excellence and ability to effectively convert sales into actual cash after covering essential business costs like capital expenditures and working capital requirements.
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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