News and Commentary

Hello! Fall and election time! What a summer it was though and as I’ve mentioned all year, we were waiting to see if the rest of the market (less Technology) was going to catch up and rally. It did and we are seeing double digit gains in all our stock models.  The S&P 500 ended the quarter up 20%, the Dow 12%, and International Indexes up around 11% year to date.   We hit a bunch of new highs this year and this market has been resilient with all that’s going on globally and here in the U.S.  I’m still cautiously optimistic we won’t see a deep recession next year, but there are still a lot of unknowns to come with the elections, the FED moves, economic numbers, International disputes..etc.  Our team will continue to monitor the landscape for strategic moves and opportunities for you, our Private Clients.See this insight from First Trust on the election: The View From Late September (ftportfolios.com)SWM News:We are very excited and proud to announce the addition of Clarke Williams, Financial Advisor, and Caroline Ballou, Director of Service and Administration at SWM. See more about them below and welcome them next time you call or visit!With over 15 years in life insurance design and estate tax planning for the high-net-worth community, Clarke Williams brings valuable experience in financial planning, wealth management, and asset protection to our practice. He will join us as a Financial Consultant on the team and assist with wealth management, financial planning, and client relationships.Clarke is a proud alumnus of Florida State University, a Chartered Financial Consultant, a golf enthusiast, and is actively engaged in his church community in the Roswell area where he lives with his wife, Laura.Caroline is another graduate from University of Georgia and joins us from a background in project management and consulting, where she provided her clients with a first-class customer experience. Caroline will replace Allison/Danielle and be your point of contact for anything service/admin related. SWM is confident Caroline will be a valuable asset to our team, putting your needs first each step of the way. In her spare time, she enjoys attending Atlanta Braves baseball, exploring new restaurants, and hanging out with her family/friends. Store Caroline’s contact info in your phone: 404-926-2010 or email at cballou@janney.com.  

Happy Summer and how about this market/economy! The average stock in the S&P 500 is only up around 5%, yet the index is up 14.5% year to date. As I’ve been discussing with many of you since January, this period reminds me a lot of the late 90’s where a handful of technology stocks pulled the market to new highs. The good thing is that these “magnificent 7”(they have named) have solid earnings. That’s not to mean they won’t fall or aren’t overvalued compared to their growth in earnings. At SWM, our portfolios(like the 90’s) will continue to diversify our clients to meet long term goals and avoid getting over-diversified towards one sector or group of stocks. On the bond front, interest rates rose a bit in the second quarter and rates continue to be strong for us. We continue to work daily to help you keep your cash working at these good rates at Janney.  I’ll leave you a thought, every decade has it’s own set of champions that have dominated the market. Eventually these leaders get dethroned due to capitalism and technology advancement. This dethroning can wreck solid long term financial gameplans.   We are grateful for your relationship and appreciate your introductions to investors needing comprehensive wealth advice and planning. See this for more information about the quarter: Click here

Well, the rally from Q4 continued for all. The great thing to see this past quarter was some good participation from the dividend/value stocks and small companies. However, this could be short-lived if the Fed doesn’t cut rates for a while. Many of you know that I don’t expect the Fed to cut rates, or just can’t see any reason in the near future, more than once if at all this year. Long live the 5% money markets here… We will see where the summer goes with all this noise from the election, Iran, oil prices, and AI.  We will continue monitoring your game plan for the best outcome.  Here are the details on the quarter for you.