Chart of the Month
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Wall Street Usually Cuts Its Estimates – This Year, It’s Raising Them
Jeffrey L. Corliss, CFP®, ChFC®, CLU® CASL®Managing Director Each year tends to follow a similar script on Wall Street. Analysts start the year optimistic about how much profit companies will earn, then spend the following quarters trimming those forecasts as actual results come in. Figure 1, which tracks the S&P 500 earnings estimates for each…
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Market Forecasts Change, Retirement Plans Shouldn’t
Jeffrey L. Corliss, CFP®, ChFC®, CLU® CASL®Managing Director The bond market started this year expecting the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates twice by year end. Today, it expects a rate hike instead. The chart below captures the reversal. The lines graph the market’s rate forecast for the same stretch of time, from now through…
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What Real-Time Data Says About the Economy
Jeffrey L. Corliss, CFP®, ChFC®, CLU® CASL®Managing Director Most economic reports are released with a delay, which means investors are often looking at what happened weeks or even months ago after economists have had time to gather the data. The Federal Reserve’s Weekly Economic Index helps fill that gap by providing a more up-to-date snapshot…
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Market Volatility: The Best Days and Worst Days Travel Together
The stock market’s best and worst days tend to arrive together, and the early months of 2026 offered a timely reminder. The S&P 500 fell nearly -10% from its late-January high through the end of March as the U.S.-Iran conflict sent oil prices surging more than +60%. Headlines about the Strait of Hormuz closure, rising…
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Software Stocks, AI Disruption, and the Importance of Diversification
Jeffrey L. Corliss, CFP®, ChFC®, CLU® CASL®Managing Director The software industry has declined nearly -30% from its peak last October, one of the largest non-recessionary drawdowns in over 30 years. Figure 1 puts the decline in historical context alongside the other major software selloffs. The two largest drawdowns before the current one, the dot-com bust…
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Why Two Identical Salaries Can Lead to Very Different Retirement Lifestyles
Jeffrey L. Corliss, CFP®, ChFC®, CLU® CASL®Managing Director Many people spend their careers focused on reaching the next salary milestone or securing a promotion, but financial progress shouldn’t be measured by your paycheck alone. The decisions you make in your peak earning years are just as important as the size of your paycheck. One of…
