Volatility has become the norm it seems. After a nice steady first year under President Trump, since the beginning of 2018 we have seen the market swing wildly. The key drivers have been interest rates and trade policies. Both have put a sharp focus on the chances of entering a
Since our founding 27 years ago, SEM has understood one critical fact — investors are humans, not robots. Each year DALBAR releases the Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior (QAIB). They study the buy & sell patterns of stock and bond investors and compare the returns of the average investor to
After 25 years of following the financial markets every day, you’d think I’d grow used to the sensationalized headlines of every single market move and every single economic data point. Today the financial media was reminding us that the ISM Manufacturing data released this morning showed
Trade War, Recession, & Interest Rates
The 3rd Quarter brought some large fluctuations in both the stock and bond markets. By far the most often discussed topics in client and advisor meetings this quarter centered around the on-going Trade War, the impact of interest rate adjustments by the Federal
We recently conducted a survey of individual clients and professional investor advisors asking them to look at some data to select the most and least risky investments on the list. This is an exercise both groups are asked to do frequently. For individual investors, they have lists of investment choices
