As a citizen of the United States of America, we celebrate Independence Day on July 4th. We celebrate this holiday to remember the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which declared the 13 united colonies free from the King of Great Britain. However, most Americans don't understand what it truly meant for our founding fathers to sign that document which costed them their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. It's important to remind ourselves what our founding fathers were feeling and what they were willing to sacrifice in order to be free. Signing the Declaration of Independence On July 1, 1776, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, and on the following day 12 of
The Federal Reserve raised rates another quarter percentage point on Wednesday, June 14th. Without fail, many news outlets and media have started the conversation around monetary policy (The Federal Reserve) getting tight and the possibility of higher rates leading to an impending recession. While anything is certainly possible, the data does not seem to indicate this as a likely scenario, at least not likely based on interest rates just yet. While other items could always create temporary economic set backs, the interest rates and monetary policy continue to be very accommodative for economic growth. The Federal Reserve is ultimately getting “less loose” and not “tight” by any historical
What Robo-Advisors Recommend: An Answer on the Efficient Frontier Within the last 5 years we have seen a new breed of investment advisors that have been gaining traction. They are online investment platforms known as "robo-advisors". Some offer investment solutions for individual consumers only, while others offer solutions for businesses and/or other advisors to use them as their investment management solutions. The investment solutions they offer is based on what is called Modern Portfolio Theory, which uses mathematical algorithms that generate what their investment selection would be, most often using a diversified portfolio of ETF's. We decided to test what these Robo-Advisor would reco
Lessons from my Career There are certain investing fundamentals that will never go away and no matter the environment we find ourselves, these fundamentals will always shine through. It has been a bit of a roller coaster ride since 2002 when I first entered the industry. Lets face it, 2 stock market declines in excess of 50% in my first 7 years in the industry is like hoping on a rollercoaster for the first time. Thankfully I was surrounded by a good team and understood the fundamentals of long term investing very well. None the less, the start to my career aged me fairly quickly. The last 7 years mark the calmest 7 of my career by a long shot and are certainly much appreciated. Of co
Last month I wrote the article "Will Social Security Survive" (1), which went into detail about our current Socials Security system, the real numbers and many solutions to help Social Security survive. At the end of that article I said I would give alternative solutions not as popular in congress that may be a viable solution. First, let me explain my personal perspective on the situation (which does not include Evergreen as a whole). Social Security makes up 25% of our federal budget (4.9% of GDP) and is continuing to increase. When you include Medicare, Medicaid, and all the other income security programs (americas "safety net") along with Net Interest on the debt it adds up to over $2.6 t
