“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” — Dr. Seuss 2024 came out swinging. The S&P 500 rose more than 10% in the first quarter after adding more than 11% in the fourth quarter of 2023. Back-to-back double-digit quarters are rare, but they tend to happen in …
The U.S. economy added 1.8 million jobs in July as hiring momentum in the service sector allowed many workers to reclaim lost jobs or get new ones. The pace of hiring slowed compared to gains of 2.7 million and 4.8 million in May and June. The slowing growth reflects consumer caution as new …
U.S. GDP fell 32.9% last quarter on an annualized basis. It wasn’t as bad as it looks. Annualizing the data magnifies the decline by assuming the trend will continue for a full year. A better assessment can be gained by comparing GDP to the same quarter last year.
The increased number of COVID-19 cases appears to be pressuring employment in the U.S. Last week, the number of initial unemployment claims rose from 1.3 million to 1.4 million. (See Figure 1.) After slowly declining for weeks, the uptick shows signs of a weakening job market.
One of the most important decisions you’ll make when designing your estate plan is who to name in the various fiduciary roles – trustee, personal representative, executor and agent.
Evidence for a sharp, although possibly brief, economic recovery continues to mount. As shown in Figure 1, retail sales rebounded another 7.5% in June and are now 1.1% higher than a year ago. Signs of economic reopening showed up throughout the data released last week.
Jamie Hopkins, Director of Retirement Research with our partners at Carson Group, put together an on-demand webinar to help you start thinking about these foundational pieces of retirement. Click Here to Watch the Webinar
