We recently updated our dashboard by downgrading the leading indicators and market breadth signals to yellow. 

Our everyday lives have changed dramatically over the last few weeks as we work together to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We know these efforts are necessary, but they also have come at a cost.

Global economic growth has been slowing, the US economy likely will contract, and US stocks have entered a bear market. Big stock market moves, both up and down, have become the norm. In short, this has been a challenging period for many long-term investors, and you’re asking what’s next and what to do.

We recently updated our economic dashboard by downgrading the Market Technicals indicator to yellow. This indicator is driven by historical prices.  As such, the recent market sell-off has had a negative impact on the underlying trend of the market.  

2020 got off to a strong start with the S&P 500 rallying almost 5% through the first 7 weeks of the year (YCharts); however, the market’s positive momentum came to an abrupt end during the last week of February.  US stocks pulled back about 13% amidst fears of a rapidly spreading coronavirus and the potential impact on the global economy.  We closed the month down roughly 8.5% for the year after several months of relative calm (YCharts). 

While the spread of the coronavirus wasn’t the only news in February, it has been the most talked about market risk over the last few weeks.  As such, we have outlined some key points when it comes to investing and the potential impact on your portfolios.

We recently updated our economic dashboard by upgrading the Market Sentiment indicator to green. 

Stocks had a mixed start to the year after finishing 2019 on a strong note.  The S&P 500 was down slightly, about -0.2%, in January as investors reacted to headlines ranging from coronavirus, the impeachment trial, and of course global trade. (YCharts)

The US-China trade war may have been the biggest story for investors last year and we have already seen major developments in the first few weeks of 2020.

We recently updated our economic dashboard by downgrading the Market Sentiment indicator to warning.  This indicator is considered a contrarian indicator: when investor sentiment becomes overly optimistic, we believe that it increases the chances of a market pullback.  Various measures of market sentiment have recently shown that investors may be overly-optimistic; however, this indic

President Trump recently signed into law the SECURE Act which includes changes to existing rules for retirement accounts and 529 plans.  Most provisions of the Act become effective on January 1, 2020.  We have outlined a few of the major changes below:

TLWM Annual Outlook – 2020

We hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to spend some quality time with friends and family.  The stock market’s performance thus far in 2019 has given us a lot to be thankful for as the S&P 500 closed November up 25% for the year (Ycharts) while bonds (Bloomberg Barclays US Agg) have returned almost 9% year to date.  We don’t often see such strong r