The Big Picture

JANUARY 25, 2023

Fascinating discussion this morning from Robin Powell. He points to a research note from Kings College where the authors surveyed active managers about how they were responding to the shift in favor from active to passive fund management over the past decade or two. But they also asked questions about how these managers invested their own monies. Robin buries the lede in his discussion, but allow me to correct that oversight: “ Active managers invest their own capital passively.” Man

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Nerd's Eye View

JANUARY 4, 2023

Financial advisors have a wide range of strategies at their disposal to create financial plans for their clients. And when it comes to retirement planning, one popular technique is the use of ‘guardrails’, which set an initial monthly withdrawal rate that can be later adjusted as the size of the client’s portfolio changes. This strategy is valuable because it generally allows for higher initial withdrawal rates than more static approaches that don’t accommodate clients wi

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Nerd's Eye View

JANUARY 2, 2023

Welcome to the January 2023 issue of the Latest News in Financial #AdvisorTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors! This month's edition kicks off with the news that Envestnet has decided to enter the RIA custodial business through a partnership with Australian bank FNZ to white-label what was once the State Street RIA custodial platform of many years ago –

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The Reformed Broker

JANUARY 25, 2023

Bitcoin is a middling technology that, 15 years after its introduction to the world, still does not have a single legitimate use case in the developed world where it’s the best possible solution to a problem. It’s worse than our traditional stores of value (gold, US dollar) because of its inherent volatility (roughly 5x more volatile than the stock market).

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Marketing Marketing 353

Speaker: Duke Heninger, Partner and Fractional CFO at Ampleo & Creator of CFO System

Are you ready to elevate your accounting processes for 2025? 🚀 Join us for an exclusive webinar led by Duke Heninger, a seasoned fractional CFO and CPA passionate about transforming back-office operations for finance teams. This session will cover critical best practices and process improvements tailored specifically for accounting professionals.

Accounting

Abnormal Returns

JANUARY 1, 2023

Also on the site Why you should choose simplicity over complexity: the case against FSAs. (abnormalreturns.com) Top clicks this week Here is Eddy's 2023 Buy List. (crossingwallstreet.com) The best books Ben read in 2022 including "Die With Zero" by Bill Perkins. (awealthofcommonsense.com) A look at the best charts of 2022. (topdowncharts.substack.com) Six things that don't change in financial markets including the attraction of 'shiny objects.

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The Big Picture

JANUARY 13, 2023

It may surprise you to learn that during this cycle of falling inflation, there seems to be little correlation with rising Fed Rates. This is very counter-intuitive but it makes sense when you consider what an aberrational and unusual cycle this has been. Despite zero rates for a decade plus inflation was quite benign. it was only the combination of the global pandemic and lockdown, a massive fiscal stimulus, and a surge in demand for goods that have driven the 2020 to 2022 inflation.

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A Wealth of Common Sense

JANUARY 31, 2023

It’s not difficult to find a bearish perspective during a bear market. The bad stuff gets amplified and feels much worse when investors are losing money. Although stocks have rallied this year we’re still well below the highs and remain in an economic environment that is increasingly hard to handicap. Nassim Taleb has never been shy about voicing his bearish prognostications.

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Nerd's Eye View

JANUARY 24, 2023

Welcome back to the 317th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast ! My guest on today's podcast is Jennifer Climo. Jennifer is the CEO and a Senior Advisor for Milestone Financial Planning, an independent RIA based in Bedford, New Hampshire, that oversees $360 million in assets under management for 225 client households. What's unique about Jennifer, though, is how, after more than a decade of building her own successful solo practice, she intentionally decided to merge her practice wit

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Management Financial Advisor Planning Retirement 246

The Reformed Broker

JANUARY 21, 2023

Hung with my friends Haley Sacks (Mrs. Dow Jones), Pat McAuliffe (Barstool Sports) and Gabe Walker (PRE.VEYOR) at the Knicks game this week. That’s after doing Closing Bell from the NYSE and then a quick slice at Joe’s Pizza (“Famous Since 1975). A very New York night, really reminded me of what I love so much about this town, despite its flaws and annoyances.

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Speaker: Abdi Ali, Sr. Lease Accounting Consultant

Join this insightful webinar with industry expert Abdi Ali, who will discuss the challenges that can arise from managing lease accounting with spreadsheets! He will share real-world examples of errors, compliance issues, and risks that may be present within your spreadsheets. Learn how these tools, while useful, can sometimes lead to inefficiencies that affect your time, resources, and peace of mind.

Accounting

Abnormal Returns

JANUARY 1, 2023

Markets Global stocks and bonds lost more than $30 trillion for 2022. (ft.com) The 60/40 portfolio had a historically bad year. (finance.yahoo.com) Apple ($AAPL) lost $846 billion in market cap in 2022. (marketwatch.com) 2022 was a big year for ETFs, except for a spot Bitcoin ETF. (theetfeducator.com) IPO proceeds fell off the table in 2022. (cnbc.com) Strategy Average annual stock market returns are not-so average.

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Pragmatic Capitalism

JANUARY 13, 2023

We are going to do a new 3 Minute Macro “Ask Me Anything” edition. It should be out next week or so.

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The Big Picture

JANUARY 2, 2023

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all the rest of the seasonal glad tidings for you and yours in 2023. Before we roll up our sleeves and start to engage in the serious business of managing risk in the capital markets, I wanted to share a story that is more in keeping with the spirits of the season. I ran track in high school. My father’s advice when I joined the team was: Find the fastest guy on the team and keep up with him.

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A Wealth of Common Sense

JANUARY 29, 2023

Each year Aswath Damodaran at NYU kindly updates the annual returns for stocks (S&P 500), bonds (10 year Treasuries) and cash (3-month T-bills) going back to 1928. I love this data because stocks, bonds and cash are the building blocks of asset allocation.1 Sure, you can add other asset classes and strategies but those three are where most investors should start when it comes to figuring out your portfolio mix.

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Join us in this webinar, where we share best practices on how to think about the reconciliation work each month, when best to do reconciliations, how they should be prepared, and some common pitfalls to avoid. Learning Objectives: This course objective is to understand how to properly prepare and review balance sheet reconciliations and its impact on the financial statements.

Accounting

Nerd's Eye View

JANUARY 23, 2023

An important truism about marketing is that to be effective, the marketer’s message needs to connect with the audience it intends to reach. Traditional forms of marketing used by financial advisors – including networking with one’s friends and family members, cold-calling, and paid advertising – have been effective at reaching a ‘typical’ client base of older, wealthy retirees.

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Marketing Marketing Financial Planner Education 246

The Reformed Broker

JANUARY 25, 2023

I had a bit of a flashback last night to the year 2000, sitting in my office after hours watching JDS Uniphase collapse on the heels of its conference call after reporting “better than expected” earnings for the quarter. Throughout 2000, techs and telecoms were still making a ton of profit, but it was becoming apparent that they were still coasting on the spend from 1999.

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Marketing Marketing 325

Abnormal Returns

JANUARY 22, 2023

Top clicks this week What investment beliefs do you hold that a majority of investment pros would disagree with? (mebfaber.com) Is this a new bull market? Hold on. (theirrelevantinvestor.com) The stock market typically bottoms before earnings. (tker.co) Nick Maggiulli, "Being rich is a feeling." (ofdollarsanddata.com) Time and patience play a big role in wealth building.

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Pragmatic Capitalism

JANUARY 2, 2023

Here are some of my favorite posts from 2022.

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As we step into 2024, the lending landscape evolves rapidly with technology, regulations, and market dynamics driving change. For banks and financial institutions to stay competitive and meet the evolving needs of their customers, these drivers must be understood and engaged with. Lenders can anticipate significant transformation fueled by technological advancements, regulatory shifts, and changing consumer behaviors.

Banking

The Big Picture

JANUARY 3, 2023

Welcome to 2023! Let’s jump into the new year with some fresh observations, some of which are quite surprising: • Astronomical Measures of Time Are Unrelated to Investing : 2023 – a new year! It is natural to hope the flipping of the calendar brings something new and different. But why? It takes the Earth 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, and 9.76 seconds to complete one orbit – to return to its exact same place in space relative to our star, the sun.

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Economy Economics Portfolio Marketing 328

Calculated Risk

JANUARY 27, 2023

Realtor.com has monthly and weekly data on the existing home market. Here is their weekly report released today from Chief Economist Danielle Hale: Weekly Housing Trends View — Data Week Ending Jan 21, 2023. Note: They have data on list prices, new listings and more, but this focus is on inventory. • Active inventory growth continued to climb with for-sale homes up 69% above one year ago.

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Numbers Sales Marketing Marketing 145

Nerd's Eye View

JANUARY 31, 2023

Welcome back to the 318th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast ! My guest on today's podcast is Ali Swart. Ali is a Partner and the Managing Director for Waldron Private Wealth, a multi-family office based in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania that oversees nearly $3 billion in assets under management for 280 ultra-high-net-worth family households.

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The Reformed Broker

JANUARY 18, 2023

FUTURE PROOF FESTIVAL 2023 TICKET REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN Join us September 10th-13th in Huntington Beach, CA! It’ll be the lowest rate you’ll ever pay to attend. Prices jump in 2 weeks. Use the link down below to register now. See you there[link] pic.twitter.com/BTO0RNivhJ — The Compound (@TheCompoundNews) January 18, 2023 Last September we threw the biggest wealth management festival (and proba.

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Speaker: Joe Buhrmann, MBA, CFP®, CLU®, ChFC® Senior Financial Planning Practice Management Consultant eMoney Advisor

During an era of evolving consumer preferences, the banking sector is undergoing a profound shift. As customers continue to broaden their perspectives, banking professionals must support their customers' financial wellness by providing holistic financial advice that aligns with individual goals and circumstances. Without adapting, financial institutions will find that loyalty may crumble amid uncertainty.

Financial Advice

Abnormal Returns

JANUARY 4, 2023

Markets 15 charts that explain 2022 returns. (morningstar.com) 2022 was a good year for value. (blog.validea.com) Consumer sentiment is awful. (alhambrapartners.com) Commodities Managed futures returns in 2022 were front-end loaded. (rcmalternatives.com) Natural gas prices in Europe have fallen to pre-war levels. (axios.com) Lumber prices are back down to pre-pandemic levels.

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Financial Advising Advertising Budgeting Economy 265

A Wealth of Common Sense

JANUARY 19, 2023

A reader asks: Is it crazy to be 100% in stocks from age 32 to sometime in my 50s for my retirement accounts? And another reader asks a similar question: I don’t get why people work a 30+ year career while investing in stocks only to glide path into a heavier bond allocation around retirement. Why not just stay 100% in stocks, benefit from share price appreciation and collect dividends for life?

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The Big Picture

JANUARY 23, 2023

I wanted to drop a quick note about the endless spate of layoff announcements — and why you should (mostly) ignore them. Let’s start with some numbers: Microsoft 22,000 (10%) Amazon 18,000 (1%) Google 12,000 (6.4%) Salesforce 7,000 (10%) Tesla 10,000 (10%) Twitter 3,700 (50%) Apple 0 (0%) Keep in mind a few things as you con

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Calculated Risk

JANUARY 22, 2023

Earlier, in the CalculatedRisk Real Estate Newsletter on December existing home sales, NAR: Existing-Home Sales Decreased to 4.02 million SAAR in December , I mentioned that the median price was down more than normal seasonally. Below is a table of the seasonal pattern over the last several years. Seasonally prices typically peak in June (closed sales for contracts signed mostly in April and May).

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Sales 145

Speaker: Carolina Aponte - Owner and CEO, Caja Holdings LLC

In today's rapidly changing business environment, building a resilient balance sheet is crucial to the survival of any business. A resilient balance sheet allows a company to withstand financial shocks and adapt to changing market conditions. To achieve this, companies need to focus on key strategies such as maintaining adequate liquidity, managing debt levels, diversifying revenue streams, and prioritizing profitability over growth.

Financial Planning

Nerd's Eye View

JANUARY 27, 2023

Enjoy the current installment of “Weekend Reading For Financial Planners” - this week’s edition kicks off with the news that CFP Board announced this week that it is splitting into two separate organizations with the same leadership but different nonprofit statuses. By switching to 501(c)(6) nonprofit status, the new CFP Board of Standards will have expanded abilities to advance the planning profession through lobbying and more targeted advertising messages to grow the ranks of

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The Reformed Broker

JANUARY 3, 2023

If you’re a financial advisor or a fund manager and you weren’t down 20% last year, you won, basically. The S&P fell into a 20% bear market while the Nasdaq crashed almost 40%. Bonds were down double digits as an asset class. International stocks, while outperforming the US and not down as much, were still down a lot. Except for Turkey, which inexplicably doubled last year – here’s the TUR ETF, The post Think you have it bad?

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Abnormal Returns

JANUARY 27, 2023

The biz The podcasting business has gone from gold rush to mature in a couple of years. (niemanlab.org) Spotify ($SPOT) has yet to make the most of its podcast acquisitions. (theverge.com) Twenty lessons Ryan Holiday learned making his podcast including ' (ryanholiday.net) AI Derek Thompson talks with Ben Thompson, of Stratechery, about the wide-ranging impact of AI.

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Management 264