Is A Stock Bubble Bursting? Stocks plunged as much 6.6% last week, and, even though prices rebounded sharply by the end of the week, fear remains widespread. Despite the grim mood, the evidence is strong that the stock market is not in a bubble and that the economy is chugging along, on track for a long, slow ride to recovery. For a bubble in stock prices, irrational exuberance must be widespread, like it was during tech bubble of 2000. It’s not! Nothing like that is happening now! Covid crushed consumer confidence in March and April. Much of the uncertainty is caused by the runaway gains of the giant tech stocks. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, and Microsoft – the FAANGM – have led the recovery from the pandemic, leaving the broad market in the dust. And, because the major indexes are weighted by market capitalization, the super return on the giant FAANGM has powered a 42% gain in the S&P 500 since the March 23rd. 2020 bear-market low. The turbocharged returns of the major market indexes fueled by FAANGM are a Covid crisis anomaly, but FAANGM valuations are not out of control. The PEG ratios of the FAANGM – that is, their price-to-earnings ratios divided by the growth rate of their earnings, a more thorough metric than a standard P/E ratio, have not been outlandish, even as the price of the S&P 500 was breaking a new record high last week. In the months ahead, due to Covid-induced economic anomalies, stock plunges should be expected. The anomalies are bound to add uncertainty along the road to recovery. In March and April, for insatnce, consumer spending plunged because people were not going out and spending. At the same time, government payments from the CARES Act arrived in consumer accounts, disposable income hit a new record high, and the savings rate simultaneously skyrocketed by nearly 400% -- and this was happening at worst point of the Covid crisis! These conditions are without precedent and may take months to unwind. The latest economic data show a continued recovery in the manufacturing sector in August, with new orders booming. Meanwhile, in the much more-important service sector, responsible for 91% of jobs in the U.S., the latest figure – while not as a strong as expected -- remained strong in August, and the unemployment rate dropped much lower than the 9.9% rate that was expected, to 8.4%.. Amid the fear of a bubble in the FAANGM and anomalies of the Covid pandemic, the U.S. recovery is chugging along, slowly working its way back to the economic peak of 2019. Please contact us with any questions or to set up a meeting fulbrightteam@moneyful.com , and don't hesitate to share this video with people who might benefit from our work

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Durham, Raleigh, NC, Financial Independence, Wayne B. Titus III, Ed Fulbright,

The Beginning Of The End? The Coronavirus financial crisis is being compared to the near-collapse of the global financial system in 2008 and The Great Depression from 1929 to 1939, but there is one big difference this time: The Fed. The Federal Reserve Bank is using innovative new tools to contain the financial damage of the Coronavirus epidemic. In the financial crisis of 2008, the chairman of the Fed at the time, Ben Bernanke, an academic who had spent decades studying previous financial crises, repeatedly deployed a technique called quantitative easing, expanding the Fed’s balance sheet to buy back U.S. Government bonds on the open market to lower long-term interest rates. The tactic had never before been used by a central bank in a major economy. It worked! and QE was one of the reasons the U.S. recovered smoothly from The Great Recession of 2008 and 2009. The Fed’s response to the Coronavirus crisis is literally 10 times more powerful. Under the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and. Economic Security Act enacted March 27, 2020, the U.S. Government allocated $454 billion to Federal Reserve Bank Special Purpose Vehicles that the central bank can leverage 10 to 1, enabling it to lend up to $4.54 trillion to companies. That’s reportedly more than all U.S. commercial and industrial loans outstanding at the end of 2019 plus all the new corporate bonds issued during 2019 combined! Although this expansion of the Fed’s power has been criticized already as a step toward a centrally planned economy, the government action limits the risk of massive corporate bond defaults. The U.S. led the worldwide economic recovery back from the global financial crisis of 2008, in part because of the Fed’s innovative approach, and Yankee ingenuity, in the form of the Fed’s new tools, is at play once again in fighting the Coronavirus financial crisis. Please contact us with any questions or to set up a meeting fulbrightteam@moneyful.com , and don't hesitate to share this video with people who might benefit from our work

Can You Spot The Hidden Trend? Can you spot the hidden trend? A major demographic trend that is driving the U.S. economy and financial markets is right here in front of your eyes, but it’s not so easy to see without a trained eye. If you knew what to look for, you’d see that China, Japan, Germany, and other major economies are grappling with a decline in their working-age population in the decades ahead, while the U.S. working-age population is expected to grow. Since growth in the size of the labor force is one of the two determinants in economic growth, it’s a key fundamental factor that will shape the future of financial markets. With the working age population stalling, Europe’s economic growth is sluggish. To stimulate the economy, Germany’s central bank has pushed lending rates into negative territory, which is unprecedented. Germany is the world’s second largest issuer of government-backed bonds and its action has depressed interest rates on U.S. Treasury Bonds. While the demographic trend is hidden in plain sight, it’s set to shape growth in major economies across the globe for the decades ahead, and it means low interest rate conditions could persist for years. No one can predict the next move in the stock market, but demographics are fairly stable and predictable. This is an important trend. Be sure your strategic investment plan — especially, your portfolio’s allocation to bonds — is in sync with this key fundamental. Please contact us with any questions fulbrightteam@moneyful.com or to set up a meeting, and don't hesitate to share this video with people who might benefit from our work.

With stocks hovering around an all-time record high, a growing likelihood of a Federal income tax rate hike by 2021, and the deadline for end-of-year tax tactics closing in fast, this is a timely reminder to run a reality check on your retirement income plan. An unusual confluence of tax, financial-market and political factors make this a particularly good time for high-income and high net worth individuals to check their retirement income plan. Let’s get specific about current conditions: In 2019, the federal government is spending a trillion dollars more than it collected in revenue, and at the end of 2018, the national debt totaled $22 trillion Meanwhile, changing political winds could sweep in higher federal tax rates. Managing your tax bracket now — in case of a hike in federal income tax brackets — could lower your tax bill, not just for 2019 but in the year or two ahead, as well. Proactive tax planning before the end of 2019 may be especially timely for business owners with an interest in a pass-through entity, like an LLC, S corp, or sole proprietorship.

Major economic trends are always unfolding but are hidden in plain sight. Along these, only if you know what to look for would you see the spectacular After the Commerce Department released the latest monthly retail sales figures on Friday morning, the financial press and financial cable TV reported that October’s three-tenths of 1% uptick allayed fears of a recession but was nothing spectacular. The press totally missed the hidden trend in the economic picture by not adjusting retail sales for inflation. Inflation is at a long-term low and is not showing any sign of returning anytime soon to its performance in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. A low inflation rate masks strong real growth in consumer spending, but spotting it in the current investment picture requires a trained eye. Viewed from a prudent professional perspective, the newly released retail sales data helps explain why stock prices have been breaking records. Answers to life’s questions are often right in front of us, but we don’t see them. Please contact us with any questions fulbrightteam@moneyful.com or to set up a meeting at 919-544-0398, and don't hesitate to share this video with people who might benefit from our work.

If you’re retired or a pre-retiree, you probably remember a time when the world worried about the population explosion. Fears of overpopulation, we were told, would cause global food shortages in the final three decades closing the millennium. Well, that never happened! In fact, you can simply forget everything you ever heard about the coming population explosion! Across the world, nation’s are not challenged by a population boom but by a population bust! The world’s largest economic powers need more people — not less! An essay in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, a magazine published by the Council of Foreign Relations, points out a dramatic demographic shift is reshaping economies across the world. The typical pattern of modern economies is to develop a middle class that urbanizes, grows more educated, and more affluent, and then fertility rates collapse. The worldwide population bust is of more than academic interest. A nation’s demographic character is one of the two factors driving its economic growth. The size of a nation’s working age population multiplied by its rate of productivity determines its growth potential. The working age population in China — the world’s No. 2 economic power — is shrinking. So is the world’s third largest economy, Japan, as well as Germany, all of Europe, India and China.In contrast, growth in the U.S. labor force is expected to stay flat for the next decade, when the echo-boom kicks in and continues through 2049. . For the next generation or two of American, the growth in the working age population could figure prominently in the future of the wealth of the nation. The nation’s underlying demographic character is a strong financial economic fundamental for long-term investors in America but have you ever seen it covered in the financial press? We sponsor this financial advisor news service to provide independent, prudent, professional research for long term investors every week. Please contact us with any questions or to set up a meeting, email us at fulbrightteam@moneyful.com and don't hesitate to share this video with people who might benefit from our work.

Tons of government, trade association, and private company sponsored data and research about the economy are released every day. We summarize what you need to know to invest intelligently for the long run in this series of videos every week. Much of the economic research is from independent economist Fritz Meyer. Fritz was the senior investment strategist at one of the world’s largest investment companies for over a decade. In 2009, he went independent — so he has no ties to any financial products, no conflicts of interest in analyzing financial economics.