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In 2019, there was no shortage of market headwinds. The year started off with talk of a global recession. Then we began a trade war with China, the world's largest trading partner. Add to this a politically weakened President being impeached.

Tax avoidance is an important part of investing. If your personal portfolio is actively traded to earn a return, all the short term gains are treated as ordinary income, and are taxed at the federal level as high as 37%.

In spite of what is reported as economic news headlines, the fact remains that consumer spending continues to drive a large part of the U.S. economy.

When reviewing your Trust as part of your estate planning, an important point for thoughtful consideration is exactly who should be a trustee.

Lowering interest rates is supposedly good for the economy. Yet this is harmful for investors who depend on income from their portfolios.

Who or what is Tina? This is Wall Street jargon and rationale for buying stocks at any price. With bond yields at multi decade lows, Wall Street's response is to buy more stocks. Hence their acronym of TINA, which stands for "There Is No Alternative" (to stocks).

In a recent about face, the Federal Reserve moved policy away from the normalization of interest rates back to cutting interest rates. Here we go again! On the surface, one could conclude the Fed is helping the markets. The question is: Why?

The economic wisdom of implementing tariffs in a global economy is fleeting. An advisor to another U.S. President expressed the viewpoint that there should be two requirements met before anyone became an economic advisor...

Is integrity really passé? Wealthy parents pay bribes to get their child into college. The owner of a major sports team is charged with soliciting prostitution. Politicians are acting anything other than statesmanlike. With this backdrop, I have been reflecting...

The market is moving up. The market is moving up. FOMO! This acronym describes a technique of investing called "Fear of Missing Out". What this means is...regardless of market conditions, or the underlying investment fundamentals of a company, one invests simply because everyone else is.

There will be great stress in your family when you become incapacitated. Strong opinions are expressed by sometimes well-meaning family members that paralyze decision making. This is the exactly the wrong time to require your spouse or children to begin a search for a competent trustee who will guide them.

Only several weeks ago, the stock markets were careening lower. Even as an upward movement began, most saw this "V" as a short-term bounce. The technical thinking was that the market needed more time trading in the lower end of this trading range.

Are we in a correction or have we entered a bear market? One answer is in the financial text books that define a decline off the highs of 10% as a correction, and a 20% decline as a bear market. Such clear-cut definitions make news reporting easy.

The recent hack into the Marriott/Starwood Hotels database impacted up to 500 million customers worldwide. To place this in perspective, the population in the United States is 325 million, so it is reasonable to assume a widespread impact on this data breach.