Wealth Planning Commentary – July 28, 2025
What Families Should Know about the New Trump Account Earlier this month, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law, which included a variety of new child-friendly tax provisions. Among them is a new child savings account called a “Trump Account”. While Trump Accounts may help some families on the margins, […]
Investment Commentary – July 28, 2025
Executive Summary We believe the tariff situation represents more of a consumption tax that will be more similar to a one-time price adjustment than stoking runaway inflation expectations. We also believe that housing is an important component of inflation metrics, where home prices have been recently deflating across the country, and mortgage rates remain elevated. […]
Economic Commentary – July 28, 2025
Occasionally, the amount of economic data made available in a short time can seem overwhelming. Such is the case this week, where the “main event” is the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday, but inflation, employment, consumption, and housing data for Q2 and July all appropriately deserve equal attention. Thankfully, much of the important data will […]
Deluge Ahead – July 28, 2025
Good morning, Futures are modestly higher this morning (+0.2%), building on Friday’s record close following news weekend news of a trade deal between the U.S. and EU. One more log of uncertainty has been removed from the fire ahead of what promises to be a deluge of data and earnings for the markets this week. […]
Five Charts for the Week That Was: July 25, 2025
Chief Economist Jeanette Garretty provides 5 economic charts covering topics including the Fed Rate, GDP estimates, home sales, oil prices, and Chinese exports and imports.
No Altering Forces on Momentum When News Flow is Skewed Positively- July 25, 2025
Good morning, Newton’s First Law of Motion—a body in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by an external force—is closely tied to the concept of momentum (mass × velocity). Both help explain why objects, or in this case markets, keep moving along the same vector (direction and velocity), or don’t. What looked like it […]
New Tax Law: 7 Big Changes You Should Know About
By John Lau, CPA, CFP® July 23, 2025 – You’ve likely heard about this from every possible media channel. A sweeping new tax law just hit the books: the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” and it could represent a big overhaul to household finances. Think of it like a home renovation. The 2017 tax cuts […]
Wealth Planning Commentary – July 21, 2025
Tactical Tax Planning: Navigating the OBBBA’s Key Provisions in the Near Term It’s critical to remember that while the OBBBA introduced a plethora of new tax changes, many of its most impactful provisions, particularly those offering significant deductions, are temporary. They are set to expire, predominantly by 2028 or 2029. This limited window underscores the […]
Investment Commentary – July 21, 2025
Executive Summary Various key trends the Investment Office is monitoring U.S. financials sector earnings season kicked off last week strong. The MSCI EAFE Large Cap value index has nearly 37% weight to financials, which creates concentration risk. This week we have Eurozone and U.S. preliminary PMIs, more S&P500 earnings releases including Google and Tesla. […]
Earnings Build, Momentum Fades in the Quiet Week Before the Storm – July 21, 2025
Good morning, Summer delivers more weeks of market doldrums than the other three seasons combined, and this week is shaping up to be this year’s first example. Relative to next week, this one may feel like the calm before the storm, as next week is loaded with macro risk events, including the Fed meeting, U.S. […]
A Shot In The Arm For the Bull-Camp – July 18, 2025
Good morning, There are always buyers and sellers in capital markets; bulls and bears. We’ve outlined the key risks for the back half of 2025 in recent Morning Notes and the Monthly Letter. The prevailing concern remains a “stagflation-lite” scenario—moderating growth that still trends positive, paired with persistent inflation pressures. In short, incremental shifts in […]
Lessons from the ’90s: How AI Is Powering a New Investment Cycle
July 15, 2025 Technology spending is accelerating at the fastest pace in decades. Figure 1 shows investment in information processing equipment and software grew +14% year-over-year (YoY) in Q1 2025, the fastest pace since the late 1990s. During the dot-com era, investment in computers and software grew over +15% YoY before collapsing in the early […]