Daybreak with Anton

After two consecutive years of robust US stock market gains, investors are nervous about stock values and meeting high growth expectations, especially in the tech sector.  For reference, the major in…

We have mentioned in past UPdates the importance of monitoring the financial and sentiment of US consumers.  The primary reason is American spending represents a whopping 67.9% of America’s Gross Dom…

It may be just physiological, but I really enjoy January.  Granted it’s just another 30-day period like any other month.  But January is motivating to me because it’s the start of a new year to achie…

The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) index has been well below its 50-year average of 98 as respondents report challenges with labor, costs, inflation, and government policies.  T…

My daughter loves to shop.  In fact, her two love languages are shopping and someone paying for it.  Apparently at least the shopping part is also a lot of people’s love language.  Adobe Analytics r…

Late Friday afternoon on November 29, 2024, Anton and 61 others traveled from San Antonio to Reynosa, Mexico to volunteer for Strategic Alliance to build three houses for three related families all l…

The housing market is facing challenges with plummeting sales and high mortgage rates, but rising new home construction and potential rate declines in 2025 could improve affordability. Homeownership …

Looking back at Trump’s first term offers insights into potential market impacts of his second. In 2016, markets rallied after his election, while 2024 has seen sustained growth and investor confiden…

I don’t know about you, but it seems costs for everything is getting crazy.  My wife went to the grocery store and items that were $9 last week are $14 this week.  You can’t tell me grocery store or …

September retail sales increased 0.4% from August and the third consecutive month over month (MoM) it has increased.  The 0.4% is substantially higher than August’s 0.1% monthly increase.  Even thoug…

Prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020, we used to host multiple client and friend dinner events each year.  Read in this issue about our dinner event this past September 27 with long time …

The very low volume of existing home sales reported last week by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) would indicate the continued impact of current decades high mortgage interest rates.  The N…

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) released its Small Business Optimism US Index today indicating it has decreased to 91.2 in August.  This breaks the improving trend since droppi…

After a long Labor Day weekend, investors started the first trading day of September by selling.  The reason floated out by the main media for the selloff is investors skittish about the S&P Global U…

As we forecast in June, the US stock market to enter a period of weakness with stock prices declining during the summer after the major indices had a solid rally in the first half of 2024.  The reaso…

Explore the paradox of low consumer confidence amid a booming stock market in our latest analysis. Discover how media narratives might be leading investors astray while missing out on historic gains.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses released today their Small Business Optimism report.  In the report, they track the results of their monthly survey to its members to produce their …

Yesterday the world markets sold off as investors stampeded out of the market selling their client’s portfolios as fast as they could.  What spooked the markets yesterday is not much different than w…

A summer market correction is well under way after a strong first half of 2024 for the stock market.  Over time the S&P 500 on average increases about 70% of time with the remaining periods with down…