How HSC Leverages Alternative Investments in Your Best Interests
Written by Joe Eskridge In our low-growth economic environment, you may be wondering what HSC Wealth Advisors’ position is on alternative investments (i.e., so called, “alts”). Alts, which include real estate and commodities, can have low correlation to stocks and bonds.
Will Recent Changes in Social Security Affect Me?
Written by Joel Bengds You may have heard on the news or read recent articles stating that changes to Medicare premiums and Social Security benefits are coming in 2016.
When China Sneezes
Written by Sandy Stuart One of the wonders I have witnessed in my lifetime is the development of China. Whoever would have even dreamed China would have evolved as it did. I can recall when it was
Demand vs. Command Economy
Written by Sandy Stuart It has been a long while between articles from this author. I had just completed (or nearly so) an article concerning the futility of socialist economic systems as they attempt to compete with free market capitalistic economic systems. Then the Pope issued his most recent encyclical in which he expressed his […]
Inflation, Deflation, and the Energy Boom
Written by Sandy Stuart The European Union is experiencing deflation. Japan has just emerged from such an experience. The U.S. is trying to avoid it. Other countries (like Russia) are experiencing rampant inflation. Perhaps it is time for us to review inflation and deflation so we can understand what we want our elected officials to […]
When Diversification Fails
Correlation coefficients are one of the most complicated areas of the asset management world, but the idea behind them is pretty simple–or, at least, most of us thought it was until the 2008-2009 meltdown. The basic idea is that you study the price movements of, say, the stocks of large companies (represented by the S&P […]
Are We Drifting Into Another Cold War?
Written by Sandy Stuart The major powers of the world seem to have thrived on a relatively peaceful environment (excluding religious fanatics). The Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Iron Curtain came down. Russia and the other individual countries that comprised the Soviet Union had to compete in the open […]
Is It Time to Make Some Lemonade?
Written by Sandy Stuart There is much concern about the political shenanigans concerning our nation’s economy. There have been some pretty sour “lemons” and another yet to come. Can we use some lessons learned and make some lemonade? The first lemon was sequestration. Such unorganized cutting would surely undo our fragile economy. It didn’t. As […]
Feelings
Written by Sandy Stuart Feelings – The avowed enemy of the investor. If you feel too good, you tend to buy high. If you feel scared, you tend to sell low. Opinions vary widely concerning how feelings are formed and what we can do about them. I’d like to take a crack at getting a […]
A Nobel Prize in Prognostication?
Written by Bob Veres Yale economics professor Robert Shiller won the Nobel Prize in Economics this year, thrusting him into the spotlight of the mainstream media, and also making millions of investors aware that he has been predicting, for the past several decades, that housing and stock prices are due for a fall. Financial advisors […]