Bear Market Rally or Nah?

Current Conditions All eyes are still on the Federal Reserve right now. The expectation for the November meeting this week is that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates 75 basis points. A month ago, the Fed clearly sent the message that they would do whatever...

The Federal Reserve vs the Stock Market

Current Conditions Recently, I have spent a lot of time examining market indexes to identify possible points of support and resistance, and the June lows seem to be a logical point of support. This week the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq indexes both hit that level of...

Has the Stock Market Bottomed?

Ten weeks ago, on July 1, 2022, we were wondering if the stock market had reached the bottom yet. At that time, I wrote that the economic data coming out was not positive and stock buying was not happening at that time, so the markets might not have reached the bottom...

Investing During Inflation

Recently I looked at our family budget to compare how much more we were spending on groceries and fuel in 2022 versus 2021 and 2019. I skipped 2020 as it was such an odd year due to covid. I knew we were spending more even though it felt like we were buying less, so I...

What Can I Do Now to Save For Retirement

Personally, I don’t care for the word retirement. I prefer to call the time after you finish working at your career “making a life change.” I see it as the moment you can begin living life more on your own terms. But will you be financially secure enough to live off...

When Will the Stock Market Bottom?

As I have written many times before, it is impossible to time the market, but as Winston Churchill once said, “History repeats itself.” Historically measuring the breadth of the market is one of the indicators that can give us a clue as to how close we are to a market...

What Is the State of the Economy Right Now?

We’re all acutely aware of prices at the pump. In fact, my wife showed me a recent Facebook picture of a friend who filled up his pickup truck to the tune of $172.01. We’ll talk more about how high gas prices impacts our bottom line on everything, but let’s dive into...

Goodbye 2020

2021 Economic and Stock Market Preview If you had told me back in March that the market indexes would be setting all time highs by the end of the year, I would have told you to get your head out of the clouds. As I mentioned back in March, the market correction was...