Investors' Insights and Market Updates

If you are a homeowner, it’s important to be aware of the key financial planning topics that can help you make informed decisions about your home and your future. In this educational episode, Mark Hume goes over some of the most important dos and don’ts regarding home insurance and decisions surrounding your deed and mortgage. With these tips, you can ensure you’re prepared for whatever comes your way as a homeowner.   Mark Hume, CFP® Senior Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Mark Hume here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor. Fi Plan Partners and LPL Financial do not offer tax or legal advice or services. We suggest speaking to a tax or legal professional regarding your specific situation.  The post Financial Planning Tips for Homeowners first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

All Eyes on The Fed Market participants have wished for the Federal Reserve to pause on rate hikes for many months, and we may see that happen after their meeting this week. This is the least clear the market has been on where the Fed will go with only two days away from their meeting. Typically, the market is fully priced on what rate expectations will be. There is much debate on where rates will be because of the concern around the banking system over the last few weeks. Even though the Fed pausing rate hikes is what people have wished for, it may have come at the expense of the banking system. This give-and-take surrounding the market is something we are going to continue watching. Over the weekend, there was a shotgun marriage between two Swiss banking giants, Credit Suites and UBS. UBS will buy its smaller competitor, Credit Suites, with the support of the Swiss banking system. This is news that the market is taking as a positive and shows that we’re doing all the right things and firming up our banking system and capital worldwide. What will be important is what the Fed says after their meeting. Will there be a 25-bais point rate hike, or will there be no hike at all? What the Fed says as the reason behind their decision could reassure markets. The Fed sees data that we don’t see, so if the Fed is confident in our banking system and the strength of our economy, then that’ll likely boost market expectations. In addition, inflation came out last week at 6%, which was in line with expectations. So, the Federal Reserve is getting what it wanted, which is a slow decrease in inflation.   The Bond Market In a chart shown in this episode, you will see that we’ve had a lot of volatility in the bond markets. It has almost traded like the stock market, in a sense. The chart shows that the curve has flattened, and rates have decreased. The 2-year dropped from around 5% to 3.86% in the span of a week. The 10-year dropped from 4% to around 3.43%. We went from a 100-basis point difference between the 2-year and the 10-year to roughly a 40-point basis differential. Traditionally, once the 2-year goes below the Fed fund rate, that is typically when the Fed looks to pause or to start cutting rates. The 2-year is down about fifty 50-basis points below the current Fed fund rate, so it will be interesting to see what the Fed does with this news and the current situation with the banking system. On another chart in this episode, over the span of one day, you will see what the Fed funds rate looked like before and after the situation with Silicon Valley Bank. It has dramatically changed from having steady rate hikes throughout the year to maybe one rate cut or a pause to pricing and cuts coming along as soon as the middle of the year. All eyes will be watching to see what direction the Fed goes.   Direct Impact What the Fed does has historically affected the stock market. In the past, the Fed has pushed rates higher than necessary to stop market falls. This time, we need to see a more accommodated Fed to see the market start to rally. Over the last year, we have seen mortgage rates rise. We watched the 30-year mortgage rate go from mid-twos to above seven. That directly impacts individuals looking for homes. As interest rates fall, you should expect to see stocks stabilize and potentially rise. You should see mortgage rates fall, which could help the housing economy and people looking for houses. A great deal of news is coming out this week that will significantly impact where the markets, inflation, and interest rates go from here, and we are watching it closely.   Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Be Careful What You Wish For first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Watch this week’s educational episode to hear Adam Vansant walk you through how to access tax documents on Account View.   Adam Vansant, AIF®, BFA™ Senior Vice President of Operations & Advisory Services Wealth Consultant Email Adam Vansant here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Finding Tax Documents on Account View first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

The Banking Industry We want to address what happened last week in the banking industry and explain why the market had such a tough week. Last week the S&P 500 was down 4.5%. Mid-caps were down 7.4%, and small-cap stocks were down 8.1%. The sharp pullback in the market was due to earlier in the week when the Federal Reserve said they still had work to do and expected further rate hikes. After that, later in the week, the news came out about the failure of Silicon Valley bank. Why did the market react negatively to the Silicon Valley Bank news? The best explanation is that Silicon Valley Bank was uniquely at risk because of its unusually low percentage of individual depositors and its unusually high portfolio of loans and securities backing up their deposits. Another problem is that the bank’s clientele was mostly startup companies in the technology and healthcare sectors. On Thursday, the bank had $42 billion worth of withdrawals which left the bank with a negative cash balance. This was immediately followed by regulators stepping in to take over the bank. Silicon Valley Bank was the 16th largest bank in the nation by total assets, so it wasn’t surprising that the market was concerned by its failure. This was the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, so the fears of a 2008 run on the banks scenario were running through investors’ minds. Silicon Valley Bank’s situation is unique, and the news of its failure was initially such a worry because 97% of the deposits at the bank exceed the FDIC’s insurance cap. Silicon Valley Bank was in a class of its own because it had a bad combination of the lowest percent of retail depositors and the highest percent of loans and securities backing up their deposits among all similarly-sized banks in the country. The second worst bank by these measurements, Signature Bank, was suddenly forced into receivership by regulators on Sunday, March 12, 2023. The two banks that regulators took over are the two banks that had the highest risk. It’s important to note that a large majority of U.S. banks are in much better financial shape than the two mentioned; however, this is something that we will continue to watch.   Inflation and The Fed One of our research partners, Strategas, once said, “Traditionally, the Fed raises rates until something breaks.” A break can be something minor, like in 1998 when the break was long-term capital management. At that time, it was the largest hedge fund in the world, and the Fed came in and had to save it. It could be something significant like the housing market crash in 2008. We’ve already seen parts of the economy break; for example, we saw crypto nearly collapse, we saw the collapse in the tech industry, and the IPO market dried up to near 0, and now we’ve had a bank failure. It will be interesting to see if this failure of Silicon Valley bank is an extension of what we already knew was the broken tech market or if this is a new break in the economy where it may be a weakening the banking system. Only time will answer that, but we do have a short-term indicator of that, which is market expectations for Fed rate hikes. What does the market think the Fed is going to do? Jerome Powell spoke to Congress last week for two days. Over those two days, interest rates spiked as he made it clear that the Fed’s number one goal is to fight inflation, and how they’re fighting inflation is by raising interest rates. On Friday, the news about the banking concerns pulled rates back down. However, tomorrow we will get a new inflation report, and it will be huge to see how market expectations react to that inflation report. We expect a 6% CPI, so depending on whether that CPI number comes in above or below 6% will be telling on a year-over-year basis. It will be more telling to see how the market reacts. Will the market say that the Fed is back focused on inflation, so the expectation is for interest rates to increase, or will the market say that the Fed is focused on the banking sector, at which point interest rate expectations come down? There’s a lot of conflicting data and some tug of war between who will win. Has the Fed done enough to break what they feel is reasonable to bring down inflation, or is there more to go? This is a significant week for data. The inflation data coming out tomorrow is good because we no longer have to wait. We’ve been waiting for this inflation report since the last Fed meeting beginning of February. The next Fed meeting will be on March 22, so we will also keep an eye on that.   Jobs According to the recent jobs reports, 311,000 jobs were added. The report also showed that unemployment rose from 3.4% to 3.6%. The unemployment rate rose because there are more people in the workforce. This is proven because the labor force participation rate rose the same amount as the unemployment rate. This is a significant data point because an increase in people looking for jobs i

Interest Rates and Market Performance With the treasury yields spiking higher the past few weeks, we’ve had some questions about higher interest rates and market performance. We looked back from a historical perspective on how the S&P 500 index had performed in calendar years when the yield on the benchmark 10-year treasury note finished the year higher than it began. From 2000-2022 there were ten such years where the S&P 500 posted a positive total return in eight of those ten years. One of the outlier years was last year in 2022, which saw a record jump in the 10-year yield, with the S&P 500 having a tough year. So, even though rates are rising this year, history says that’s not necessarily bad for the markets and is something we’re observing. Economic Data When we talk about holding the line, we’re usually referencing a technical line and trying to see if the market can stay above it. A chart in this episode displays the S&P 500, the 500 largest stocks publicly traded in the US. The S&P 500 is the most important equity index in the world. The chart shows how all of last year, the market would rally and then fall repeatedly. That started the term where we had a higher, low beginning this year. The market rallied, and then the market fell and then held at that rising line. Can the market hold this line going forward? Will it be able to continue a new pattern of higher highs and higher lows? Technical data like this tell us what’s happening now, and fundamentals are good for looking at the past. Another chart in this episode shows market performance during earnings season. The last three rallies in the S&P 500 were during earnings season. The micro data core company earnings alone have been very positive. The market had rallied on that positive news only to fizzle when the macro data took center stage. The Macro data we’re talking about is inflation. Everyone knows that inflation has been an issue and that the Fed has been pushing prices down. We’ve passed through another earnings season, and recently the market rallied again just in time for us to receive the macro data. Can this current market line hold as we move from the micro data positivity to the macro, which has been negative over the last 12 months? We will get the jobs data on Friday, inflation data next week, and the week after that, we will have the important Fed decision regarding interest rates. As you can see, we have a lot of macro market data coming at us. It will be very important to see if the market can hold the line and get a good rally to start off the year. Sector Realignment The global industry classification standard oversees realigning the S&P 500 and is scheduled to do a realignment on March 17th. Over a trillion dollars’ worth of money will be realigned within the 11 sectors of the S&P 500. The money is not coming or going; it’s just being realigned within the same 500 companies, but how does that work? Some credit card companies currently in the tech sector are moving to the financial sector. These kinds of moves make more sense because credit card companies deal mainly with financials. Some companies are moving from the tech sector to the industrial sector, and some big box and discount retailers are going from the consumer discretionary sector to the consumer staple sector. These moves will align the US more with the rest of the world. The tech sector is going to lose about 3%, making up 22% of the overall sector for the S&P. Financials are going to get a 3% bump, moving up to around 15% overall. Compared to the rest of the world, in the most tech-heavy places like Japan, their tech sector only makes up about 18% of their total. In places like Europe and China, their tech sectors comprise around seven and eight percent. It is interesting that we were so tech-heavy before this realignment. Forced Trading The sector realignments won’t change anything but will create hundreds of billions of dollars worth of forced trades. We have a lot of rules-based investing in this world. It’s not as much as one person picking one stock and buying them. They may want to own Visa, but if Visa is no longer in the tech sector, they must sell it. If you own a financial sector, you have to buy it. There’s no human decision behind that. That’s just hundreds of billions of dollars worth of forced trading that will happen in the next couple of weeks, likely around March 16th. It will make the market look a lot more volatile and look like there’s a lot more activity. There will more than probably be a lot of press around the record volume that will take place. It’s an important event for those companies going from one sector to another. It is equally as important for the sector managers who own these companies today but won’t own them a week from now. There are a lot of moving parts that will most likely create friction fo

Have you ever wondered what distinguishes ETFs from mutual funds? Our latest educational episode has got you covered! Join Ty Miller in this week’s educational episode as he breaks down the key differences between the two investment vehicles and how they can impact your portfolio. Watch the full episode to learn more.     Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor. ETFs trade like stocks, are subject to investment risk, fluctuate in market value, and may trade at prices above or below the ETF’s net asset value (NAV). Upon redemption, the value of fund shares may be worth more or less than their original cost. ETFs carry additional risks such as not being diversified, possible trading halts, and index tracking errors. Investing in mutual funds involves risk, including possible loss of principal. Fund value will fluctuate with market conditions and it may not achieve its investment objective.The post ETFs Vs. Mutual Funds first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

The Economy and The Fed   The Fed’s “preferred” inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures or PCE, not only came in worse than expected, but the prior three months were all revised higher. The whole thing throws cold water on the ‘disinflation’ buzz and the rally we’ve seen so far this year. On a year-over-year basis, the PCE Price Index for services spiked by 5.6%, the worst since 1984. This matters because services is where inflation is running hot and makes up almost two-thirds of consumer spending. This higher reading is not what the Fed wanted to see, so we expect further rate hikes, which will lead to a more volatile market than what investors were hoping for coming into this year. This makes the Fed’s job extremely difficult in bringing down inflation without significantly hurting the economy. We will continue to watch this closely.   Inflation Data   The chart shown in this episode shows the most recent year-over-year changes in the cost of selected items in the Consumer Price Index. The chart shows that services have been the most inflationary. Airfare costs are up, along with hotels, food, and others. However, gasoline is down 1.53%, and used car prices are down nearly 9%. During the pandemic, there was an increase in electronic purchases, such as TVs. However, last year the data shows that television prices dropped 14.40%. Another chart in this episode shows how price changes in consumer goods and wages have developed since 2000. It shows that anything technology related has been deflationary. In 2000, technology items, such as TVs, toys, and computer software, were more expensive and have continued to decrease in price over the years. On the opposite side of that, hospital services, college tuition, medical services, housing, food, childcare, and hourly wages have continued to get more expensive.   Technical Analysis   As long as inflation remains elevated, we will continue to see increased market volatility. After the third week of a declining market, we’re analyzing our technical research closely. We would like to see the S&P 500 stay above the 200-day moving average of 3942. Numerous Federal Reserve officials are speaking this week, and several important economic reports are coming out. For those viewers who like to track the markets throughout the week, keep an eye on the 3942 level on the S&P 500. The market must hold this level as we continue to deal with higher inflation.     Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Inflation and Market Volatility first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

You don’t want to miss this week’s special episode of Investors’ Insights, where Greg Powell and Trey Booth answer a popular question that we often hear, “What is the purpose of the many screens in Trey’s office?”   Click the link to watch this informative video where Greg and Trey discuss how the Portfolio Team at Fi Plan Partners uses the screens to follow market performance and track data.   Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Behind the Screens first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

As we celebrate the 18th anniversary of Fi Plan Partners, we wanted to share a special message from our fearless leader, Greg Powell, to thank you for an incredible 18-year journey with phenomenal relationships like you.     Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post An 18th Anniversary Celebration first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

  Core CPI   This week’s market-moving event could be when the consumer price index report comes out on Tuesday. Expectations are that the annual price growth decelerated to 6.2% in January. The core CPI, which takes out the more volatile food and energy numbers, is often seen as a better measure and is projected to rise 0.4% month-over-month, which is different from what the market or Federal Reserve wants to see. The core CPI number had started to come down at the end of last year, especially the inflation of core goods. The market started the year strong on the thought that inflation was coming down, so a hotter inflation number could reverse the trend in the market. We’re concerned about Tuesday’s report because we’re seeing a rise in gas and used car prices. Used car prices have surprisingly risen in recent weeks, which was unexpected. They remain above historical prices going back to 2008. So, Tuesday’s inflation report is significant because trading sessions and market trends were negatively impacted throughout last year on days when CPI was reported. With the much stronger-than-expected jobs report seen two weeks ago, a higher inflation number could damage the market for a few weeks.   Market Moving Data   When the Congressional Budget Office updates its official budget baseline, it’s typically a non-event. This report comes out on February 15th and is expected to be a market mover. Why does this budget baseline matter? It is the number that congress uses when considering bills or changes to the deficit and spending. They use the Congressional budget baseline to guide where things are going. This number hasn’t been updated since May, and a lot has happened since then. The current Congressional budget baseline uses a 1% Fed funds rate. Currently, the Fed funds rate is 4.75%. That’s an additional $300 billion in interest payments that must be built into the future budget. That’s also $300 billion that congress, when dealing with the debt ceiling debate, must take off the table for spending and use for interest. In addition, spending overall is up $570 billion above the baseline estimate. Again, another dollar figure means that congress must pull that spending off because it’s already been accounted for. Tax revenues are relatively flat, so a big tax windfall is not expected. What does all this add up to? It means that the deal over the debt ceiling, originally expected to last until July, will be pulled forward by as many as 2-3 months. Congress initially thought they had as many as five months to do this; however, they may only have as little as 6-8 weeks. That’s a much shorter timeline to get a bill passed, which could pull the market volatility forward. In 2011, the S&P 500 was down 15% during a similar situation. The market has ignored it more this time than it did then because markets typically don’t react until reality hits. With the possibility of market volatility coming sooner than later, we will dig into the baseline data that comes out on the 15th and plan to react accordingly.   Short-Term Volatility   We wanted to share a Super Bowl fun fact with you this week. According to Carson Investment Research, there have been eight instances since 1910 of a Philadelphia team winning the Super Bowl or World Series. Each win was followed by adverse events such as the Great Depression, the Great Recession, etc. Obviously, that’s coincidental and not something we trade off of. However, it helps us to feel better when talking about the Chiefs winning Super Bowl LVII instead of the Eagles. On a more serious note, sticking with technicals but focusing on seasonality, February is typically the second worst month of the year aside from September. In February, weakness traditionally occurs in the second half of the month, starting around the 15th. However, it has been historically followed by a strong March. We are also amid the strongest quarter of the 4-year presidential cycle. So don’t let this short-term volatility get you down.     Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future re

In this week’s educational episode, Ashley Page talks about preferred stocks and explains how they are different from bonds and common stocks.   Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor. Preferred stock dividends are paid at the discretion of the issuing company. Preferred stocks are subject to interest rate and credit risk.The post The Pros and Cons of Preferred Stocks first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Technical Analysis   After a strong January for the markets, the question is, can the rally continue? Fortunately, technical analysis helps us answer this question. One bullish market development that happened last Thursday for the first time in two years, a golden cross occurred in the S&P 500. A golden cross is a bullish signal when the 50-day moving average crosses above the 200-day moving average. Historically, a golden cross means a positive market. The S&P 500 has historically generated positive returns over the 12 months following each golden cross. Of the previous 36 golden cross signals, the index produced forward for an average return over the following 12 months of 10.5%. What’s more interesting is when the 200-day moving average is declining, such as the recent occurrence, the average return for the S&P 500 jumped to 16.8% over the following 12 months. We’re able to analyze technical analysis for confirmation that there is a trend change for the market and further raises the probabilities that the bear market low that we saw back in October and the current direction of the market appears durable, just probably not at the pace seen in January, but still a positive sign for the market going forward.   The Fed   The Federal Reserve met last week and announced its interest rate policy. As expected, they raised rates from 4.5% to 4.75%. That was in line with expectations and not nearly as aggressive as when they closed the year by raising rates by 50 and 75 basis points at a time. The Fed appears to be slowing down, and the market has taken that positively. However, in the Fed’s official statement, one sentence was missed initially that the market may be taking more aggressively now. Jerome Powell said, “The committee anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2% over time.” That 2% number is important because many market participants have been looking for the federal funds rate to get above the current inflation rate. The current rate of inflation is 6.5% and the federal funds rate at 4.75%. That’s not nearly as far to go, especially with two inflation numbers coming out between now and their next meeting in March. You could easily see how inflation could fall down to where the federal funds rate is currently. However, with inflation at 6.5%, that’s a long way from 2%. Is the Fed moving its target of getting the federal funds rate above the current inflation rate, or are they trying to get inflation all the way down the 2%? That’s a much more aggressive stance if the Fed remains aggressive until inflation is at 2%. They sent some mixed signals with their statement and if you don’t want to fight the Fed, it’s hard to see where they’re going. There’s a lot of data left to come out but the next most important data point we’re watching for is the inflation report, which comes out on the 14th of this month.   Earnings   So far this quarter, half of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported their earnings. Sales growth is up 4.6%, beating expectations, but earnings growth is short at -2.7%, with energy still being the outperformer. What’s interesting is that these numbers show us what is going on right now and looking back. Looking at the projections for 2023, those numbers have started to come down. Every time each company reports its earnings it puts out a projected earnings estimate. So far, these have been coming down. We started last year with earnings per share of around $245 for the entire S&P 500. This year EPS took a steep decline down to $224. Job cuts are not factored in these earnings reports but we’ve seen a lot of them. While they are never good for the employees, job cuts help companies expand their margins. They have fewer costs, which factors into earnings costs, cost of goods sold, and things of that nature, so it’ll be something to keep an eye on going forward.     Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanage

Interest Rate Hikes   For the last few years, the market has been 100% focused on what the Federal Reserve was going to do. During Covid, it was very stimulative, but in 2022 that flipped to being very restrictive, where the Federal Reserve was trying to get the market and prices to drop. Going into 2023, the story is the same. What we’re watching for this year is when will the Fed feel comfortable with pivoting from restrictive hiking to maybe pausing or turning around. This week’s meeting is very important and will be the first meeting of 2023. They’ll announce on Wednesday what their rate policy is and expectations are that they will go from 4.5% where the Fed Funds Rate is up just 25 basis points to 4.75%. That’s a big move considering we had 75 basis point hikes many times through last year. The Fed will not stop hiking its Fed funds rate until it is above CPI. History is a good guide to this and that’s where the Fed thinks they have finally beaten inflation. The Fed funds rate is currently at 4.5% and is likely going to 4.75%. Inflation most recently was at 6.5% so there’s still a lot of work to do. The Fed’s guidance on how they view potential inflation between now and when they meet next in March is going to be huge. Hopefully, by then, inflation has come down to a point where the Fed can at least pause. In a chart shown in this episode, you can see why the market thinks that a pause is good. The chart shows that historically the Fed doesn’t sit idle for very long. As soon as they get to that peak level, they usually make some sort of policy mistake where they chase inflation up. Similarly, they didn’t chase the market and the economy down on the other side because they typically hike rates, so they must immediately start cutting rates. Cutting rates is very stimulating for the stock market and we may start seeing what could be a sustainable rally which we haven’t had in many months. That’s why this decision is so important. It’s not really what they do, we all pretty much know what they’re going to do, it’s what they say. There’s so much teetering on when they can pause and then likely reverse course, which will help the market.   Positivity   Last week, the Core PCE report came out and was up 0.3% month-over-month and 4.4% year-over-year. The Core Personal Consumer Expenditures report focuses on businesses and is a key part of the Consumer Price Index report. With that being said, over the past three months, Core PCE is only up 2.9%, with the Fed funds rate possibly going up to 4.75%. We’re looking at the first time in a long time when we might have some real positive rates. It was just a short time ago when we were talking about negative nominal rates, not even including inflation. Now we’re looking at positive real rates, which would be the Fed funds rate minus inflation. It’s very interesting and gives consumers a lot of different options as opposed to the negative interest rate environment that we have been in for quite some time.   Misleading Headlines   As we head into another big week of corporate earnings reports, one of the big stories so far this earning season is the layoffs being announced by some of the big technology firms. Some might think that the Federal Reserve will be happy with the layoff announcements but looking deeper into the situation, the headlines might be misleading. Looking at a chart shown in this episode of recent layoffs announced by technology firms gives a better picture of what’s really going on. On the chart, the blue lines represent the percent growth in the workforce during the pandemic and the orange lines on the left of the chart represent recent layoffs. Amazon increased employees by 93% and Spotify increased by 122%. Some of these companies had record hiring sprees, so the recent layoff announcements seen in the orange lines are not too surprising. META increased its workforce by 94% and just announced layoffs of over 12% of the workforce. It’s not that big of a deal considering the size of hirings in recent years. Also, we’re hearing that those in technology losing their jobs are being rehired quickly, even with some being hired within a few days. If we hear of more layoffs this week from technology companies, it might not be as negative for the stocks and future guidance as some think. As always, it’s important to look at the full picture.     Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in

Watch or listen to this week’s educational episode to hear Trey Booth and Ty Miller talk about the possible benefits of a down market when it comes to taxes.   Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here   Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Tax Loss Harvesting first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Market Update   We want to give a quick update on where the market stands as we head into a very important week of corporate earnings. The S&P 500 has kicked off 2023 with a solid start, rising 4% before giving up some gains last week. In this episode, we show a few charts that highlight the technical macro backdrop of the S&P 500, which should help the index finally break its downtrend in 2023. One chart goes back to last January when the S&P 500’s previous rally attempts failed to break through the 200-day moving average. Today, the 200-day moving average is at 3971. These failed rallies last year in March, April, July, and December were due to sharply rising interest rates and a big US dollar rally. The good news is that the headwinds we saw last year have largely subsided. On another chart, you can see that the 10-year treasury yield has fallen to 3.5% and is in a pronounced downturn. On the third chart, you will see that the US Dollar index is also in a pronounced downturn. The backdrop for inflation has also improved over the last year. Another chart shows that the recent peak in year-over-year inflation estimates for 2023 is coming down. With yields, the US Dollar, and inflation all trending down, we’re watching carefully to see if the market can finally break through and hold at the very important 200-day moving average number. We are watching and hoping for what should be a less volatile year as we move forward.   Technical Strength   We seem to be having some technical strength in the market where we’ve created a bottoming process. Last year it was all about inflation, the Fed’s response to inflation, and rising interest rates. Since the last Fed meeting, the market has seemed to be looking at earnings. Something we thought was important to look at was where our earning season could be going and where the market expects it to be. A chart shown in this episode shows the change in earnings expectations to start the year off. Only 10% of the S&P 500 earnings have been reported and we will get a third of the S&P report this week, which should show some market-moving data. While the market seems to be bottoming, earnings are coming out a little bit weaker than expected. Since the beginning of this year, expectations have dropped by over 2%, showing negative earnings growth for the fourth quarter at -2.9%. That kind of conflicts with the revenue expectations of +4.1%. That means inflation is hitting a company’s earnings and the market directly. Prices are higher and there are more sales, but you also have higher costs so that’s bringing earnings down. If you strip it down and look at the specific sectors, you can see that the bulk of the earnings positivity comes from two sectors. Energy had 61% earnings growth, and industrial had over 40% earnings growth. Those two sectors are pulling up the market and that is where you saw a lot of strength last year. We need to see a broadening of that strength for this market to find a sustainable bottom and then move past this inflation and Fed-led market into an earnings-led market. At the end of the day, companies make money and they give that money to shareholders. That’s what calls the price to go up sustainably. We’re going to need to see those earnings improve. We will get a lot of data this week and we hope we’re going to see some positivity, which could cause the market to rally.   Record Dividends   Last year we saw a record $563 billion in dividends being paid to shareholders. That is a great sign because, during the pandemic, a lot of companies had to cut dividends or pause them. We were glad to see companies get back on track with rising dividends. It’s only January, but we’re on pace to see another record year for dividends. If the dividend yield stays the same, there’s a chance that numbers will surpass those from 2022, which is a great sign. Historically, dividends have accounted for about 60% of the S&P 500’s total return. As you can see in a chart shown in this episode, one factor is from 2010 to about 2021, known as the QE era, we saw dividends only make up 26% of the S&P 500’s total return. As we transition from QE to QT, it’s going to be interesting to see if dividends start making near that 60% range or at least find a nice middle between 26% and 60%. Right now, companies are paying out 33.4% of their payouts, which is historically low. Typically, they pay out around 48%. Last year was a record year, but it seems like 2023 is well on track to surpass that. We are hoping to see dividends become more of a factor going forward.     Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Adam Vansant, AIF®, BFA™ Senior Vice President o

Listen to this week’s educational episode, where Ty Miller talks about taxable events in relation to gains and losses and how to know when it is considered realized versus unrealized.   Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Unrealized vs Realized Gains and Losses first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Historical Markets   One of the best ways you could describe the 2022 year is with the word volatility. This occurred in the stock and bond market. We saw the S&P 500 down 19.4%, Nasdaq down 33.1% and the Aggregate Bond Index was down 13%. Also, international markets didn’t fare much better with an example of Emerging Markets being down 20.6%. Where does last year compare in history. Going back to 1928, there have only been 6 years in which the S&P 500 performed worse than it did in 2022. Moving forward, we expect some similar headwinds to play out in 2023. One of the biggest one that we have an eye on is the uncertainty of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates to fight inflation. Historically, the market has seen an average 26% return following the previous year close to 20% or more. Of course, there are no guarantees. We are hopeful that we will have a more favorable market in 2023, even with some of the headwinds that carried over from 2022.   Mortgage Rates and Inflation   It’s no secret, if you have been watching our vlogs that the interest rates have been challenging and rates have moved up drastically over the last year. We thought it would be helpful to discuss some topics, specifically what was the most telling of last year. The first is regarding Mortgage rates. The national average of the 30-year was an important thing to look at. It opened the year around 3.22% and ended the year at around 6.3%. To put this in dollar terms, that’s around $200 per month for every $100,000 of borrowing. So, for example, if you have a $500,000 home, that’s $1,000 a month for 30 years in additional cost. This is a topic that is really starting to affect people. From a market standpoint, we wanted to discuss the amount of negative yielding debt. This shows how extremely abnormal the last decade has been. Coming into 2022 there was $14.1 trillion negative yielding debt instruments around the world. What this means is that an individual is buying an investment that if held until maturity that they will lose money. This almost seems counter-intuitive for investing in general. That number is now down to zero. The transition was painful to get where we are now but looking forward, this feels like a more normal environment for investors.   Unemployment and The Fed   After a sluggish start to the year, we saw a big rally on Friday. For some that may have had the perception of receiving a good unemployment rate, but it really depends on how you look at it. Payrolls increased 223,000 which was a little more than expected. Unemployment is down to 3.5%, which is low. The labor force participation rate froze, which is a good sign. One of the main takeaways for us is how the market reacted to the wage numbers. Wages rose 0.3% month-over-month and under 5% year-over-year now. While this does hurt the working consumer with inflation still being high, the stock market seemed to take this in stride but why? The federal reserve cannot handle supply and demand but one of their jobs is to help with inflation. So, if wages start coming down or moderate, the Fed could stop raising rates as much as they have. We got some good information from ISM Manufacturing with service inflation decline and production falling. The thing we are keeping an eye on is how the Fed reacts.   Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post 2023 and You first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Watch or listen to this week’s educational episode, where Trey Booth talks about the impact that interest rates have on the cost of mortgage payments and home prices, as well as what this type of housing environment has looked like historically.   Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post The Impact of Interest Rates on Housing Costs first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Inflation Data   The Consumer Price Index (CPI) report that measures inflation ended up being a nice Christmas surprise. The report came in at 7.1%, beating the expectation of 7.3%. The market took that in stride and rallied on the good news. The report also showed some of the transport costs coming down, which is also a good sign. However, one negative thing in the report that stuck out is that food and beverage costs are still elevated. We need that to come down but overall, it was a solid inflation report that the market enjoyed.   Interest Rates   In last week’s vlog, we talked about the two big data points we were watching for. One of those being inflation and the other being the Fed. We said that inflation needed to be below 7.3% and the Fed’s decision on interest rates needed to be at or below the expected 50-basis point rate hike. Well, inflation did its part and the market rallied from Tuesday morning when the report came out through Wednesday into midday when the Federal Reserve announced its decision. Jerome Powell came out, despite the better-than-expected inflation data, and gave comments about the dot plots of what the Fed projects the interest rates to be going forward. The plan is much more aggressive than expected. They did raise rates by 50-basis points in line with expectations, but it’s what they said about future rate hikes that were much more aggressive than what the market thought considering inflation coming down. However, what was interesting is after those comments, the market did sell off for the rest of the day and through the week, but long-term interest rates came down. That tells us what the bond market and the stock markets are expecting. Even though the Fed says they’re going to raise rates, they’re likely not going to be able to because the Fed has already misjudged the economy and we might be heading into recession, which will cause the Fed to raise rates and then quickly turn around and cut rates because they’ve moved the fed funds rate too high. Interest rate expectations for their federal funds rate fell despite the Fed saying that they would raise rates further. It’s a little confusing but what the market is telling us is that the Fed is on the wrong side of fighting inflation.   The S&P 500   If you have watched our vlogs this past year, you know that we have stayed focused on inflation and the actions of the Federal Reserve. There are many reasons why we have been focused on these things, but one reason can be seen in the chart shown in this episode that highlights the average daily return of the S&P 500 and its different sectors. It shows that for all Consumer Price Index release dates since the Fed began raising rates in March of this year, the returns were bifurcated between days when year-over-year core CPI came in above or below estimates. In terms of the broader market, the S&P 500 has posted average returns of 2.4% when core CPI is surprised on the downside. We show this because we hope that inflation numbers will continue to trend down in the new year and the market will react more positively to these lower inflation numbers. It’s something we will continue to watch every day and continue to talk about in our vlogs in the new year.   Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post The Fed Grinch first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

On this episode of Innovation Mavericks, Greg Powell, CEO of Fi Plan Partners, sits down with Rush Garner, Owner of Rush Wine Cellars, to talk about his journey from selling wine out of his minivan to having his own brand and how he has continued to grow over the years. What is a Maverick? Mavericks are free-thinking people who refuse to conform to society’s standards and are driven to change the world. Mavericks are intelligent, inventive, imaginative, genius, independent—individualistic idealist idea machines, original uninhibited visionaries, icons, intentional and inspirational. What special power is possessed by Maverick? The power of innovation. Innovation is doing what hasn’t been done before. New ideas, methods, solutions, systems, products, and tools at the heart of every Maverick is the power of innovation. So, let’s tap into the mind of an innovator!   Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Innovation Mavericks: Rush Garner, Owner of Rush Wine Cellars first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Interest Rate Hikes   This year is coming to a close, and very few market participants would disagree with the idea that inflation and the Federal Reserve have been the two stories that have driven the market higher and lower this year. We’re about to get both reports on top of each other as the inflation CPI report comes out on the 13th, and the next day the Fed is going to announce its final rate decision for 2022. These are two very enormous data points to see if inflation is going to be on the naughty or nice list. Will we get a Santa Claus rally? If it’s going to start, it’s got to start here this week. There are no other major data points between now and the end of the year that can push the market out of its current state to begin that Santa Claus rally. The markets reacted a few weeks ago when Jerome Powell made his last public statement. They go through a blackout period where they can’t talk to the media before Fed decisions. During his last statement, he said, “The time for moderating the pace of rate increases may come as soon as the December meeting”. That one sentence sent the market higher. Since then, the market has come back down to earth because of worse-than-expected economic data. This week, the market is expecting the Federal Reserve to raise rates by 50 basis points. That expectation is built off of the fact that the market expects inflation to come in at 7.3%, which is down from 7.7% last month. We must see this number continue to come down so that it locks in that peak inflation number that we saw over the summer and continue to come down. The Fed can then take that data in before their announcement on the 14th. They don’t have a lot of time for their models to take in that new data so if it’s aggressive one way or the other, the Fed doesn’t have a lot of leeway to move. The next day, on the 15th, the Fed is expected to announce its decision. Will Jerome Powell stick to his words, that if the inflation data is positive, the December meeting will be the beginning of the end of a tight fed? The market would love to hear that. These are the two data points to write down. The 50 basis points hike from the Fed and a 7.3% number for CPI. If we’re above either of those numbers, the market is likely to fall. If we are below either of those numbers, the market will likely rally to close the year. That’s what we are looking at as we head into the holiday.   Consumer Spending   The Fed is expected to raise interest rates again this week as we continue to look at the overall impact higher rates are having on the economy and the markets. With the Fed’s goal of slowing down the economy, or having what we call demand destruction, we like to look first at consumer spending. Consumer credit reports show that consumers are still willing to spend money despite concerns about the economy. Perhaps they’re taking comfort in the fact that the labor market remains really strong which is a good thing for the economy and the markets. One area where we are seeing evidence of the Fed’s policies working is wholesale prices of used cars. Prices have reached their lowest levels as interest rate hikes have raised borrowing costs. Used car wholesale prices have declined 15.6% from the record levels that we saw back in January. Lower used car prices should help spending across other industries, that’s good for the economy and the markets.   Technical Analysis   After the market traded back last week, we wanted to give an update on technicals, as the market will be greatly impacted by the Fed’s actions this week. The S&P 500 has been sandwiched into a very tight trading range. The S&P 500 closed last week at 3,934. If the S&P 500 goes above the price of 4,100 to the upside, it will be a positive breakout. Anything under a price of 3,900 would probably imply weakness. So, there’s a lot on the line this week with the Fed raising rates again.   Gas Prices   It doesn’t feel like it, but it’s been a remarkable year. Gas prices year-over-year are virtually flat. Over the summer, gas prices hit an average of $5 a gallon nationwide. Consumers were concerned and inflation numbers were hot. Since then, it has come down to $3.50 a gallon nationwide. It has kind of been a tug-of-war between OPEC production cuts and global recession fears. With oil, there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to pricing. We started using the strategic reserve we had, the OPEC production costs changed, and the EU last week started capping oil prices from Russian oil at $60 a barrel. Russia said they were not going to go down to $60 a barrel and said they would quit producing or find other buyers before they let that happen. With that being said, it’s going to be an interesting dynamic going forward and we don’t think this is the end of the talk regarding gas prices. It has been a remarkable year just going from

The Price of Gas   The G7 plus Australia have agreed to implement a $60 price cap on barrels of oil from Russia. The reason that this is impactful is that oil is currently trading at around $80 per barrel. This means if these countries are going to buy oil from Russia, they’re going to get it at a deep discount, which would force Russia to sell below market prices. This story ties directly to a story we discussed last week where China may increase its chances of lockdowns to fight some uprisings and protests in that country. Why does that impact this story? That agreed-upon $60 price cap only has teeth if other countries agree to do the same thing as the G7 plus Australia. If Russia can get around it and still sell oil at $80 barrel to the likes of China or India, then there’s no impact on this G7 agreement because Russia will still get the $80 barrel. If China is locking down its economy, then they’re not going to be buying as much oil. This will then have a bigger impact on Russia, which will hopefully weaken its military strength in what is the ongoing battle with Ukraine. Russia’s ability to circumvent any kind of sanctions through China has been a large perceived driving force of Russia’s continued economic success, despite all of the developed world trying to cramp down on their growth. We’re seeing oil rise and not fall as you would expect after hearing this news. This is something we will continue to watch closely.   Jobs and The Fed   The best way to describe the recent jobs report is that it would be good if we were in the right environment, and right now we’re just not in that environment. It’s not a terrible report, it’s more of a mixed bag. Unemployment is low at 3.7%. Wage gains are up 0.6% month over month, and up 5% for the year. Payroll is up $263,000. That’s all good news but with this environment, where the Fed is hiking rates and we’re seeing wage gains of 5% at the same time, they’re saying that’s too hot. They think that’s tying into inflation where they might need to do another 50 basis point hike in December. The participation rate, which is the number of people actively looking for a job, fell again. We need more people looking for jobs to relieve some of the stress from supply chain issues. We’re still trying to catch up in the leisure and hospitality space. You will see in a chart shown in this episode where we were pre-covid and where we are now. We have gained a little bit, especially in some areas, but we’re still trying to play catch-up in leisure and hospitality. The next jobs report we get will be next month. Hopefully, we can see some things that will lead the Fed to believe that they don’t have to hike as much or as viciously as they have previously.     Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Low on Energy, High on Jobs first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

In this week’s educational episode, Mark Hume talks about the different types of life insurance and how important it is to make sure what you have is right for you.   Mark Hume, CFP® Senior Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Mark Hume here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. This material contains only general descriptions and is not a solicitation to sell any insurance product. They may not take into account your personal characteristics such as budget, assets, risk tolerance, family situation or activities which may affect the type of insurance that would be right for you. Guarantees are based on the claims paying ability of the issuing company. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Is Your Life Insurance the Best for You? first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

China Lockdowns   Over the weekend, following the data on Black Friday and holiday shopping, we received news regarding major China protests, across the country, against Covid lockdowns and poor working conditions. That news has riled Asian markets and has hit certain sectors of our market. Indirectly, our entire ecosystem is connected to China, with them being a large part of our supply chain. We are seeing companies within certain sectors of the market hurting today due to their large presence in China. The energy market is down because of the thought of these protests. One would think that since they are protesting the lockdowns and negative working conditions, there may be a change for the better to follow. However, the markets are telling us the exact opposite. The government will likely crack down on these issues, causing the lockdowns to be more severe, less usage of commodities and energy, less working, worse working conditions, and less productivity. The news is reporting on how these protesters are gaining steam and getting more attention than normal, but the market is saying the opposite. The market is saying that these protesters are likely going to have more severe consequences on the other side, which affects demand for a lot of products globally. This is not something that will necessarily impact us today and is not something that we were expecting to be a big news event, but it is something that we feel needs to be watched very closely moving forward.   Historical Markets   The midterm elections are mainly over and what we are looking at is a Democratic Senate and a Republican House with a Democratic President. On a recent episode, we discussed two scenarios that we thought were most likely to play out heading into the midterm elections. One of the charts shown in this episode is from early November when we said one possible outcome of the elections was a Republican sweep with a Democrat President. The other possible outcome we estimated was a Democratic Senate with a Republican House. As it turns out, the latter has become a reality. You can see the average annual performance, going back to 1933 when we had this kind of layout in the political landscape, was actually better than with a Republican Congress and a Democratic President. The market’s annual performance was the second best, coming in at 13.6% for that time frame. We thought this was something to keep an eye on and it’s great that it played out how we thought it would. Every year since 1942 the market has been up an average of 15% for the twelve months following a midterm election. Of course, there’s no guarantee and historical returns don’t mean future returns, but it’s still good data to look at it while we are dealing with inflation, recession talk, and other negative things out there. An average of a 15% gain and nothing negative to report from the past midterm election years gives us a little more positivity when it comes to the political landscape and how it’s associated with the markets. This is data that we provided in other episodes throughout the year as we navigated through the volatility of the markets, and we will continue to stick with that as we watch things. You can always have a surprise, but this is the kind of data we want our clients to know about and how we are looking at it in relation to their portfolios and the markets.   Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Markets, Elections and China first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Consumer Credit   As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, we’re also getting closer to the big spending day with Black Friday, and there are a lot of different thoughts about how strong this black Friday will be, as consumers are still dealing with high inflation. One interesting note is that consumer credit defaults are still low and falling. As you can see in the chart shown in this episode from the New York Fed, consumer credit default is that a record low of 5.7%. It was 14.6% in the 2008 recession. One of the hallmarks of a recession is a rise in consumer credit defaults, resulting in a rise of third-party collection activity which is not happening yet. So, despite record-high credit card balances being carried by the consumer, the rate of default is comfortably low. This is a good sign for holiday spending and the economy in the near term.   The Cost of Thanksgiving   According to a report produced annually by the Farm Bureau, the average cost of Thanksgiving dinner has increased by 20%. We think this is a neat indicator to see where prices are this time of year and there’s no surprise that inflation has found its way to the Thanksgiving table. The 20% increase was a little higher than we expected, however, a lot of that came from turkey which was up over 21% by itself. The average price of the Thanksgiving dinner went from $53.31 up to $64.05. Of that $10 increase, $5 came from the turkey. While getting ready for Thanksgiving, you might want to prepare to spend a few extra dollars to prepare for that family meal this year. Adjusting to ham might save you a few extra dollars for Black Friday spending.   Inflation   We got the CPI report a few weeks ago. We went over that report and talked about how it appears as though inflation has peaked. We received further evidence of this assumption last week with the Producer Price Index report. This report shows the prices that producers are paying, while the CPI report shows the price that consumers are paying. The report showed that PPI was up 0.2% in October. That was less of an increase than was expected. As you can see in the chart shown in this episode, prices for the producers have really fallen off a cliff. The chart also shows that inflation of goods was up 10.5%, as well as services up 6.3%. That sounds bad but to put it in perspective, previously the number reported for goods was 11.3%. Energy has pulled back some but one area that we would like to see come down is food. We all feel the pain of this being up. For further evidence of peak inflation, the rate hikes that the Fed is doing typically work with a lag. As a result, we expect these numbers to continue to come down. We will know for sure as we continue to analyze the data.     Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Carving Up Inflation first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Consumer Spending and Corporate Profits   While the market will have to wait a few more weeks to get clarity on what the makeup of Congress will look like, we can give you an update on two important components of what drives stock prices and the economy. First, let’s take a look at an update on consumer spending. You will see on a chart in the video for this episode that the consumer continues to be a bright spot even with higher inflation and the Fed’s intent on slowing down demand with higher interest rates. Second, we are almost at the conclusion of third quarter earnings season, which has been mostly positive. On another chart shown in this episode, you will see that corporate profits continue to climb higher, which is a great sign for the market. The combination of strong consumer spending and corporate profits continues to be a positive for markets going into year-end. A third positive point we want to make is that after the strength seen in the market in recent weeks, 56% of stocks are above their 200-day moving average. This is higher than the previous high from back in August. We look at this from a momentum standpoint which should be a positive development for stocks. The consumer is strong, corporate America is strong, and the average stock has positive momentum. All of these things are helping the market fight off what has been an aggressive Fed raising rates.   Inflation Update   After the release of the inflation report on Thursday of last week, there was an unbelievable jump in the market, which ended up being the highest market bounce in two years. We can’t yet be sure if this was a bear market bounce or the start of a new bull market but what is clear is that the market took the inflation report very positively. We’re not at the point of deflation yet however, the worst of it should be behind us. As you can see in the chart shown in this episode, inflation is still increasing but at a much slower pace. Core CPI, which is inflation minus energy and food prices, only rose 0.3% month-over-month and is up 6.3% year-over-year. That’s something that the Federal Reserve looks at when they make a determination about rates. Right after the Fed spoke at the beginning of the month, there was a 50/50 chance that they would do a 50 or 75-basis point hike in December. After this report was released, those odds flipped to an 80% chance of only a 50-basis point hike, which is good news. The bond market took that in stride as prices rallied and yields came down. A lot of things that impact the consumer, such as inflation and the Federal Reserve slowing down the increase of interest rates, could be another catalyst for this market.     Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. Any company names noted herein are for educational purposes only and not an indication of trading intent or a solicitation of their products or services. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post The Impact of the Elections? first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Recently the IRS released the changes they are making to tax brackets, standard deductions, IRA contribution limits, and more. Watch or listen to this week’s educational episode to hear Mark Hume go over these changes and what they mean for you.   Mark Hume, CFP® Senior Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Mark Hume here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. Fi Plan Partners and LPL Financial do not offer tax advice or services. We suggest that you discuss your specific tax issues with a qualified tax advisor. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post 2023 Tax Planning first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Fundamentals vs. Technicals   On a chart from our research partners at Strategas shown in this episode, you will see the S&P 500 and what it looked like in the middle of last week when we got the Fed’s decision, which caused the market to sell off pretty quickly. It appears as though that created what is called a ceiling where there’s resistance from the market going any higher and that was at a price of around 3,900. The selloff stopped pretty quickly at a price of 3,700, and that appears to be the support level. The good news is now that we have those numbers and what appear to be defined ranges, how do we get above that resistance of 3,900? We need catalysts. This is where fundamentals outweigh technicals. If we can have some fundamental catalysts, that’ll push us beyond the 3,900. Potentially, the market was looking for more of a dovish Fed last week, but this week we’ve got two very large catalysts. We have the election tomorrow and the CPI report that will come out on Thursday. That report will give us inflation data and if that data comes out better than expected. Current expectations are for 7.9%, which is lower than last month’s 8.2%. We might get to see those numbers continue to come down. If the fundamental data points hit in a positive manner, that should be enough momentum to push us through that resistance of 3,900. The good news is that once you’re through it, if you hold it, that then becomes a new floor and you can bounce off a much higher base, which is what we really want to see. Positive Developments   As we head into an important week for the market, with all eyes on the midterm election, we wanted to take a quick look back at what’s been a historical year for the market. You will see in a chart shown in this vlog that 2022 has been one of the worst years. The right-hand side of the chart shows how both stocks and bonds have struggled big time. You can see out of all the years on this chart, even years like 2008 and 2009, as tough as those years were, they don’t compare to this year. We show this chart to say that it’s been a year where active management by our team has been crucial, not only in stocks but with fixed income and bonds as well. We also want to point out two positive developments heading into the midterms. First, as you can see in the chart shown in this episode, the average stock is breaking out compared to the largest few individual stocks, which is kind of a reversal for previous years. This is showing that there is good momentum starting to build in the overall market. Also, another positive development that we’re watching is we’re seeing money coming off the sidelines and we’re seeing inflows into exchange trading funds. Having a seven-month high, you can see on the bottom of the chart that the average 12 monthly ETF inflow is 40 billion. The inflow of 63 billion in October is a positive development. It’s been a uniquely tough year, but active management has been essential and we like the positive developments we’re seeing heading into the midterm elections. The Fed   The Federal Reserve met last week and announced another 75 basis point rate hike to no one’s surprise. Chairman Powell kind of alluded to maybe looking at slowing the right hikes down from 75 basis points to more of a 50 basis point level. A chart shown in this episode shows what the rates are looking like all the way until 2024. We now have updated rankings after Mr. Powell spoke about higher for longer rates. How does this affect the everyday consumer? It may be time to start planning on mortgage rates since they are looking like they’re gonna be elevated for a little bit longer than we initially thought. Car loans and basically any other kind of loan may have higher rates for longer. On the positive side, bond rates are going up, and once those start leveling up and prices start leveling out, you should have higher savings rates. Overall, in addition to the rate hikes, the Fed is also tightening and that’s something that’s also taking money out of the system.     Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is histori

For the sixth time this year, the Federal Reserve has announced that they are raising interest rates in an attempt to fight inflation. In this episode, Bobby Norman talks about where consumers could see a direct impact due to these increases.   Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Higher Rates and Your Money first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Inflation The recent inflation data has been negative, and individuals are feeling the pinch at the pump and the grocery store. Inflation has risen at a fairly fast pace, historically. Strategas Research Partners provided us with a chart, shown in this episode, that we think helps to show that even though the ride up has been painful, there’s some belief that the steeper the ride up, traditionally that means the steeper the fall down will be. You can see that inflation is very symmetrical. The chart shows inflation periods in 1951, 1974, 1990, 1970, 1980, and 2008. Where inflation rose you can see that the pitch at which it rises looks a whole lot like the pitch at which it falls. While this ride has been painful, considering how severe it’s been, history indicates that we could see a similar downslope on the other side. There are a lot of indicators that inflation peaked back in June at 9% so we could already be over the worst of it and could see some good news coming down the pipe.   Midterm Elections Please keep in mind that we only care about politics and how it relates to the market. According to the most recent poll by PredictIt, Republicans have increased their chances of taking control of not only the House but also the Senate. What does that mean for the market? We only like to bring up politics and how it relates to the market and looking at the current polling and historical performance of the market going back to 1933, if the Republicans take control of Congress, that would be the third-best scenario for market performance. Polling can be wrong but we’re watching carefully to see how it would impact the markets.   Money Supply Money supply impacts inflation and it was a big deal during covid. In 2020 and 2021, we saw a 40% increase in the money supply which led to all this inflation. On a great chart shown in this episode, you will see that CPI has a thirteen-month lag to money supply. As money supply goes up, thirteen months later inflation came up. We just had a pretty astonishing number in September where money supply decreased by 0.6%. That’s the largest decrease in money supply since 1959 and simply means that we’re not printing money right now. It’s a good sign for inflation to come down, and hopefully, it does so quickly. Money supply coming down rapidly will hopefully translate to inflation coming down in the next six months to a year.     Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Trends first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

In this week’s educational episode, Trey Booth goes over the recent cost of living adjustment announced by the Social Security Administration and explains how it impacts individuals planning for retirement. Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here   Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Social Security Cost of Living Adjustments first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

History of The McRib We have plenty of charts to show today, but perhaps the most interesting chart of the day is about the McRib making a comeback. It has historically been added back to the menu around the fall season, so we wanted to have a little fun and show you a chart analyzing the performance of when the McRib is selling and when it’s not. According to the chart shown in this episode, the S&P 500 has performed much better when the McRib is in stock. No guarantees, but that sounds like a good technical indicator to keep up with.   Earnings Positivity Last week we saw the S&P 500 have its best week since June. A big reason for that is corporate earnings and how they are surprising to the upside so far. As you can see in an earnings scorecard chart shown in this episode, 99 out of the 500 companies of the S&P have reported so far. We are seeing an unexpected report in sales growth and earnings growth, which was a driving force behind last week’s positive market performance. We are watching carefully to see if this trend continues, as this week is the busiest of the third quarter earnings season with over 165 of the S&P 500 companies reporting.   Technical Analysis In last week’s vlog, we mentioned that we are observing to see if the S&P can get to a price of 3,800 and break through to the upside. We always like to give our viewers something to watch during the week, and the goal to get the S&P 500 to a price of 3,800 is an important number to look at because that was the early October high. That’s kind of what we consider resistance and would be a positive near-term development especially as big-term seasonality gets more favorable for the market. So, we will be watching carefully this week to see if we can break through it.   Returns Treasury yields and bonds have gone up a lot this year and have started to show some returns. It’s interesting to look back in history and see what the market looked like the last time yields were this high, which is about 4.5% on a two-year term. As you can see in the chart shown in this episode, it was a completely different market. It was about 15 years ago with three energy companies in the top ten of the world. IBM was bigger than Apple at that time and GE was still up there. It is a much different market now. Over time things change and it’s interesting to look back. During Covid, rates were being cut and we had a lot of negative-yielding debt in the world. There was $18.5 trillion worth of negative-yielding debt. As of today, we’re at $1.5 trillion of negative-yielding debt. Even though it went down $17 trillion, $1.5 trillion still seems like a lot. There are only 51 securities left that are still yielding negative debt, and they all belong in Japan. The Bank of Japan has been one of the few to hold out on raising rates this year. Comparing this to when we had over 4,200 securities yielding negative debt during the pandemic to now where we are down to 51 new ones, is pretty remarkable.       Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here   Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. Any company names noted herein are for educational purposes only and not an indication of trading intent or a solicitation of their products or services. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post The McRib and Markets first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Listen to this week’s educational episode to hear Jason Hatley go over the recent RMD rule changes that the IRS has announced for inherited IRAs.   Jason Hatley, CFP®, CPA, PFS Senior Vice President Financial Planning Manager Email Jason Hatley here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Inherited IRA Rule Changes first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Historical Volatility As volatility remains high, we continue to look back at the history of the market to see what could lie ahead as we get closer to the midterm election. The market has historically shown strength in the months after the midterm elections. What we found out about the S&P 500 is when it has been down 25% or more, which is rare and only happens about 1.5% of the time, the historical returns of the market going back to 1950 have performed well three months to a year after. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but as volatile as the markets have been, it’s important to point out that we’ve been here before. We’re watching carefully to see if history is any indicator for the next few months. Technical Analysis After another choppy week in the markets, you will see in a chart shown in this episode that the S&P 500 finished last week at a price of 3,583. From a technical analysis standpoint, we would like to see the S&P 500 push through 3,800, which is a near-term resistance level that would help us get closer to the important 50-day moving average of 3,933. We will be watching these numbers closely as the week progresses. Inflation Last week, we pointed out how the inflation number was the most important data point coming out. We said how the market reacted to that data would also be very important and it definitely didn’t disappoint. On Thursday, when the inflation number came out, if you were watching the stock market you would know that there was not a dull moment. Inflation was expected to be 8% but came in a little bit higher at 8.2%. We saw the market sell-off drastically that morning, but we may be hitting an inflection because the market hit a low and then rallied to close the day much higher. We may be at an oversold point and all of this bad inflation data may be priced in. On a chart shown in this episode, you can see while the year-over-year average is 8.22%, the only two data points that go into inflation that are higher than average are the food and transport numbers. These are energy and the things you see when you’re driving to the tailgate on the weekends. These are things that people buy daily. These are things that consumers can see and feel are at their highest point. Most goods and services are below average. Housing, which you don’t buy every day, is below the average as well as medical care, apparel, and recreation. All of these are also things that people spend money on but not on a regular basis. Those are items that you don’t see inflation while driving down the interstate as you do for gas prices. There’s some hope and while it may not feel like it right now as you go through your daily activities, with time and as life happens when you do things like buying a new suit or going on vacation, you will notice that those prices aren’t moving nearly at the same rate and are lower than the average inflation rate. There could be some upside which could be what the market is seeing. Interest Rates Interest rates moved drastically higher last week. This data point is painful in the short term because higher interest rates bring the prices of bonds down, but in the long term, you’re able to get a high return for a very low cost in terms of risk. Right now, the two-year treasury yield is yielding almost 4.5%. This time last week it was lower. That was a big move up for what is typically an extremely stable asset class. This is something we are watching closely to see how the market is reacting to each data point. Inflation is hitting our clients on a day-to-day basis and we’re seeing that firsthand. The market’s reaction is really what we’re watching for to see if there are any moves we need to make because of its reaction. Earnings Earnings usually is a driving force for markets. While we’ve seen earnings estimates come down for the year, according to analysts, that report is not necessarily a bad thing. We expect the earnings per share (EPS) growth to be below eight for next year. Earnings season just kicked off last week and we’ve already seen about 10% company’s report and are beating estimates at a 69% clip. That’s not something that you see typically in a bad market, which is what we’ve had. Earnings are doing great so far, and we haven’t even had any energy companies report yet. They’re supposed to be leading the way above and beyond every other sector. Three’s a little positive light as we start earnings season. Hopefully, this will lead the market higher. We have lower expectations, so we are hoping for a surprise to the upside.     Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email

In this week’s educational episode, Ashley Page talks about the European energy crisis and how it could impact the world and US economy in terms of supply, imports, exports, and more.   Ashley Page, JD, MBA Senior Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Ashley Page here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post How the European Energy Crisis Affects the Global Economy first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Interest Rates & Inflation On Friday, we received the jobs data, which ended up being a quintessential example of how good news turned out to be bad news. The report showed 263,000 jobs added last month, which is good news. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%, which is also good news. The bad news was the participation rate which fell to 62.3%. How did the market take all the good news? Well, it quickly fell 2.8% on Friday. That tells us that the market is no longer pricing in a high chance of a soft landing. A soft landing is where the Fed raises rates to slow the economy, but the economy does not slow to a point where it hits a recession. You end up having a calm and reasonable slowdown in the economy and with inflation but no recession. We are seeing the market telling us that a soft landing is unlikely. Good news means that the Fed is going to have to get more aggressive with tightening, which will likely push the economy into a recession. We continue to see good news out of the labor market which caused the equity market to sell off. We’re kind of in a good news is bad news and bad news is good news reverse thing where everyone is watching the Fed again. This week, on Thursday, we will see the inflation data which is what everyone is waiting to see. The CPI report comes out, and expectations are for an 8% flip. Last month we got 8.3%, but it was higher than expected. We saw the market sell-off, and inflation came down, but not at the pace we expected. We really need to see the inflation number come down. Hopefully, we see a number below eight because that is really what the Fed is watching for. The Fed is fighting inflation and needs to get interest rates to a point where it is coming down. Hopefully, we don’t kill the job market in the meantime. Earnings & Gas Prices Hopefully, good news actually does mean good news as we kick off earning season later this week. We are expecting sales growth for the S&P 500 to be around 9-10% and earnings to be around 4%. A caveat is the energy sector, which is supposed to be the outstanding performer of this report. The good news is that means there will be lower expectations for the rest of the market. If we get some upside surprises and the banks kick off this week with interest rates up like they are, they might have a good quarter. That could be positive momentum for the market and could take some pressure off all the other headlines out there. OPEC was expected to cut 1 million barrels of production a day, however, they cut 2 million barrels of production a day. That’s good news for the energy sector but could be bad news for the consumer. We’ll have to see how the US responds and where gas prices end up after nearly two months of lower gas prices.     Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here   Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Good News, Bad News first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Every year we sit down with the Operations team at Fi Plan Partners to point out important things that need to be done before the end of the year, which is quickly approaching. Watch or listen to this week’s episode to hear what you should be adding to your year-end checklist. Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Adam Vansant, AIF®, BFA™ Senior Vice President of Operations & Advisory Services Wealth Consultant Email Adam Vansant here Sonja McGittigan Operations Specialist Email Sonja McGittigan here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Operations and Year-End Checklist first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Oil Price Increase This week, for the first time since 2019, OPEC will be meeting in person in Vienna. The talk of the town, which was moving markets this morning, is that they’re talking about cutting production by a million barrels per day. Last month when they met virtually, they discussed and followed through on cutting their production by one hundred thousand barrels a day. That didn’t appear to have the impact on the energy market that they had hoped, and they appear to be pushing for prices to go higher this time. A one million barrels a day cut will be sizable in terms of the impact of the markets. We’re seeing that oil prices are up four to five percent just on the rumor of this news. It’ll be good to see how markets react to the actual news once it occurs later this week. What is also throwing a hitch in this, is that one of the OPEC Plus members, Russian’s oil minister, is under sanctions and legally cannot leave Russia. How he will be able to be part of these talks will also be something to watch close. This is a big part of where we’ve seen the supply of oil stay high, and the price of oil come down. That alone has been a huge help in the last couple of months in terms of our CPI. It appears that OPEC is wanting to turn that around and push our oil prices back up. This is something we’re watching very closely. However, there’s numerous things that could occur after OPEC makes their decision, which could help in maybe keeping oil prices stable. It’s an ever-moving world but this will be a big data point this week for close out the year. Money Supply Cutting supply isn’t always a bad thing. We’ve seen a good sign here of cutting the money supply down. During the pandemic the government was printing a lot of money but people weren’t working. That typically has a thirteen-month leading indicator of CPI which, of course, is inflation. With us bringing supply down, we’re at about 1.5% growth, which is way below normal. Normal is around 4-5%. During COVID, it was up to around 9%. That’s a good leading indicator of inflation for thirteen months from now. Even though that’s thirteen months from now, it has steadily decreased and if we are down to 1.5% now, we should start seeing an impact here in around six months or so. One analogy that we’ve used before with CPI is if you have ten dollars and ten apples, and that’s your whole economy, each apple is a dollar. If we print more money and we have fifteen dollars available, but still just ten apples, now every apple is a dollar fifty. That’s kind of what we saw during the pandemic. Now, we’re getting back to the more of the normal ten for ten.   Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Cutting Supply first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Watch or listen to this week’s educational episode where Ty Miller talks about how shareholders can have cash returned to them in different ways, such as dividends. Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Dividend payments are not guaranteed and may be reduced or eliminated at any time by the company. This information is not intended to be a substitute for specific individualized tax advice. We suggest that you discuss your specific tax issues with a qualified tax advisor. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Returning Cash to Shareholders first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

On this episode of Innovation Mavericks, Greg Powell, CEO of Fi Plan Partners, sits down with Michelle Norwood, Owner of A Little Something Extra Ice Cream, and their CEO, Hunter Norwood, to talk about how their mobile ice cream business is making a difference in the lives of those with Down syndrome and other exceptionalities. What is a Maverick? Mavericks are free thinking people who refuse to conform to society standards and are driven to change the world. Mavericks are intelligent, inventive, imaginative, and genius, independent. Individualistic idealist idea machines, original uninhibited visionaries, icons, intentional and inspirational. What special power is possessed by Maverick? The power of innovation. Innovation is doing what hasn’t been done before. New ideas, methods, solutions, systems, products, and tools at the heart of every Maverick is the power of innovation. So, let’s tap into the mind of an innovator!   Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Adam Vansant, AIF®, BFA™ Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Adam Vansant here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Innovation Mavericks: Michelle and Hunter Norwood, A Little Something Extra Ice Cream first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Inflation Last week the reports showed a higher-than-expected inflation number. We were expecting a 0.1% decrease but instead, we got a 0.1% increase. That doesn’t sound like a lot but when other things are factored in, such as energy prices being down 5% thanks to a decrease in gas prices, it was a big increase. The driving forces of this are food prices, rent prices, medical services, and operations services. Operations services are coming back into the picture but with higher prices. The Fed is definitely focused on this number because it was a negative surprise for it to be higher than expected. The Fed is going to be watching that closely, which could change expectations from a 50-basis point hike to possibly a 75 or 100-basis points hike. Market Volatility As volatility remains the story, we continue to look back in history to see how the market has performed in similar situations. A chart that continues to interest us is the average stock decline chat. With the S&P 500 down 18% since January 1st, the average stock has actually declined 25%, which is why active management has been crucial this year. The average stock is near the minus two standard deviation level, which shows performance that is different from the average that is often associated with a bounce up. As you can see on the chart shown in this episode, the dotted red line shows that going back to 1980, the market has bounced to the upside numerous times when stocks have fallen like they have this year. As always, no guarantees, but we’re observing to see if history repeats itself as we get through the Federal Reserve aggressively raising rates again this week on Wednesday. One question we have is will the market bounce higher like we’ve seen before at this level, or will it remain at the levels that you see in the chart shown in this episode for an extended period of time as we saw in 1998 through 2002? If we can bounce higher at these levels, it will be a good sign. It is all about the Fed and how the market reacts to their decision on Wednesday. Technical Analysis We saw a lot of volatility in the markets last week, with the S&P 500 closing on Friday at 3,873. That gives us a new short-term resistance level of 3,900 and a new support level of 3,840. We previously discussed the intermediate to long-term support levels and how they would play out through the end of the year, and we recently saw the market cross through those levels at 3,900. This doesn’t mean that we’re in a bear market by any means, but it does mean that we need to keep a close eye on this over the next couple of months to see if it stays under that price or if it bounces back up. The year-to-date moving day average of the S&P 500 is currently sitting at 4,206, which is close to the long-term resistance level. The market will be important to watch this week with the Fed decision this week, as well as the midterm elections coming up. We want to keep an eye on these items from a technical standpoint to see if we can get some momentum back in the market. It’s also important to note that these pullbacks often create good buying opportunities. We will keep a close eye on the Fed and other market movers to see what these levels look like in the following weeks.   Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Adam Vansant, AIF®, BFA™ Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Adam Vansant here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post All About The Fed first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Market Strength There was a lot of strength in the market last week, which is great to see considering we have to contend with the seasonally weak month of September. The test this week will be if the market can continue the uptrend or was last week a bounce due to the previous three weeks being down. This is something we’ll watch carefully. The good news is a seasonally strong fourth quarter is right around the corner and history is a guide. The midterm elections may provide the added late-year boost, and as you can see in the chart shown in this episode, September has historically been one of the weakest months for stocks. On that same chart, you will see the green bars for October and November. The calendar is historically bullish in the fourth quarter during mid-term election years. We are watching carefully to see if the market strength seen last week will continue into the fourth quarter. A lot of this depends on what the fed decides to do as well as inflation. Inflation The Fed is what is most important in these markets. The Federal Reserve is absolutely watching inflation as is everybody else. Tuesday, we will get this month’s inflation report, the Consumer Price Index. With the Fed meeting next week, this will be the last large data point that they’ll have to analyze. Expectations are for the CPI year-over-year change to be 8%. While that’s not comfortable, it is down from 8.5% and even further down 9.1%. That would be three straight months of decline from the peak. The first thing we’ve got to do is change the rate of change and we’re seeing that, which is a positive indicator. Why is that very important? As shown on a chart in this episode, you can see that the federal funds rate, which is the rate that the Fed puts out on money, peaks in every cycle since 1974 at a higher rate than CPI. Currently, the federal funds rate is 2.5% and inflation is at 8.5%. That shows that the Federal Reserve has a lot of work to do on raising rates. It can come in two ways. They can cross with either the federal fund rate raising or by inflation falling. We really need to see them meet in the middle and hopefully closer to where we are today. The first step is inflation falling. If the Federal Reserve has to do all of the work as it did back in the eighties, we could see interest rates well above 8%. That would be very drastic and negative for the economy so we’re hopeful that inflation will do its part by coming down, starting tomorrow. Jobs The recent jobs report had a little bit of everything in it. We added more jobs, which was good and more than expected. The unemployment rate rose from 3.5% to 3.7%. That seems like a bad thing, however, our labor force participation rate, the number of people actively looking for jobs, rose for the first time in a long time. This type of good news is exactly what the Fed wants to see, more people looking for jobs. Also, average hourly earnings for the month outpaced inflation. That’s another good thing to see along with the fact that we’re adding to the service sector, which is also deflationary. So, as you can see, there was a lot of good data in this recent report, despite the higher-than-expected unemployment number. Technical Analysis Two weeks ago, we saw a lot of volatility in the markets. Last week, we had a good week with all eleven sectors finishing to the upside with Friday’s close coming in at a price of 4,067. That gives us a new short-term resistance level of 4,100 and a new short-term support level of 4,030. Two key numbers we want you to focus on are the intermediate resistance and support levels that reach out to the end of the year and as we approach midterm elections. On the upside, the resistance level we’re looking for is 4,200 and the support level we’re looking for is 3,900. If the market breaks through that 4,200 and stays above that, we could see some positive momentum moving forward.     Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Adam Vansant, AIF®, BFA™ Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Adam Vansant here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as pr

Listen to this week’s educational episode to hear Bobby Norman go over the historical data surrounding the impact that political events, such as elections, have on the markets.   Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index which cannot be invested into directly. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Source: Strategas Research Partners. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Election Impact on Markets first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Treasury recently announced the highest rate ever for I bonds. However, it may not be as attractive as you think. Watch or listen to this week’s educational episode to hear Mark Hume explain what I bonds are and what to look for when it comes to your cash savings.   Series I bonds can only be purchased online and in a limited amount. Please see treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res_ibonds.htm for more information.   Mark Hume, CFP® Senior Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Mark Hume here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Understanding Your Cash first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Technical Analysis We have recently had viewers ask for examples of how we use technical analysis so today we will go over some of those examples. Often, we talk about resistance and support levels and one of the questions is asked how we arrive at those numbers. One of the main things that we look at is the moving day averages of the S&P 500. Some are the 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day moving day averages. Recently, we talked about the S&P 500 approaching the 200-day moving day average. In fact, we’ve seen the S&P 500 trade over both the 50-day and 100-day moving day averages. When this happens, it starts to build momentum in the markets that we look at. In the last couple of weeks, we saw the S&P 500 almost hit the 200-day moving day average before it receded back down. This type of market behavior gives us indications of whether we need to buy or sell certain positions. Overall, this type of analysis gives us a good indication of the momentum in the markets and where we could possibly head for the remainder of the year. It’s important to keep in mind that those days are captured on actual trading days so when you hear 200-day moving day average, that means 200 days of the week, not including weekends and holidays. Corporate Earnings We had a viewer ask about how corporate earnings have performed in the second quarter compared to historical earnings for previous quarters. Eight of the ten sectors exceeded earnings expectations. Was that because expectations were low, or is it because we are in a good spot? As you can see on the chart shown in this episode, the average for corporate earnings beats is 66%. Right now, it’s hovering around 76%. It kind of flattened out from the first quarter of this year but is up slightly from the fourth quarter of last year, which is a good sign. You hear a lot of talk regarding the negatives, but so far corporate earnings have hung in there quite well. From a historical standpoint, corporate earnings for the second quarter of this year, are performing better and that is great to see for the market. Housing Market We continue to get a lot of questions about the housing market and what impact the higher rates are having on it. Right now, we’re seeing a slowdown across housing. Total US home sales were down 12.6% for July. That is a big drop just in one month. As you can see in the chart shown in this episode, existing home sales, new home sales, and the housing index have all seen a steep drop. We’re watching housing carefully to see what impact it could have on the overall economy since we are seeing a definite slowdown in that sector. We want to pay close attention to see what impact it’s having in the markets.     Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Adam Vansant, AIF®, BFA™ Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Adam Vansant here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Answering Client Questions first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

What is a Maverick? Mavericks are free-thinking people who refuse to conform to society’s standards and are driven to change the world. Mavericks are intelligent, inventive, imaginative, and genius, independent. Individualistic idealist idea machines, original uninhibited visionaries, icons, intentional and inspirational. What special power is possessed by Maverick? The power of innovation. Innovation is doing what hasn’t been done before. New ideas, methods, solutions, systems, products, and tools at the heart of every Maverick is the power of innovation. So, let’s tap into the mind of an innovator! Today’s Innovation Mavericks video is with Greg Powell, CEO of Fi Plan Partners, and Brian Collins, Owner of Atomic Pictures. Listen as they discuss how the advertising industry has changed over the years and give tips on how to adapt and overcome when it comes to staying ahead of the trends.   Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Brian Collins and Atomic Pictures are not affiliated with or endorsed by Fi Plan Partners or LPL Financial. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Innovation Mavericks: Brian Collins, Atomic Pictures first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Market Uncertainty Last week we talked about the importance of 90% of stocks being above their 50-day moving averages, which is historically a very positive development, but what could lead to further volatility in the market? The answer is higher yields. Rising yields could be a threat to the recent rally that we’ve seen in the stock market. As you can see in the chart shown in this episode, the ten-year yield rallied higher in the past week and is one of the reasons that the market pulled back slightly. On the left-hand side of the chart, you will see that the ten-year yields have been on a decline since June, which coincided with a stronger market. Lower yields have helped drive the market higher in recent reads. We were a little surprised to see yields spike last week as some of the inflation numbers came in lower. We will be watching yields this week to see if them increasing will lead to a market pull back and further uncertainty. Positive Earnings Over the last forty days or so we’ve seen a good rally in the market. The S&P 500 is up approximately seventeen percent. On the chart shown in this episode, you can see how the current market lines up with some of the historic rallies that were in not-so-great markets. Historically, the next 20-250 trading days has led to good performance with the one outlier in 2001. Hopefully, we’re on a good trajectory. What’s been a driver of this move has been earnings. Aggregate earnings per share growth for the S&P 500 is 9.7%, which is well above the 5.6% estimate coming into earning season. Revenue has also been great and it’s not just energy driving this move. As you can see on the chart shown, eight out of the ten sectors reported good earnings. About 90% of the companies have reported so far, so we’re almost through this earning season and not too much is going to change at this point. Overall, this earning season had been a good one. Technical Analysis Most of the damage from the pullback of the S&P 500 last week, came on Friday when the market was down a little over 1%. The closing price on Friday was 4,228. That gives us a new resistance level of 4,260 and a new support level of 4,200. Despite the pullback, over the last month, all eleven sectors have been in the green. The 50-day moving day average is currently sitting at 3,966. This is going to be an important number to keep an eye on over the next three months because that could potentially become our new resistance level and one that we really want to keep an eye on when we see volatility in the markets.     Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Adam Vansant, AIF®, BFA™ Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Adam Vansant here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Rattling Cages first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Secure Act 2.0 is currently making its way through congress. Watch this week’s educational episode to hear Jason Hatley, Financial Planning Manager, go over what laws might change such as RMD age, student loan match contributions, and more. Jason Hatley, CPA Senior Vice President Financial Planning Manager Email Jason Hatley here   Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Secure Act 2.0 first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Market Strength There have been a lot of questions asked related to the market strength we have seen the past few weeks. Is it sustainable? Is what we’ve seen a typical bear market rally? Two weeks ago, on the vlog, we mentioned an indicator that we watch that looks at market strength. That indicator shows what percentage of stocks are above the 50-day moving average. Two weeks ago, only 68% of stocks were above their 50-day moving average, however, according to the chart shown in this episode, after last week’s rally, the percent of stocks trading above their respective 50-day moving average broke through that important 90% threshold. That’s marking the best reading since April of last year. The persistence and the breadth of momentum, which is what this indicator attempts to measure, is a welcome change for the prior rally attempts that failed earlier this year. The market still has some near-term hurdles to contend with since many of the indices are now overbought. Seasonality won’t offer much help over the coming weeks, and the downward sloping 200-day moving average is still above the S&P and the NASDAQ. The momentum is strong, but we still need to get through some things in the near-term. Inflation Inflation is at the top of mind for everybody. Everyone sees inflation on a day to day basis. It is there especially when you go to the grocery store or fill up your gas tank. The way we are looking at it, is more on how it impacts the markets. The Fed having a $9 trillion balance sheet is the biggest mover in the market right now and for the foreseeable future. We received great news last week about inflation falling from 9.1% to 8.5% year over year. That is still high, but there has to be a peek and roll over before it can come down. What does that mean for the Fed? Historically, since 1970 the Federal Reserve has raised rates continuously until their federal funds rate is higher than the rate of inflation. Now, if you say the federal funds rate, which currently sits a 2.5%, needs to go to 9% to kill inflation, that would be very disruptive. We need to see inflation decrease while the Federal Funds Rate goes up. You can see on a chart shown in this episode that every rate hiking cycle has ended with the federal funds rate being higher than the inflation rate, so both need to happen. We need inflation to come down, but we would expect the Federal Reserve to continue to raise rates into that number. Where they meet in the middle is the biggest question for the market. How far down the road is the market expecting it, is what drives the current rally. We may be a little over bought, buying into an inflation relief rally. Peak inflation does not mean peaking interest rates, but it is something we’re watching very closely. Company Buybacks With the recent passing of the Inflation Reduction Act, one of the lesser-known clauses in there is a 1% buyback tax, which is going to start on January 1, 2023. The good news about this tax policy is that it’s a one-time change and companies can plan ahead since they have a little bit of advance notice. Companies may start to buy back their own stock and we could see some pulling forward of additional buybacks. This is one way for companies to return cash to shareholders. That could be something that we see at the end of the year and could be a sort of catalyst if companies are buying back excess stock. Another change that could happen after January 1st, is the possibility of more dividend increases as opposed to the buybacks because of the tax policy change. Technical Analysis We saw a good bit of momentum in the overall markets last week with 11 sectors finishing in the green on both Wednesday and Friday. The S&P 500 closed on Friday at a price of 4,280 giving us a new resistance level of 4,310 and a new support level of 4,250. Back in late spring, early summer, we talked about the price mark of 4,200 being something to watch. We have now crossed over that, so we are now focusing on the 200-day S&P 500 moving day average, which is currently sitting at a price of 4,328. We will be watching to see if this momentum can continue through the fall to see if we can get back over that 200-day moving average price of 4,328, which is an important indicator for the markets.   Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Adam Vansant, AIF®, BFA™ Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Adam Vansant here Ty Miller Associate Vice President Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of t

What is a Maverick? Mavericks are free-thinking people who refuse to conform to society’s standards and are driven to change the world. Mavericks are intelligent, inventive, imaginative, and genius, independent. Individualistic idealist idea machines, original uninhibited visionaries, icons, intentional and inspirational. What special power is possessed by Maverick? The power of innovation. Innovation is doing what hasn’t been done before. New ideas, methods, solutions, systems, products, and tools at the heart of every Maverick is the power of innovation. So, let’s tap into the mind of an innovator! Listen as Greg Powell and Mitch York, Certified EOS Implementer®, discuss how the Entrepreneurial Operating System® helps entrepreneurs grow their business and identify issues faster. You can also listen to this bonus episode on our Investors’ Insights and Market Update podcast.   Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Innovation Mavericks: Mitch York, Certified EOS Implementer® first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.