Blog | JourneyTree Financial Planning & Investments

Investing in a Sideways Market

August 30, 2021

Today there are many signs that we are in an investment “bubble.” Michael Finke, Professor of Wealth Management at The American College of Financial Services defines a bubble this way: “A bubble occurs when the price of an asset inflates well beyond its fundamental value.” He goes on to say, “Bubbles often form when the imaginations of investors (speculators?) are inflamed by unrealistic expectations, sharp price increases, and fear of missing out.” These descriptions could well apply to everything from…

Book Review: The Psychology of Money – by Morgan Housel

May 20, 2021

General

Rare is the book that is at once wise and entertaining. The Psychology of Money is such a book. It is full of new perspectives about the modern world of finance. Its essays add greatly to our understanding of how to successfully negotiate our relationship with money. Housel writes in a clear and accessible style offering many fascinating stories to illustrate his points. The book consists of 20 brief chapters about a range of topics such as: Getting Wealthy vs.…

Is it Time for Inflation?

May 20, 2021

General

Those of us over a certain age may have a foggy memory of times when the prices of goods and services rose at a rapid and destabilizing pace. Inflation has ceased to be much of an issue for almost 40 years. The Federal Reserve Board, which sets the all-important Federal Funds rate on which most other interest rates are based, pushed that rate up to nearly 20 percent in 1980 to slow down the economy, ending the out-of-control inflation of…

woman shrugging, closing eyes, and crossing fingers

Is Successful Investing Mostly About Luck?

February 23, 2021

Investing

Here’s an interesting story of luck to ponder. The story of Bill Gates. Bill went to high school at Lakeside School, just outside Seattle, in 1968. At this time computers were not a common occurrence in schools, not even in colleges. However, one of the teachers at his school believed that book study wasn’t enough without real-world experience. He realized that kids would need to know something about computers when they went to college. So, he petitioned the Mothers’ Club…

Investing versus Speculating – The Tale of GameStop

February 23, 2021

Investing

The dramatic rise in the price of GameStop Corp. stock took the nation by storm in January. Beginning 2021 at a price of less than $20 a share it exploded to almost $350 by January 27. What accounted for the more than 1,500% increase? A frenzy of speculation (or gambling if you prefer). An unprecedented mixture of neophyte retail investors, newly available free trading, hedge funds shorting (betting against) overpriced GameStop shares then having to buy them back as…

The Great Disconnect

November 11, 2020

General, Market Update

“There really isn’t any doubt that financial markets remain broken and divorced from reality.” – David Rosenberg Rosenberg Research Economic Research for Informed Investing “Never before have I seen a market so highly valued in the face of overwhelming uncertainty…” – James Montier GMO Investments and Asset Management Stock Prices In early September the U.S. stock market (as measured by the S&P500) hit a new all-time high. Stock prices are now almost 11% higher than they were on January 1,…

Six arrows pointing to the left and one arrow pointing off to the left

An Unconventional Approach

August 25, 2020

General, Investing

A widely held belief in both academia and the investment industry is that a person should have as much of their money in stocks as they can tolerate because stocks have provided the highest returns over long periods of time. Most people cannot handle the erratic volatility of an all stock portfolio so many advisors say “let’s do 60% in stocks and 40% in bonds” in order to make things a bit more palatable. “60/40” has come to be the…

Group of people pointing at a graph with pens

Financial Planning – More Important than Ever

May 20, 2020

Financial Planning

Over the past few months, we have been living a new “normal.” This includes wearing face masks in public, social distancing, and communicating with our friends and loved ones not in person, but almost entirely virtually. These changes may cause you to pause and consider your priorities and what your future looks like. Many things in life are out of our control, but working with an advisor to create or revise your financial plan is a great way to take…

MARKET COMMENTARY – MAY 2020

May 15, 2020

Market Update

The Pandemic Roller Coaster of 2020 2020 has been a year of volatile extremes in the investment world. Following exceptional returns for virtually all types of investments in 2019, the S&P 500 stock index registered an all-time high on February 19. Less than a month later by March 23 the index had dropped 34% – the sharpest drop on record. Then, after unprecedented measures were announced by the Federal Reserve and Federal government, the S&P 500 shot up 30% over…

What to Do During a Bear Market

May 1, 2020

Financial Planning

We know you may be concerned about recent declines in the stock market. Markets go up, but they also go down. Fortunately, they go up more often than they go down. There are things in our lives that we can control and that makes sense to focus on, especially during turbulent times. Here are some personal financial items to review that can have a positive impact on your financial future. Review your expenses. As markets go down people start to…