Investing
Tax Reform & Portfolio Protections
What kind of news have we heard this past week that is impacting the financial markets? TAX REFORM First, we’ve seen progress toward tax reform. The House of Representatives passed the 2018 Fiscal Budget which will now move to the Senate for a vote. This step has to happen in order for overall tax reform…
What In The World Is Going On?
MICHELLE SMALENBERGER, CFP® You can picture the movie scene where a character says: “Don’t move” while the others cautiously stand still and watch. You could say this is reminiscent of the world at the moment. Instead of standing in paranoia, we are waiting for clear direction. There are so many random, unconnected events happening all…
Friday’s Financial Update 9-15-2017
MICHELLE SMALENBERGER, CFP® During the months of August and September, we’ve seen continued positive performance in the financial markets. With this higher performance has come an increase in volatility attributed to a variety of reasons which we will dig into. The following chart is extremely helpful for comparing volatility and putting it into perspective. As…
Do You Panic About Investment Performance?
We have been attending a conference in Dallas over the past week. After leaving the hotel, we started hearing that many gas stations throughout the city and suburbs were actually out of gas. Due to the rising prices caused from the destruction that Hurricane Harvey had on the Houston community and two oil refineries there,…
What is the market?
MICHELLE SMALENBERGER, CFP® Whether it is on the nightly news, in the newspaper, on various financial radio stations or websites, you hear people talk about the market. Yet, what is the market? The market is simply where stocks, bonds and funds are traded. Here we refer to a handful of common indexes or benchmarks used to…
Friday’s Financial Update 8-18-2017: Investing vs. Gambling
We’ve all seen the news headlines this week of political drama in many forms. The market has been up and down depending on the news of the day. Despite these events, a diversified long-term focused investment plan is still the way to go to weather not only the news but also the market. Thought that…





