We get a lot of questions from potential clients about how they should choose a financial advisor. Take a look at our guide, it should help make it a little easier. Click Here To Download - "What To Look For In A Financial Advisor"
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Guarding Against Identity Theft
Take steps so criminals won’t take vital information from you. America is enduring a data breach epidemic. As 2013 ended, the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics released its 2012 Victims of Identity Theft report. Its statistics were sobering. About one in 14 Americans aged 16 or older had been defrauded or preyed upon in the…
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Weekly Economic Update – March 24, 2014
FED TAPERS, CHANGES CRITERIA FOR A RATE HIKE Last week, the Federal Reserve disclosed another $10 billion cut for QE3 (Quantitative Easing) in April, and a view that declining unemployment would not necessarily prompt interest rate increases. Rather than peg rate hikes on the jobless rate dipping below 6.5%, the Fed will give greater weight…
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Weekly Economic Update – March 17, 2014
RETAIL SALES UP 0.3% IN FEBRUARY Weather didn’t stop Americans from shopping last month. February’s headline gain in retail sales was the first in three months and represented a nice turnaround from the (revised) 0.6% drop measured by the Commerce Department for January. Minus car and truck buying, the February increase was still 0.3%. Sales…
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Chine, Ukraine & The Markets
New economic & political concerns are putting stocks to the test. Dow drops again, analysts wonder. March 13 saw another triple-digit descent for the blue chips – the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 230 points, the second market day in less than two weeks to witness a loss of 150 points or greater.…
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Why Do We Save So Little?
What’s good for the economy isn’t necessarily good for our future. Our parents & grandparents saved much more than we do. Most people who have read up on the economy for any length of time have heard of the personal saving rate (PSAVERT), which the Commerce Department calculates as the ratio of personal saving to…
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Monthly Economic Update: March 2014
THE MONTH IN BRIEF Wall Street staged an impressive comeback in February – emerging market currency troubles, middling economic indicators and unrest brewing on multiple continents couldn’t stop the bulls from running. The Dow gained 3.97% for the month and the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2000 all gained more than 4%. Important commodities and…
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Weekly Economic Update – March 3, 2014
MIXED RESULTS FROM CONSUMER INDICES Wet, cold weather didn’t dampen the consumer outlook in February – at least according to the month’s final University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, which came in at 81.6. The index finished January at 81.2. On the other hand, February’s Conference Board consumer confidence index slipped 1.3 points to 78.1…
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Hanging On Through The Turbulence
Patience & diversification matter in all manner of stock market climates. Stocks rise, fall ... and rise again. Volatility certainly came back to Wall Street during the first several weeks of 2014 in the form of a 7.2% descent for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a 5.9% retreat for the NASDAQ. The declines gave…
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