No one likes being sold and advisors don’t like selling.

This article explores the benefits of annuities with lower explicit fees, a category I dubbed as “annuities Lite” in a previous article that focused on GLWBs.

The value of overall retail purchases increased 0.9%, after an upwardly revised 1.4% gain in March, Commerce Department figures showed Wednesday. Excluding vehicles and gas stations, sales rose 1% last month. The figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.

Local-currency debt from developing nations -- which is far more sensitive to a country’s domestic inflationary pressures than dollar denominated equivalents -- has slumped almost 9% this year, the most since at least 2008, according to a Bloomberg index.

The euro hasn’t been this cheap against the dollar for almost two decades, but it can get cheaper still. The tail risk of Russian gas and oil being suddenly shut off, most likely plunging the European continent into a sharp recession, is too unpredictable for investors to confidently bet on a rebound any time soon.

Elon Musk has a suggestion for entrepreneurs: Get into lithium mining for juicy margins. It’s a pithy recommendation, but it fails to grasp the complicated challenges for producing more of the metal.

It’s been a brutal stretch for retail traders. Stocks are approaching a bear market. A selloff wiped $200 billion off cryptocurrencies in a single day. And Morgan Stanley found that amateur investors who jumped into the market when lockdowns began in 2020 have lost all their gains.

Equities reversed course and came off highs after Chinese economic data released Monday showed a sharp contraction as Covid lockdowns stung. Wheat jumped after India restricted exports, adding to broader commodity price pressure.

The seasonally adjusted median home sale price jumped 3.6% in April from March, the biggest increase in Zillow data dating to 2012. Inventory is starting to rise slightly, but it’s still so low that it’s vastly outstripped by demand, fueling housing appreciation.

It has been a rough few months for US stocks but even rougher for shares of technology companies. The widely followed and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index is down about 30% since it peaked in November. Investors may be wondering whether tech stocks are a bargain.

The soaring dollar is propelling the global economy deeper into a synchronized slowdown by driving up borrowing costs and stoking financial-market volatility -- and there’s little respite on the horizon.

Advisors who use Dimensional funds are generally believed to more likely adhere to their investment strategies than their peers. A comparison of fund and investor returns calls this conventional wisdom into question.

Deep-seated trends in trade and demographics helped keep inflation in a comfort zone for decades, but both are now pushing in the opposite direction. Globalization was fraying even before pandemic and war made things worse. Growth in the world’s labor force has slowed.

Hundreds of billions of dollars in ephemeral wealth evaporated as the price of Bitcoin plunged to its lowest point since 2020, down more than 50% in about six months. The exchange Coinbase dropped to about a fifth of last year’s initial public offering price.

Historical data shows that stock markets have reacted poorly when the Fed has contracted its balance sheet and reduced liquidity – and the effect is more pronounced when Fed actions deviate from what the market expects.

In just more than a week, US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has gone from expressing confidence that policy makers will be able to avoid pushing the economy into a recession while rapidly raising interest rates to control inflation to remarking, as he did on Thursday, that a downturn is out of the central bank’s control.

Since the 1990s, the CalPERS sold LTC policies to its residents. The lawsuit over claims related to those policies illustrates the dangers clients face with government-sponsored insurance programs.

How do you re-engage your un-engaged clients to see if you can offer them expanded advisory services?

The U.S. debt cannot be paid, even in inflated dollars. Serious inflation is inevitable that will crash stock and bond markets, in addition to devaluing the dollar.

“That’s a great stock; I think I’ll take a big position in my portfolio.” That’s how all too many investors make their investment decisions. Mistake, big mistake. Use our Premium membership service to send this to clients and prospects with your firm’s logo.

The Fed is at a crucial junction, according to Lacy Hunt. It has to contain inflation. If not, the stability of the U.S. economy over the longer term is seriously in doubt.

In 1995, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin asserted that a strong dollar is in the US national interest, a mantra repeated by each of his successors. They’re partially correct since the effects of the robust buck, which has soared this year, help some while harming others.

Surging inflation showed little sign of abating last month, indicating that grocery bills will keep going up, markets will remain volatile and investors will continue to feel pain in their 401(k)s.

The latest US inflation report should be a reality check for Wall Street, but many investors are still wearing rose-colored glasses. Bond yields ticked slightly higher Wednesday after the Labor Department reported that consumer prices rose more than forecast last month, but they are still nowhere near reflecting the monetary policy path it may take to rein in inflation.

Federal Reserve officials face pressure for more aggressive action after a hotter-than-expected inflation reading for April, though so far officials are sticking with their strategy to keep raising interest rates by a half point at each of their next two meetings.

As markets slumped in unison on Thursday, traders pointed to the chaos in crypto as a focal point of their concern. Strategists are increasingly worried that small traders, already nursing losses from the meme stock craze, will be wiped out on their crypto holdings and sell everything else.

Feeling a bit cheated when you look down at your plate? It’s not just a figment of your imagination — portions at US restaurants are indeed getting smaller. Call it shrinkflation: when sizes shrink, but you’re paying the same price, or sometimes even more, for the meal or product.

ICYMI: In this roundup, we’re highlighting the five most popular pieces of content from the previous week.

Liquidity is fading due to the Fed, and therefore volatility is on the rise. Illiquid and volatile markets are not conducive to long-term wealth generation.

At a time when New York towers are struggling with high vacancies and many workers are still remote, money managers are seeking to accommodate growing staff and encourage in-person collaboration with trendier digs. Along with tech companies, they’re helping to fill part of the void left from employers giving up space -- even as Manhattan’s office supply continues to grow faster than demand.

The nation’s local governments are expected to sell $20.2 billion of debt over the next month, the most since early December, according to a Bloomberg index that tracks municipal bond sales announced for the next 30 days. The gauge doesn’t represent the full tally of what actually hits the market, as many deals come with less than a month’s notice.

Problems occur when a market shift reduces investment opportunities after a period when investor capital has been scaled up. The current climate portends such a shift.

Since President Joe Biden was elected, millions of Americans with student loan debt have waited for him to fulfill a campaign promise of forgiving at least $10,000 per borrower. While Biden recently extended the payment moratorium for the loans until Aug. 31, pressure is mounting on the administration as the midterm elections approach.

For all the benefits of the democratization of finance that gave the masses access to the markets on the cheap, the unavoidable downside is that it is impossible to ignore the market’s flailings any more. In olden times, you had to use a “telephone” to speak with a “human” broker to check on your portfolio, if you weren’t willing to wait for the “postal service” to deliver your monthly or quarterly statement.

There was a time, some 12 years ago, when I bowed to no one in my enthusiasm for bonds. Longer-dated government debt yields had surged after the global financial crisis. Yet for various reasons, inflation was likely to remain subdued, I argued. US Treasuries and even German bunds yielded about 3.5% at the time. Although headline inflation waxed and waned, it consistently came in below forecasts for the next 10 years.

The issue is that she doesn’t listen. She interrupts clients.

I don’t care how many PhDs are going to argue against me; direct indexing is Wall Street’s attempt at squeezing more fees out of the America public using advisors as the pawns.

You can have a transformative impact by simply asking the right question. Here are two examples based on my personal experience.

While I am not a practice management guru, an experience I had this past year warrants sharing. it led to adding value to your clients in a way few of you do.

The new Investment Advisor Rep CE requirement isn’t just more training required by regulators; it’s an opportunity for advisors to start or continue on the right path with clients.

The SEC staff thinks that fiduciary care is irrelevant. It has no more value to consumers investing retirement funds than it does when they buy clothes.

To achieve its mission of reducing inflation, the Fed will keep raising rates, according to Albert Edwards, and won’t stop before the S&P 500 hits 3,000.

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index has trumped all other assets this month, notching a 0.6% advance at a time when stocks and bonds are tumbling. Investors have poured cash into an exchange-traded fund tracking Treasury bills for five weeks, clocking up the biggest inflows since 2020.

Stock markets continued to sink following last week’s recession worries, fueled by the Federal Reserve’s rate decision and the threat to global growth from China’s continued Covid lockdowns. The fear could be seen across asset classes, as traders offloaded equities and other risk assets in favor of cash.

If you’ve been paying attention to prices of gold and gold mining stocks the last few weeks, you probably noticed that they go up when the stock market goes up, and they go down when the stock market goes down, limiting the usefulness of gold as a hedge. This isn’t the first time this has happened.

With the average U.S. mortgage rate above 5% and home prices at record highs, homeownership feels increasingly out of reach, particularly for young, first-time buyers. To make it work, some are renting out rooms or basements and using the extra income to help offset their costs.

U.S. investment-grade debt sales have missed Wall Street estimates for two consecutive weeks with issuers choosing to sit on the sidelines instead of braving volatile markets. Bond sales were expected to pick up this week amid a growing backlog, but seven potential issuers opted to stand down amid broad volatility on Monday.

With Amazon.com Inc. down 33% this year and Meta Platforms Inc. tumbling over 40%, you might expect, or at least hope, the carnage in Big Tech is nearly over. You would probably be wrong, according to Dan Suzuki, deputy chief investment officer at Richard Bernstein Advisors.

What does meditation have to do with money? By becoming aware of our thoughts and feelings, we are more likely to make financial decisions that are consistent with our values, life aspirations, and authentic goals.

Does conducting your firm’s internal annual review have to cause annual stress, work overload, and a headache?