The Three Key Elements to a Sound Financial Plan
By Kaitlyn Laney, CFP® As a certified financial planner, I’ve had the privilege of helping individuals and families craft financial plans that align with their unique goals and dreams. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a successful financial strategy is built on three core elements: Goal Setting🎯 Every plan starts with understanding what […]
US CPI Disappoints
By Greg Lai and Alex Hsiao, Co-Chief Investment Officers The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released September inflation data, and the report was a mixed bag. Headline CPI slowed for the sixth consecutive month, ticking down to 2.4% from 2.5% in August, the lowest reading since February 2021. That’s positive because we’re still making […]
Stagecoach rides again!
By Greg Lai and Alex Hsiao, Co-Chief Investment Officers Much has changed over the last month in the markets, and as the earnings season starts, we may see another sign of this change. The FED signaled a change that might be viewed as the “mission accomplished” football spike. We saw a rally in the stock […]
Remember When a “Dollar Saved Was a Dollar Earned?”
By Greg Lai and Alex Hsiao, Co-Chief Investment Officers The evidence shows that at this point, handwringing over large deficits hasn’t been the prediction of financial Armageddon. I’ll admit that this is quite the oversimplification of the complex history of the U.S. fiscal condition. One look at Jeremy Siegel’s long-term Total Real Return Indices and […]
Nuclear is the New AI
By Greg Lai and Alex Hsiao, Co-Chief Investment Officers Energy has long been viewed as a key component of future technology growth, and it continues to generate significant interest in the market. On Sept 20, Microsoft (MSFT) signed a 20-year fixed-price power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy (CEG). As part of the deal, Constellation will […]
Risk of China Deflation: Traders eyeing China Inflation
By Greg Lai and Alex Hsiao, Co-Chief Investment Officers Moving from questions of rates and inflation in developed markets, we decided to look at prices in China in search of clarity on the direction of the world’s second-largest economy by GDP. Whereas rising prices have been a big problem for Western central banks, investors follow […]
Future of Moore’s Law in Jeopardy
By Greg Lai and Alex Hsiao, Co-Chief Investment Officers Intel is at a critical juncture, with its latest earnings report raising serious doubts about the company’s future trajectory – Intel’s Moore’s Law became the golden rule for the electronics industry in which computing power would dramatically increase while relative cost would decrease exponentially. In Q2 2024, […]
Price Controls – Just “Don’t” Do It
By Greg Lai and Alex Hsiao, Co-Chief Investment Officers On August 15, 1971, when inflation was about 3% at an annual rate. To control inflation, President Nixon announced he was freezing wages and prices for ninety days, raising tariffs on certain imports, and ending the direct international convertibility of the dollar. The set of policies […]
There is more to AI than NVIDIA – What about IBM?
By Greg Lai and Alex Hsiao, Co-Chief Investment Officers International Business Machines Corporation (Ticker: IBM) recently announced its financial results for the second quarter of the year, highlighting a solid performance that continues to attract positive attention from both investors and industry analysts. The company reported revenue of $15.8 billion, representing a 1.9% increase compared […]
The Big Mac Index or Yen Carry Trade
By Greg Lai and Alex Hsiao, Co-Chief Investment Officers Tourism is booming in Japan, to the point that Japan is restricting certain locations from over-tourism. Part of the reason is the amazing fall in the yen, which has created an exchange rate for the dollar not seen in decades. Recently, one U.S. dollar could be […]
