Again I bring you the weekly summation, the main positive that there was indeed a smooth transition of power, the main negative of course being the 400K+ deaths from COVID. The bonus this Sunday is again this week's edition of Consuelo Mack's WealthTrack program on PBS, the topic being something we can all use. Given the extraordinary changes we all witnessed in 2020, what adjustments should we be making to our Financial To Do List for 2021? Consuelo gives us Part 2 of her interview with Morningstar's Christine Benz who tells us all about it. Hope everyone had a great weekend.
Succinct Summations for the week ending January 22th, 2021
Positives:
1. Smooth transition of power as Joe Biden becomes 46th U.S. President.
2. Jobless claims fell 26k w/o/w from 926k to 900k, meeting expectations.
3. Existing home sales came in at 6.76M December, above expectations.
4. Housing starts came in at 1.66M for December, above expectations.
5. PMI Composite came in at 58.0 for January, above the previous 55.5.
Negatives:
1. More than 400,000 Americans have died from Covid — more than was lost in all of World War II.
2. Out of power, GOP suddenly Congress rediscovers its deficit fears.
3. Home mortgage apps rose 3.0% w/o/w, below previous increase of 8.0%.
4. Home refinance apps fell 5.0% w/o/w, below previous increase of 20%.
5. Housing market index came in at 83 for January, below previous 86.
1-21-21 2021 FINANCIAL TO-DO LIST - from Consuelo
|
|
Sponsored by:
January 21, 2021
Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber,Blast off! Stock markets are setting records, with tech stocks leading the charge once again. “Don’t fight the Fed” should now encompass “don’t fight the Treasury, fiscal stimulus, vaccinations and investor demand for 'real' (after inflation) returns.” The Wall Street Journal reports that the “S&P 500 rose 14.3% from Election Day through Inauguration Day, its best performance on record for that period.” In retrospect, 2020 was an entire year for the record books: A once in a century global pandemic; Unprecedented, massive monetary and fiscal stimulus; A brief deep recession and the shortest bear market in U.S. history; A record-breaking stock market rally; The continuation of near record low interest rates And the election of a new president with a very different policy agenda.
It was also another year of extreme divergences in stock market performance. Once again stocks way outperformed bonds, U.S. stocks sprinted ahead of international ones and growth outdistanced value. That divergence means that the composition of many portfolios has changed dramatically. Morningstar’s personal finance guru Christine Benz provided us with some examples: A portfolio of 50% U.S. stocks/ 50% high-quality bonds 10 years ago would now be nearly 75% stocks and less than 30% bonds. A portfolio with a 50/50 split between U.S. and non-U.S. stocks a decade ago would now be about a 70/30 split today. And a portfolio with 50% U.S. growth stocks and 50% U.S. value stocks 10 years ago would be more than 60% growth and less than 40% value today.
Portfolio rebalancing is just one of the actions on Christine Benz’ financial to-do list this year. In part 2 of our interview with Morningstar's Director of Personal Finance she helps us get in personal financial shape for the year ahead. If you miss the show on public television, you can watch it on our website over the weekend. You can also find the WEALTHTRACK podcast on Stitcher and SoundCloud as well as iTunes and Spotify. Thank you for watching, have a super weekend and make the week ahead a healthy, profitable and productive one.
Best regards,
Consuelo |
|
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment