Financial Insights Archives
Market Commentary: Third Quarter
The third quarter of 2018 was generally good for the U.S. stock markets, especially large growth companies. The fairly strong U.S. markets were mostly offset by foreign stock market performance. The strengthening U.S. dollar provided a strong headwind for foreign investments, especially the emerging markets asset class. The U.S. economy seems to have responded to…
Read MorePursuing a Better Investment Experience
Whether you’ve been investing for decades or are just getting started, at some point on your investment journey you’ll likely have questions regarding how to improve your odds of investing success. Petersen Hastings is here to help. Learn more about the 10 key principles, using data and reasoning, that may help improve your odds of…
Read MoreMarket Commentary: Second Quarter
After a very tumultuous first quarter, the second quarter of the year seemed pretty tame. The talk of tariffs and diplomatic meetings with North Korea dominated most of the financial headlines, while the major stock indexes bounced around near zero for the year. The U.S. stock market represented by the S&P 500, and international stock…
Read MoreMarket Commentary: First Quarter
The first quarter of 2018 is a tale of two periods—the first three weeks of January and the remaining 60 days. At the beginning of the year, the positive momentum from last year continued with stable, solid global stock market gains. At the end of January, the largest U.S. stocks represented by the Russell 1000…
Read MoreThe DOW Drops 1,000 Points… Should I Worry?
Well…that’s a first! I have been in the financial industry since 1993, and I’ve never seen the DOW Jones Industrial Average drop over 1,000 points before. Yesterday, it dropped over 1,175 points or about 4.6%. Although it was the largest point drop ever, it was certainly not the largest percentage decline. It was nothing compared…
Read MoreTax Reform Signed into Law
The newly signed legislation known as Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 has made widespread changes to the Internal Revenue Code. The tax reform measure is extremely complex, and the full effects of many provisions are still unclear. Most of the provisions have become effective January 1, 2018, of which include lower individual income…
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