Economics

Quarterly client letter: 2024 Q3  

October 1, 2024

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates in September. With these cuts comes a lot of speculation about what they’ll mean for the economy and market, much of which is contradictory or downright wrong. This quarterly newsletter takes a look at some of the things investors might hear and suggests that the best way to respond is through focusing on a long-term investment plan.

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What we talk about when we talk about volatility: Magnitude vs percentage  

August 29, 2024

The news media often describes market volatility in ways that are attention-grabbing. Unfortunately, this can trigger fear and behaviors that don’t always work in investors’ favor. This article helps readers understand how the media presents volatility, preparing them to parse sensational headlines and avoid making decisions that could negatively impact their long-term goals.

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Quarterly client letter: 2024 Q2  

July 1, 2024

As the market continues its rally and headlines and pundits fret about potential global uncertainty, this edition of the quarterly client letter examines the twin emotions of fear and FOMO (fear of missing out) and takes the opportunity to remind your readers of the lessons history has to teach us about long-term investing and a portfolio built to match their goals, timeline and risk tolerance.

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Quarterly client letter: 2023 Q3  

October 1, 2023

Reflections on a mixed-bag quarter and how to remain focused on long-term outcomes and personal financial goals instead of reacting to the latest undependable forecasts.

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Is the Debt Ceiling Bringing You Down?  

May 10, 2023

A client reach-out to reinforce the importance of sticking with a personalized, globally diversified portfolio, regardless of how the debt ceiling crisis plays out.

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Quarterly Client Letter – 2023 Q1  

April 2, 2023

This quarterly letter reflects on the impact of inflation, interest rate, and banking news in the quarter past, and how, if you’d missed the events in real time, you may not even have known they’d happened. Invest instead according to your investment strategy and individual goals.

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Quarterly Client Letter – 2022 Q4  

January 4, 2023

This quarterly and year-end client letter looks back on negative returns in 2022, and cautions clients against letting potential pessimism alter their asset allocation decisions. You never know what the near-term future holds, so long-term planning remains advised.

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Six Financial Best Practices for Year-End 2022  

November 11, 2022

Share this piece with clients and prospects to offer six financial best practices for year-end 2022. This year's tips cover cash flow management, tax planning, healthcare coverage, and general financial planning in the context of 2022 events, including higher interest rates, inflation, and market volatility.

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Quarterly Client Letter – 2022 Q3  

October 3, 2022

This quarterly client letter reflects on having entered bear market territory, and why it still makes sense to remain invested in a globally diversified portfolio that reflects each investor's personal financial goals. It references both current commentary as well as historical insights.

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Back to the Investment Basics: Part 1 — Remembering Summers Past   Free Sample (Click on title to download)

August 29, 2022

Part 1 of a multipart series reminds investors to consider current market events in proper historical context, while depending on investment basics to move past today's challenges and future unknowns. In upcoming parts, we'll cover five investment basics: saving, market returns, market pricing, investor resolve, and personal financial goals.

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Quarterly Client Letter – 2022 Q2  

July 4, 2022

This quarterly client letter touches on a series of disorienting conditions in current markets, such as the fact that stocks and bonds are down simultaneously, and reinforces sticking with one's long-term, globally diversified portfolio, including a value tilt when appropriate.

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Six Ways a Recession Resembles a Bad Mood  

June 14, 2022

This piece helps your clients and prospective clients put current market and recessionary concerns in perspective by describing six ways a recession resembles a bad mood. For example, they're both difficult to define, best seen in retrospect, and part of life. Besides describing what recessions are and how they work, a main message is that investors can't control the world around them, but they can control how they react to it. And you, as their advisor can assist with that.

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Quarterly Client Letter – 2022 Q1   Free Sample (Click on title to download)

April 4, 2022

This quarterly client letter explores the essentials of investment planning amidst current market volatility, aggravated by inflation, interest rates, and economic concerns. It optionally points to the recently completed three-part report on the same.

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Interest Rates, Inflation & Investing: Report Version  

April 4, 2022

A compiled, three-part report that combines our multi-part series covering current concerns about interest rates (part 1), inflation (part 2), and what these influences mean to investors (part 3).

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Interest Rates, Inflation & Investing, Part 3  

April 1, 2022

Part 3 in a 3-part series covering current concerns about interest rates (part 1), inflation (part 2), and what these influences mean to investors (in this part 3).

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Interest Rates, Inflation & Investing, Part 2  

March 24, 2022

Part 2 in a 3-part series covering current concerns about interest rates (part 1), inflation (in this part 2) and what these influences mean to investors (part 3).

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Interest Rates, Inflation & Investing, Part 1  

March 16, 2022

Part 1 in a 3-part series covering current concerns about interest rates (in this part 1), inflation (part 2) and what these influences mean to investors (part 3).

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Inflation Part 2: What We Can Do About It  

June 24, 2021

Part 2 of a 2-part series on inflation. Part 1 defined inflation, put current events in greater context, and described the difference between "good" and "bad" inflation. This Part 2 explores why forecasts for inflation remain as fuzzy as ever, and how investors can best prepare for whatever may happen next.

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Inflation Part 1: What We Know  

June 15, 2021

Part 1 of a 2-part series on inflation. Part 1 defines inflation, puts current events in greater context, and describes the difference between "good" and "bad" inflation. Part 2 explores why forecasts for inflation remain as fuzzy as ever, and how investors can best prepare for whatever may happen next.

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Quarterly Client Letter – 2020 Q2  

July 2, 2020

This 460-word Q2 2020 quarterly client letter reminds clients of the importance of sticking to plan despite near-term market noise in 2020.

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Taking a New View on Coronavirus  

March 13, 2020

Share this 727-word piece as another timely outreach to your clients (or for general audiences with some edits), to help them remain resolute during current COVID-19-fueled crises. The piece acknowledges the current risks being realized, while pointing out that these same risks are likely to generate important insights for seeding future expected social resilience and market growth.

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10 Things To Do Right Now While Markets Are Tanking (UPDATED)  

February 28, 2020

UPDATED FROM MARCH 2018: Use this 1,238-word handout with clients or prospects, to remind them during the current coronavirus-generated crisis of 10 judicious actions to take during scary markets, along with 10 insightful quotes from respected subject matter experts.

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Quarterly Client Letter — 2019 Q4  

January 2, 2020

Use this 540-word quarterly client letter to reflect on one- and 10-year retrospectives in the new year, including how and why to separate short-term reactions from long-term strategy.

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Six Financial Best Practices for 2020  

December 8, 2019

Share this 869-word piece with clients and prospects to offer six financial best practices for 2020. This year's selection is based on some of the changes that took place in 2019, including TCJA tax tips, zero-commission stock and ETF trading, and more.

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A Timely Reminder on the Perils of Market Timing  

August 25, 2019

A 735-word client reach-out about the prospect that a trade war with China could lead to a recession. The piece covers four reasons why trying to engage in market-timing in reaction to the unfolding news remains as ill-advised as ever.

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You, Your Financial Well-Being and the Federal Reserve (UPDATED)  

August 1, 2019

UPDATED FROM MARCH 2018: This 1,200-word piece puts the U.S. Federal Reserve's ongoing federal funds rate changes (especially the Aug. 1 2019 rate decrease) into sound, financial-planning context. Use this piece to inform prospects or clients about how the Fed operates, as well as what your role is in helping them manage debt, save, invest, and spend wisely through various interest rate climates and regardless of what lies ahead.

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Quarterly Client Letter — 2019 Q1  

April 1, 2019

This 520-word quarterly client letter reflects on the differences between breaking news and timeless investment tenets, noting in particular the contrast between Q1 performance and recent volatile returns just prior.

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What Is the Yield Curve? (Article)  

August 24, 2018

This 900-word "What Is?" article translates a tricky investment concept -- the yield curve -- to help clients and prospects alike appreciate the role it plays in their fixed income investing. (Look for the separate, Excel spreadsheet also available in the Content-Sharing Library if you need to directly access the Yield Curve diagrams displayed in this piece.)

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What Is the Yield Curve? (Diagrams)  

August 24, 2018

An Excel file containing two diagrams -- Figures 1 and 2 -- found within the separate "What Is the Yield Curve?" article, also in the Content-Sharing Library. Download this Excel file if you need to directly access the Yield Curve diagrams displayed in this piece.

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The Current Market Decline in Context  

February 5, 2018

This 430-word message is optimized for reaching out to your clients about the current market decline. It encourages them to stay the course according to their personal plans (unless their own goals have changed). It also reflects on how market drops are normal, and how popular headlines are often designed to grab attention rather than inform readers. The message can be modified to share with prospective clients or for other purposes.

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Quarterly Client Letter – 2017 Q1  

April 4, 2017

This 525-word, first-quarter client letter summarizes some of the noteworthy market and economic events in Q1 2017 and puts them into the usual "stay the course" context.

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Quarterly Client Letter – 2016 Q4  

January 3, 2017

This 425-word, fourth quarter (year-end) client letter acknowledges that 2017 remains an unknown and reminds investors of the durability of what really drives market returns -- which is global human enterprise.

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What If Everyone Were a Passive Investor?  

September 12, 2016

This 1,200-word report explores why we should not have to worry that passive (and evidence-based) investing may become ineffective if too many investors embrace a passive approach. It can be shared with clients and prospects as a timeless discussion, as well as to rebut the recent AllianceBernstein "Road to Serfdom" client note, suggesting that passive investing is "worse than Marxism."

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Presidents, Politics and Your Portfolio: Thinking Beyond Stage One  

August 27, 2016

This 750-word article can be shared with clients or prospects who may wonder if there is something they should "do" with their investments as the November 8 U.S. presidential election date nears. It encourages them to stay true to their long-term investment strategies by thinking beyond the immediate news.

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Quarterly Client Letter – 2016 Q2  

July 4, 2016

This 360-word, second quarter client letter reminds clients that the markets' responses in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum illustrate the inherent uncertainty involved in maintaining a disciplined, globally diversified portfolio designed to manage risks and capture expected market returns.

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Brexit Vote and Market Outcomes  

June 24, 2016

This 680-word piece can be used to reach out to your clients to remind them that you are there for them and to encourage them to stay the course during the days ahead. With minor modifications, it could be used for a general e-blast, video script or similar content for wider audiences.

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You, the Capital Markets and Your Brexit Fears (Anglicised)  

June 15, 2016

For advisors to reach out to clients who are contemplating abandoning their investment plan in the face of Brexit-generated market volatility, this 500-piece letter reiterates the timeless, evidence-based reasons it's important to avoid reacting to breaking news. Assuming the letter is most appropriate for UK audiences, it is edited for Anglicised references and spellings.

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Our Mixed Up, Messed Up Relationship with Investment Risk  

May 11, 2016

As we swing into another summer of global events (such as the Cdn. Fort McMurray wildfire, UK Brexit and US elections), this article presents ways that investors tend to overestimate, underestimate, misunderstand and mistreat investment risks (both return-generating market risks as well as avoidable concentrated ones). Use this 1,000-word piece to explain investment risks to prospects and clients alike. Break each section into a series for video scripts or other uses.

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Cover Intro for Dimensional 2015 Year in Review  

January 21, 2016

This 540-word summary provides an introduction you can use to share Dimensional's 2015 Advisor Byline Market & Economic Review. The introduction is a little longer than in most years, given the current market climate. It's primarily for being in touch with your clients, although it can be modified to serve as a prospecting piece as well.

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