What Moves the Market? A Conversation with Vanguard | Financial Perspectives

Join Kent Kramer for an interview with Vanguard Senior Portfolio Specialist Bill Puggini about Vanguard’s views on what may move markets in 2025 and beyond. 2025 is full of potential risks and rewards. Kent and Bill discuss how inflation, tariffs, interest rates, market valuations, and political policies are all things that could distract investors from focusing on their most important long-term goals.

Is Your Portfolio Tailored to Fit Your Needs, or Just ‘Off-The-Rack’?

While the alterations may be small and subtle, they make a big difference when it comes to comfort and fit. Our experience is better. For an investment thought experiment, think of the “off the rack suit” as the broad market; we simply take what we get off the shelf with no alteration. Now think of Foster Group as the tailor and the alterations as portfolio personalizations called factor allocations.

November 8, 2021 Financial Perspectives

You know the old saying, “What goes up must come down.” How is it that currently everything seems to be going up at the same time? Signs of inflation like oil prices, labor prices, trade deficits. And yet markets are going up with stocks at all-time highs. Bond prices are rising this week when often, bond prices move inversely to stock prices. Government spending is certainly going up, consumer spending is going up and tax rates seem to be poised to rise as well. What do all these upwards mean for investors?

New Year – Rates are Rising | Financial Perspectives

Welcome to 2022 where the news seem to focus, again, on rising rates –for COVID infections due to Omicron, inflation, and interest rates. The markets seem to be most concerned about interest rates. This week Kent Kramer looks at why that might be the case and what may be in store for interest rates in 2022.

The War in Ukraine | Financial Perspectives

There’s likely no more important news in the world right now than what is happening in Ukraine as Russia invades their smaller neighbor. Economic impacts are being felt across the globe and there is certainly a humanitarian crisis developing in Europe. Let’s take a look at the impact the Ukraine/Russia crisis has on the US and global economy.

YOLO, Meme, and EMH: What’s Your Investment Style?

Guest Blogger, Marlena Lee, PhD. While it’s not the intended victim of the YOLO traders, will the efficient market hypothesis be a casualty of these events? The answer depends a lot on your definition of efficient markets.

Equilibrium Markets in the Time of COVID

Over the years, Foster Group has utilized a number of mutual funds and exchange traded funds managed by Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA). DFA was founded in 1981 on the idea of making academic investment research and empirically based portfolio management accessible to investors. In this article, Professor Kenneth French describes how markets responded to the events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

An Investment Portfolio Is Like a Good Smoothie

Recently, I rediscovered the benefits of homemade smoothies for breakfast. They are nutritious, natural, easy to make, efficient, and delicious! This morning, I was thinking about how a good investment portfolio is like a good smoothie! 

Having Faith When It’s Scary

Market volatility can sometimes be downright scary. The other day, I read that the quarter ending June 30th was the 16th worst quarter in the history of the stock market. Even worse, the first quarter was bad too, making it one of the very worst six-month periods in nearly a century. How does an investor respond?

Breaking Down the Banking Headlines: Part One | Financial Perspectives

With the banking industry and markets continuing to be leading topics in the news, many investors are asking, “What is going on? Is this something to be worried about? Should I be taking action?” In this special edition of Financial Perspectives, Matt Abels and Michael Westphal provide context and insights to those questions. Tune in next week for part two, where we’ll be joined by Jim Plagge, President and CEO of Bank Iowa.

Breaking Down the Banking Headlines: Part Two | Financial Perspectives

With the banking industry and markets continuing to be leading topics in the news, many investors are asking, “What is going on? Is this something to be worried about? Should I be taking action?” In this special edition of Financial Perspectives, Matt Abels and Jim Plagge, President & CEO of Bank Iowa, provide context and insights to those questions.