Once again, I am filing late as I am preoccupied with recovering from the major arm surgery I had last Thursday.  Today I saw the doctor for the first time since the surgery and she could not have been more pleased.  The arm is healing wonderfully and, though there is still pain, I am officially now out of danger of losing the arm if I have even a minor spill, something that has had me very anxious.


But now it's the more the merrier.  She wants me using the arm as much as I can stand it and tells me there's no longer any concern of anything short of another catastrophic fall endangering the arm.  Of course any disturbance - a bump, running into a table or chair, a twist, having to grab something suddenly to keep my balance -- will still hurt like hell but at least will not injure me further,  I'm still looking at a month without driving and two months to full recovery.  But at least in two months I can probably return to the gym without restriction and, as of today, she's already satisfied that there's no permanent damage so I can return to my piano playing.  In fact, my arm is so solid now that the doctor says nothing short of another catastrophic fall such as the one that started this mess on January 11 can injure me further.

The critical business news to report is that tonight was the night that, after two years of preparation,  I was supposed to finally and at last officially start the CFP at Oakland University, the beginning of their 52 consecutive week cohort program.  This first class was Income Tax and the instructor had told me last week he was perfectly okay with me taking the entire class as a webinar until I was completely recovered.  As recently as 10 p.m. last night, that's exactly what I intended to do.  I was registered and had even purchased the 900 page textbook and had started looking it over, feeling there was nothing there I couldn't handle, though admittedly still having considerable trepidation about my ability to handle this and my recovery at the same time.

Then shortly after 10 p.m., I received emails from both the program director and my mentor strongly urging me to drop out of the program.  Certainly their main concern was that I would probably fail the course if doing it while still dealing with a recovery.  Wait until I'm completely recovered and then we'll revisit the whole thing.  Made perfect sense and I was actually quite relieved to receive the suggestion, especially given the fact that, webinar or no webinar, the instructor was covering 300 pages of the book just in the next seven days and I would not even be able to get to it for another two weeks,  So I'd already be several hundred pages behind before joining the class which is something that gave me great pause.

The shocking part was that the CFP director's email went one gigantic step further and suggested in strong terms that this was not the right program for me, that my 37 years of MBA experience was completely irrelevant to a career in financial services.  OU's very condensed, very intense one year program was designed for people who were already professionals in the industry.  Her suggestion was that I leave OU and pursue my training elsewhere where they would assume no prior background and allow you to proceed at your own pace.  She recommended two options, one of which is the online program at Kaplan University.

There is a great deal more to be said about this and I'll probably do a separate posting about my professional life going upside-down in the past few days and all the new juicy things I have learned about the CFP in the past two weeks.  Tom, my mentor, simply told me to cancel the tax class for now.  I do not know that he is necessarily in agreement with me leaving Oakland University.  He's out of town for another week so I'll get back in touch and see if he's open to having a meeting to discuss future options.  However, I had a nice talk with the taxation professor this afternoon and, though he's been very encouraging up to this point, he did ultimately agree with everything that was in the director's email.

So I have a two-month vacation now and I can certainly use it after all the trauma of the past several weeks.  I am keeping the tax textbook and reading it and also continuing to study FastTrack.  It's good news or bad news depending on one's point of view but I am more relieved than disappointed since I was nervous about having so much on my plate during this recovery.  I can now relax and take plenty of time to formulate my next move.  I will of course share any such thoughts in this blog.

Meanwhile, tonight is the first time in three weeks that I can type with both hands so I am extending the courtesy, albeit a few days late, of including the usual succinct weekly summary below.  Wishing everyone a very good rest of the week.  I will be seeing the doctor again in 12 days.

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 1.27.17

January 27, 2017 5:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending January 27th, 2017.

Positives:

1. PMI manufacturing rose from 54.2 to 55.1, the strongest reading since March 2015.
2. Jobless claims rose slightly to 245.5k, the 4-week moving average fell to 245.5k.
3. Seasonally adjusted purchase applications for mortgages rose 6% to the highest level since June
4. FHFA house price index rose 0.5% in November and 6.1% y/o/y.
5. PMI services flash rose to 55.1, the strongest rate of growth since November 2015.
6. Consumer sentiment rose from an already high 98.1 to 98.5.
7. We finish the first week of the Trump Presidency with no adverse consequences…

Negatives:

1. Existing home sales fell 2.8% in December to a SAAR 5.490mm.
2. Real GDP rose 1.9% in the most recent quarter, below the 2.2% expected rise.
3. Durable goods fell 0.4% m/o/m, well below the 2.6% expected increase.
4. New home sales plunged 10.4% in December
5. President Trump tries to start a Trade War with Mexico!