Our team regularly reads articles from industry peers and trusted resources to stay up to date on financial markets.  We enjoy reading about topics related to economics, investments, current events, and financial planning. In addition to circulating some of the best pieces internally, we thought our clients, partners, and friends might enjoy reading some of the same articles as us. Here are recent pieces that our team members have read, along with some commentary on why we found the respective articles interesting.

Ben Bremen – The bull market is 2 years old. Here’s where Wall Street thinks stocks go next

Happy second birthday, Bull Market!  This article does a nice job summarizing the past two years (of the S&P 500 returns) and compares the current stock market rally against prior strong markets.  Most surprising is that this current market appreciation is still only two years old (vs the average of 5.5 years), and the total return is just 60% so far (vs the average of 180%).

David Budzisz – Schwab Market Perspective: After the Landing

This article challenges the Federal Reserve’s capacity to produce an “economic soft landing” through interest rate reductions, arguing current economic indicators suggest this objective has already been largely achieved. Citing key statistics on job growth and domestic stock market performance, the article asserts that while the anticipated interest rate cuts will further support efforts to stabilize the economy, they are not the sole driving factor.

Tom Buhrmann – US Election Anxiety: Keeping Calm Amid Political Uncertainty

“Looking ahead, investors should remain focused on long-term drivers of asset prices rather than getting swayed by political noise. While we expect higher volatility near the election, it should subside once the immediate uncertainties are resolved.”

The above quote summarizes our firm’s thoughts perfectly. Elections are emotionally charged but as investors we need to strive to remove emotion (instead favoring facts and data) and stick to a well-designed long-term plan.

Andrew Cohn – The Plan Sponsor’s Guide to PEPs

The SECURE Act and subsequent legislation have made PEPs more popular. A pooled employer plan, or PEP, is a defined contribution plan in which a group of unrelated employers participate as part of a single pooled plan.

If you have more than 120 participants in the plan, a PEP may make your plan administration easier, as well as management costs and fiduciary liability.

Andrew Denenberg – The next era of private credit

A good piece about private credit – how we got here, where we are now, and where things might be going. SWP was an early adopter of private credit strategies for our clients’ portfolios, and we remain excited about the ability of these investments to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns.

Michael Garrison – Let us pause to appreciate the remarkable U.S. economy

With all the breaking news coming at us 24/7, sometimes it makes sense to take a step back to see exactly where the economy is from a macroeconomic perspective.  This recent blog post by Noah Smith does just that, and the underlying data shows why JPMorgan Chase recently said that the US Economy has likely achieved a “soft landing.”  While there are always potential concerns on the horizon (especially with the US debt), there is a lot of positive economic data in the US right now – which this blog post covers.

Kristopher Gutowski – Air Conditioning: An Economic Wonder

When I came across this article, I started to think about my own experience with air conditioning – and thinking about some tough summers in college without it! I thought this was an interesting share because, by now, air conditioning feels like the default to me, but I was surprised to learn that in Europe, only 10% of homes have air conditioning. Most older cities are in more moderate climates, but the fastest-growing cities are in tropical climates. Interesting to think how the development of the world could look different without it!

Michael Karmin – The S&P 500’s decade of eye-popping returns is over, and a new era of low returns is on the horizon, Goldman analysts say

The research team at Goldman Sachs recently made headlines when they published a report that forecasted nominal returns for the S&P 500 of just 3% per year for the next decade. While I understand that financial institutions with research teams need to make these kind of forecasts, it’s important for long-term investors to remember what these forecasts really are…. just a guess. The report goes on to hedge its bets by giving a range of possible outcomes of between -1% and +7% per year. This is a big range for a ten-year period! The takeaway – nobody knows what’s going to happen, and we shouldn’t change our investment plan based on a forecast.

Kathy Klein – Avoiding Surprises: When is it Time to Talk About Transitioning Wealth

We have been reading about the intergenerational transfer of wealth for years, and it is upon us.  This is a challenging topic for advisors and clients because many clients tend toward self-preservation and prefer to hold onto their wealth as long as possible since they do not know what the future holds for them. It is critically important for the conversations about money to start as early as possible so the children are well prepared for the responsibility and understand the family values and behaviors that accumulated and preserved this wealth.

The article speaks to the team approach to coordinate the efforts of the family with the accountant and attorney. Each family has their own specific special considerations and challenges with this topic- not all family members share the same philosophy about money habits. We have first-hand experience about how wealth transfer can go poorly without proper preparation.

Cory Rappaport – The October Effect: What It Is And How It Is Believed To Impact The Stock Market

I find humor in articles that magically materialize a certain month or event (like elections) into stock market predictions. This article addresses many of the misconceptions associated with this type of behavior, backed by both data and psychological analysis. Maybe I’m putting a hex on the month of October, but so far, the US stock market is up 2.7% in the first two weeks. This all points to why we approach investment management using a long-term mindset and believe short-term portfolio-altering thoughts are founded on speculation.

Ruben Rivas – The 2026 Tax Cliff and Its Impact on Estate Planning – Q&A

As we move toward the 2026 sunset of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, this article highlights the ongoing conversations and decisions I’ve made in recent years with my clients. When advising business owners, high-net-worth families, and those blessed with generational wealth, tax management becomes a crucial deciding factor for preserving wealth.

Andrew Sekera – Long-Term Stock Market Averages

In this article, Ben Carlson talks about how short-term returns are rarely close to the long-run averages. The S&P 500 was up more than 22% this year through the end of September, following a positive 26% in 2023. However, when considering the negative 18% return in 2022, the 3-year annualized return is fairly similar to returns going out 30-90 years. The stock market will fluctuate in the short term for good or for worse, but the variation in returns decreases as you increase your time horizon.

Michael Tuber – How can investors help defend themselves from geopolitical risks?

With so much conflict around the world, it is only natural to feel uneasy about the markets.  Each global shock is unique and carries its own risks, but having a prudent plan is the common denominator to limiting the impact of any disruption, geopolitical or otherwise.  This article gives a nice, brief overview of ways to think about risk and protect against it in portfolios.

Conclusion: We look forward to sharing more articles with you in the future. In the meantime, if you’d like to discuss how the topics in these pieces may apply to your own portfolio, please do not hesitate to reach out to a member of our team.  

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