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Slick TV ads often make financial planning and wealth management sound simple, but it’s usually not. Managing wealth requires knowing a lot about highly technical topics, like taxes, government regulations, and finance as well as history, psychology and how to communicate with loved ones about sensitive issues. This article highlights some of the knowledge needed to manage wealth and why it’s often so daunting without the help of an independent personal financial advisor who is familiar with your situation.
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Understanding The Federal Reserve Mandate To End Inflation
The Federal Reserve System, the nation’s central bank, has a dual mandate to pursue maximum employment and maintain price stability. These two priorities are currently treated equally, but that was not always the case. In fact, the Fed’s bias toward maximizing employment was a critical driver of the stagflation that plagued the U.S. in the late 1960s and 1970s. Recognizing the need to balance price stability and maximum employment, in 1977, Congress revised the Federal Reserve Act.
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Fed Governor Kugler Details Inflation And Economic Outlook
The 12-month inflation rate, as measured by the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, was 2.6% in December, down from its peak of 7.1% in June 2022, and the six-month rate for PCE inflation was even lower, at 2%, which is the target rate set by the Federal Reserve.
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Why Rates May Not Be Cut Until June
The cost of a loan to buy a home, car, college education, and achieve the American Dream is staying the same for now. As expected, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank did not lower loan rates following the Fed’s Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, policy meeting.
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Practical Suggestions For Achieving Your 2024 Resolutions
New Year’s resolutions usually fail because they‘re often too hard to achieve. After six months, only 10% of people who make resolutions achieve them or remain committed to them, , according to a study by Dr. Mark Griffiths, a Chartered Psychologist and Distinguished Professor of Behavioral Addiction at the Nottingham Trent University. What can you do to make financial, medical, or other personal resolutions more likely to be achieved?
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A Sign Of Progress In Solving U.S. Economic Problems
The Federal Reserve appears to be pulling off a feat most experts did not believe it could: ending its aggressive inflation-fighting campaign of 11 interest rate hikes without tipping the U.S. economy into a recession.
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Fed Keeps Rates Unchanged; Expects Easing In 2024
To promote transparency and free markets, the Federal Reserve System began publishing the opinions of the 19 U.S. central bankers that decide interest rate policy.
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Have You Logged Into Your Social Security Account?
Have you logged in to your Social Security account? Creating an online account at SSA.gov is an important first step in understanding your retirement income situation. However, only about 60 million of the 160 million individuals in the U.S. labor force who have Social Security accounts have created a way to access the Social Security Administration’s website.
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The Great Fake Out Of 2023 Is Poised To Extend Into 2024
All year long, the economy and stock prices have fooled experts and consumers, outperforming expectations month after month.
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Test Your Financial Planning IQ
The five questions below are a challenge meant to allow you to assess your knowledge of investing, tax and financial planning. If you have been following our news stream, this quiz draws on familiar ground. The answers are below.
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Planning Briefs
Bracing For Recession Amid A Bear Market
Published Thursday, October 27, 2022 at: 7:29 AM EDT
Stocks have been in a bear market since June 13, 2022. The decline began on January 3rd, worsened in February when Russia invaded Ukraine, and sunk further after the Federal Reserve in March began an aggressive series of interest rate hikes to fight inflation.
The price of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and historic financial crises since 1957, shown in black in the chart, is a reminder that the U.S. economy and stock market endured many setbacks and bear markets throughout modern U.S. history. The dotted line in red shows the compound annual growth rate on the S&P 500 stock index was 7%, despite the many crises.
In recent months, the S&P 500 index declined from the heights of late 2021 and reverted to its historical trend rate of 7%. This indicates stocks are not overpriced, like they were in the tech-stock bubble, which began in 1997 and peaked in 1999 and 2000. Yet the economy is hobbled by high inflation and the stock market seems especially risky. How bad do things look to leading economic experts?
According to the latest Wall Street Journal quarterly survey of 60 leading economists, the consensus forecast is for a recession in the first and second quarter of 2023, but the downturn will be short and shallow, and the forecast calls for a return to positive growth of six-tenths of 1% in the third quarter for the U.S. economy.
To be clear, more pain is ahead, and stocks may decline further, but the consensus of the leading economists is for growth to return to the economy in the third quarter of 2023, and that’s a reminder to investors as we brace for a recession amid a bear market.
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